We were lucky to catch up with Joey Maas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Joey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

My dad bought me a skateboard for Christmas 1986, I didn’t know anything about skateboarding, but I was instantly fascinated by the graphics. From there I discovered Thrasher Magazine, and artists like Pushead, Vernon Courtlandt Johnson, Andy Tekakjian, and John Grigley. I started to try to copy their stuff, but I didn’t really develop my own style until much later. I always had art and design projects going on, but my visual art always took a backseat to my musical projects. I was sometimes in like three bands at a time, so for about fifteen years most of my visual work was band related. I left my last musical project in 2008 after we rolled our tour van, but at that time, I was already producing what would be my first set of paintings, and I figured it was a good time to get out of the music game, and focus on something I don’t really need 3 other people to do. I had my first art show at a divey punk rock bar in Portland, and sold it out.

Joey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The entire reason I started making pop art was just to beautify an ugly house that I lived in at the time. I’ve always had a knack for interior design, but never really had the money to make my visions a reality, so I just started painting to basically polish a turd. Fashion has been one of my biggest influences, and I incorporate a lot of that into my work, along with my love for things like shopping malls, arcades, punk and new wave, Pretty much everything that I fell in love with in the 80’s and 90’s. My current collection reflects these elements more than ever before. I’ve been adding a resin top coat to my pieces, and that has made it possible to incorporate some collage elements, glitter, and even some LED / Neon. Resin tends to give the piece a very polished look, and often people don’t think that it’s an actual painting under there, which is the only thing I don’t like about using it.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I can’t find the value in anything digital. From music to art, if I can’t hold it, I don’t want it. I’ve always been a bit of a Luddite, behind the times so to speak, but I’m ok with that. Obviously there are people really into NFT’s, but the market is so saturated with monkeys and AI, that I feel like people are losing interest in it quickly. I should never say never, but I can’t see myself offering any NFT’s of my work.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I worked as a bike messenger or in the messenger business from 1995 to about 2007. At times it was a totally fun job, but the thing that really bothered me was that there was never a sense of completion. Nothing you could look back at and admire your hard work. I had a really hard time with that, It seemed like Groundhogs Day sometimes. So making art for me is all about completion, reflection, and satisfaction, and if I’m not satisfied, I’ll smash it and make another one. .

Contact Info:

• Website: joeymaas.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joey__division/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joeyxdivision