We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful L. L. West. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with L. L. below.

L. L., looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

For whatever reason, my mother was obsessed with buying things from those “As Seen on TV” infomercials when I was younger: the ones that were usually 19.99 plus shipping and handling. She bought this steamer, “The Tobi”, that was such a piece of garbage; all it did was get your clothes wet. Anyway, she got me these weird pipe-cleaners that were covered in wax that you could use to make little sculptures or crafts or whatever else; I used them to make jewelry and sold them to all her friends. I was a weird only-child who spent all my time in my mom’s bizarre junky studio completely disconnected from my peers and I think grown-ups found that charming, how awkward I was. I think people buy stuff from me now for very similar reasons. One of these ladies, Elizabeth, was my primary patron back in the day. She once wore my most extravagant necklace while tanning by the pool and the thing melted right atop her chest. I don’t think that moment drove me to make things at the time, but I look back at that situation and it makes me want to make more garbage that melts on top of people once it’s out of my hands. I don’t think I’ve made any better paintings since.

L. L., 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?

I struggle to explain what I do. Right now, I’m interested in texture and scent and joking and intuition. I make paints ranging from caveman recipes to contemporary experiments. I also make fragrances, and I like to present them in conjunction with sculptures or installations or paintings. I’m interested in language and the fickleness of language and the difficulty of language. At the moment, I like palettes more than paintings and letters more than words. I’m not so much of a problem-solver but, rather, a problem-creator who moonlights as a problem-solver. I’m proud of my honesty; I’ve come a long way. I’m shedding a part of my identity right now, being a student, and it seems I’m patching that piece with frankness. “I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love, I like to work, read, learn, and understand life (…)”: that’s a quote from “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes; he wrote it when he was 22 years old. I am 24 years old. On my 23 birthday, I drove in circles around town (Savannah, GA) and recited it to myself over and over. I began to cry because I’d never had a single thought 1/64th as elegant and necessary as any string of words in that entire poem. I graduate in one week with my BFA in painting, which is interesting (or maybe funny) because I’m not a painter. My main anxiety of graduation at this point is what I’ll do with that poem; I don’t think I can take it with me. But I turned 23 and then I turned 24 and I still think about it nearly every day. Who knows what’s next?

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I’ve had two favorite movies for several years now: “Conspiracy” (2001) about the Wansee Confrence in which top Nazi officials decide the final solution for the Jews and “Space Jam” (1996) the hit classic staring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny who have to collaborate to win a basketball game against the Monstars to avoid eternal enslavement on Moron Mountain. I sound as if I believe the Holocaust is loony: it’s not. I am not trying to make a joke out such an intense, horrific period of violence. The connection here, I think, is my interest in the slipperiness of language. We (myself and my fellow Americans) are living through an incredibly bizarre period of our history: a fascistic freak-show so absurdly horrifying that people can’t help but laugh. Karoline Leavitt’s horrible filler and Trump’s neurotic un-edited trains of thought are both intuitively funny, but that is a dangerous place to land; there’s much more to the story. ICE and Epstein and denials of GHGs, among many other psychotic realities, aren’t funny in the least. Their circus is distracting, and it’s distracting on purpose. Fascism used to be sleek and tailored and scary. It’s still scary, but American fascism is so corny and surreal that it’s easy to feel like it’s kayfabe, but it’s not. Watch “Conspiracy”, at the very least…you can probably skip “Space Jam” and still get what I mean.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I will spend the rest of my natural life unlearning my BFA. Don’t get it twisted: I wouldn’t change a thing (mostly because I refuse to indulge in revising the past…what a waste of time). Regardless, I mean it! Yes: I have art-schooled myself into a deep trench of conceptual introspection that has severely slowed my ability to Make Things. But maybe this isn’t the time for making and making and making some more…I think I could benefit from some healthy audits here and there. I’m no “artist” and I have no desire to be one, which is a tough thing to realize as you wrap up your college painting career. I still want to make things, of course, and I will be making things as long as I have my limbs. I just need to do it my way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://louswrld.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/l.l.west/