1. First off for those unfamiliar, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am a photographer-illustrator living in Denver with a lovely wife and 3 really stinky dogs. I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, otherwise known as the penis of the prairie. It has to do with the rather phallic looking state capital. Back when I was knee high to a grass hopper I spent many hours drawing my hero's, six million dollar man and Mighty Mouse with my Crayons. I moved to Colorado to go to art school for photography. Yes... I'm an art school drop out!! The school I went to had more in common with Devry or truck driving mechanic school than art. Most of the friends I made there started school before me and graduated a year after I got there. A friend got a job art directing at a snowboard clothing company in the early 90s. I started doing a lot of work for them and was learning way more in a few months than I had in school. So I quit and have been trying to make a living as an artist since.

2. Interesting mash-up of elements. Do you take your cues from collage artists (anyone in particular)?
I would not say there is any real collage artist's work that influenced me. I always liked John Heartfield and a lot of the dadaists, cubist and futurists works. The collage element came more out of necessity and evolution. Some pieces are built from many elements that I have shot and put together. Other pieces are built as a complete set and are shot as one photo. I am not sure it was a completely conscious direction. The look really came from the pre-photoshop days. I used to actually go into the lab and print all the photos, lots of alternative process stuff. I would cut them out by hand, rephotograph them with other props or elements. That image would then be messed with again and photographed. It was time consuming and expensive along with no command z. I guess a lot of it came from the natural feeling of mixing my mediums and just plain happy accidents from this experimentation. I was in high school taking lots of painting classes, lots of printmaking classes and photography. The thing I liked about photography was that it was immediate. I had tons of ideas and I really wanted to get them out there. It was much faster for me to do it through photography. I was exposed to the work of Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Aaron Siskand, the dark humor and the textural quality really did it for me. I then went to an exhibit that had a couple of pieces of Joel peter Witkin's work in it and I had picked up a magazine that had an article on Matt Mahurin. Those two artists really made me realize what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.

3. The fairytale imagery that your artwork conjures is pretty intense - do these ideas come from specific stories? In essence, which comes first - the character or the story?
That is interesting something i never really thought of, I guess the fairytale stuff is ingrained. Probably way too much cartoons as a kid. The commercial work I am usually given the story and I usually then brainstorm characters or ideas that fit the story. My own work would be the exact opposite, I usually come about a idea for a character and then develop a story around it.

4. Your behind-the-scenes look at the raw imagery you used for some of your compositions is interesting. Where do you find the materials to make these props and costumes?
The materials that I use really come from all over. I have a few really great junk stores here in town that I hit up all the time. Lots of thrifting. My work is very low tech and I usually do not have the budget to use expensive materials. I am not sure what I would do with a large budget. I have been remodeling our house myself and always find tons of stuff at all the home improvement stores My wife is a awesome costume designer and she makes a few props and all of the costumes. Some of the sets are miniature and I find stuff at train/dollhouse stores. There is a really cool train store by my house, that I hit up all of the time. Rumor has it that Gary Coleman used to own it.

5. How long does one of your more elaborate pieces take to construct?
I usually only have a week or so to brainstorm, build, photograph and retouch for most magazine work that I do. It really depends on the assignment or idea. Some of my personal stuff takes longer. I wish i had did have more time. The problems is that I would loose focus if I did not stick to a strict schedule on getting these pieces done. Shooting digital has really been freeing for me and dramatically sped up my time from camera to computer. I really don't see myself as really much of a photographer anymore it more about creating imagery.

6. Have you taken notes on visual structure from psychedelic or surrealist artists?
Damn Hippies!!.. get off my lawn (shakes fist) No. not consciously I think most of it came from my childhood. Lots of pop culture ingesting, cartoons, comic books, memory fragments from childhood. More of interest in 40s-60s American realism painting. George Tooker, Alton Pickens, Max Beckman, WPA work, vintage pulp covers, Ultimo by Ruth Vassos

7. When you sketch a piece out on paper, do you make specific notes like "make this from cellophane and ping-pong balls?"
Yes, most of the time that is after the fact, after the concept and the look of the piece has been decided on. I have a tendency to edit myself when I am brainstorming. Like "how the hell am I going to build that?" and ditch the idea right off. I have been trying really hard to just get the ideas out there on paper and then figure out how I will approach it . I sketch rather poorly these days so they are usually full of notes that i have written to myself. I feel embarrassed handing them to AD's along with a paragraph trying to explain what I am going to do. "here are some chicken scratches, and yeah.. see that roundish blob right there? It is his body... and that right there is clouds made out of old socks, it is going to be really wicked... trust me...". I start to sound like the crazy guy. It is somewhat hard to give people 100%accuracy of what it will look like before hand. It depends on what I can find for props and how the elements end up working together.

8. Once you have photographed all of the elements, do you combine them all in Photoshop, or are some of these creations totally organic?
Most of my work goes through photoshop in some way or another. Photoshop is a really great tool photographers I have spent many hours in the lab trying to make the perfect print. Breathing all the fumes, toning and bleaching prints, then you go too far and have to start all over again. I can finally get the level of tones and textures that I want with photoshop down to the slightest detail. Some work is printed out and reworked by hand... reworked by photocopiers, old fax machines, It really depends on my mood and the mood of the piece. I basically freak out sometimes realizing I am spending too much time in front of the computer and make myself do as much as possible by hand . Other times,I don't have the time to build large set pieces and will build a large piece on the computer out of smaller elements. I like to challenge myself and am very self conscious about what I do becoming just a set style that I run every idea though. I try to not repeat the way I did something and force myself to come up with new ideas or directions. I try to let the idea that I am given dictate the style or direction.

9. Where do you find your main sources of inspiration?
I am inspired by just wandering around strange junk and antique stores. Old pieces of ephemera. I love old cartoons, old toys, silent films, especially stuff like Meteropolis and George Melies. Bicycles, Luche Libre, amusement parks. As of late, I have been really inspired by a book called New Cinematographers. (I purchased it because there was a section on Darius Khodji who shot Delicatessen and City of Lost Children, two of my favorite movies) Very technical book and very insightful on how these guys light. It is so much the opposite of how studio type photographers are taught. That stuff seems too rigid. These guys are building their own lights, modifying their own cameras, etc. using conflicting light sources. Basically everything opposite of how I was taught. My own philosophy has always been to learn everything you possibly can and then throw it all away. I kind of have the problem of being almost too inspired. There are just so many movies to see, books to read, video games to play. I need longer days. I get excited when I see movies like City of Lost Children. There was such a high level of craft involved in that movie. The sets, the lighting, the costumes there was a real love for their craft that is evident in that movie. I also really enjoy seeing stuff that mixes digital elements very subtly with models and live action. Every scifi movie these days is all digital and it feels so sterile. star wars and 2001 looked so amazing because of the model work.

10. The future, what does it hold for you, your work and your website?
I really would like to move into doing some short film work. I have a film that I am starting to storyboard now. I hope to start building the sets this winter. I spend a lot of time building this stuff for illustrations and most of the time I have to destroy it. I don't have the space to hold onto it. I would really like to do more with it. I really like the idea of using motion to be able to tell a story. I also have been really excited to try out a bunch of new lighting ideas and building a lot of the equipment. We have already built a skateboard dolly for some tracking shots and some fluorescent light rigs. I having been kicking around the idea of doing a short graphic story, I guess it would be sort of a kids book. It was short stop motion film that was started with a friend. It will probably never see the light of day as a film but I would love to make some sort of picture book out of it. I have been thinking of doing something a little less photographic with it. I want to try and move in a complete and new direction. The picture of the woman floating with the scary bunnies with belly buttons is some conceptual imagery that I did for this when it was still a stop-motion film. It was part of the opening scene, sort of a really twisted looking Birth of Venus. I would really like to learn some 3d applications. I have seen some stuff that I really like such as Marc Craste stuff and I could really see how it could be helpful with some of my ideas.

11. The "process" section of your site gives a great "behind-the-scenes" view of your works. Ever thought to go a step further and make a full on tutorial or video on how you create a piece?
That is not a bad idea. I have received a lot of good feedback on the process section. I am actually really surprised, I am not sure how I even came about deciding to do it. It was basically an afterthought. I actually don't know how people think I do the work. They are usually shocked when I show them all the steps that are involved in making the illustration pieces. I am not sure if they think it is all borrowed imagery? It's not. I build and photograph everything you see. I was thinking of doing some behind the scenes stuff on the short film that I want to do and doing a blog about it.

12. Has the online community helped or hurt your creativity?
The online community has been great. I really have no idea on how we lived before the internet. The ease of finding places to show your work and to connect with other artists is amazing. Just the wealth of great artists that are out there is quite inspiring.

13. Lastly, and what seems to be the common last question, how did you first come across Phirebrush and what keeps bringing you back?
I am not 100% sure where I found out about it. My guess would be through somebody posting about it on Newstoday or one of the design portal sites. I think somebody was posting about some of Ray Ceasar's work or something. I like Phirebrush because I seem to see people that may not be as well known-fresh blood with new ideas. It gets tiring to see the same work over and over on every art and design site.