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Interview by Jeffrey Pena. April 2009.

Curbs and Stoops:    While your characters are recognizable, you don't have a single style of work, why is it important to you to have such incredible diversity across media?

Monster Decay:   It is really important for me to learn as much as I can about how to translate my art into different mediums because I often get bored with doing the same thing over and over fairly quickly. It may be because I went to a vocational high school for graphic arts where I learned all sorts of stuff from working with photoshop to screen printing and almost everything in between, while I was there I never thought I would use what I learned as often as I do nowadays.

Curbs and Stoops:   What is a medium that you want to experiment more with in the future? What is something that you are no longer interested in?

Monster Decay:   I would love to get more into screenprinting since you can do so much with it. I just don't have the equipment to get as into as much as I would like, since right now I do all my printing and screen making in my home studio. There's alot of really good screenprints I see being made that just make me say wow, that is a screenprint. As for something I'm no longer interested in that's a though one since I often get sick of mediums fairly quick and just keep jumping from one to another and back again, it helps me try to stay in the "zone".

Curbs and Stoops:   How did you get into fine art? Graffiti? Tattooing?

Monster Decay:   Fine art? I've never really considered my art as fine art, but hell if that's what you wanna call it, Ill run with it. I started painting in late early 2005 where i slowly started messing around with different mediums such as acrylic paint, spray paint, markers, and ink. At first it was more or less just to draw some monsters and see what would happen with them over the years to come. But people started contacting me asking me what paintings were available and from there Monster Decay was started and the graffiti more or less stopped. Getting into graffiti was more or less just kind of a way for me to try something new. It started in junior high where me and some friends would draw letters and stupid little characters until i met a few kids who actually painted and figured why not give it a shot and from that point on it was alot of drama and graffiti politics. It was such a headache and still is. Ive recently stopped all activity to keep myself out of trouble and be more focused on art and my tattoo apprenticeship. And as for me getting involved with tattooing it was a calling i guess, i went to this one tattoo shop in downtown Providence and kept getting work done and hanging out every so often. The owner kept telling me to take my girlfriend in and practice on her but never had the time since I worked and she worked different hours. Then I lost my job the day after Christmas in 08 and decided I'm going to apprentice because I can never work another "dead beat" job again, thanks but no thanks.

Curbs and Stoops:   Does the work in one impact the work in the other or are you keeping each one separately?

Monster Decay:   That's a good one, people often ask this same question. I have been trying to merge them just so that I can keep trying to keep my style as distinct as possible without trying to get too far away from what I have been doing since day one of Monster Decay.

Curbs and Stoops:   What does your body of work consist of?

Monster Decay:   My artwork consists of monsters, zombies, diamonds, lettering, skulls and most thing related to Halloween in some way or another. You could probably realize that Halloween is my favorite holiday so if you have anything that was mentioned send me some stuff, trust me it'll be worth your while.

Curbs and Stoops:   Do you have an art school background? If not, what did you gain from making art outside of that environment?

Monster Decay:   I'm a self-taught artist, I think being a self-taught artist may be harder to learn certain things but in the end you can say you really didn't have any help or brainwashing. I've met many people that have "fine art" backgrounds and it seems that many of them have been taught that you have to do things for certain reasons, which I think is stupid. If you wanna do something do it because you want to not because a teacher told you to.

Curbs and Stoops:   Your girlfriend is also an artist with whom you share your studio space. How does sharing your life with another artist impact your work?

Monster Decay:   Yes she is, she's a great artist she just doesn't use her artistic ability to its full potential, which sucks. But yea we live together and share the home studio, now she uses her space for more sewing and candle making than painting/ drawing, but at least she's doing something that's artistic in its own way. You can check out some of her older work at http://www.myspace.com/chikrock . be sure to add her, i know your on myspace.

Curbs and Stoops:   What are some other passions in addition to making art? What do you devote your free time to when you are not producing work?

Monster Decay:   I love collecting vinyl toys, there is quite a few pieces i'd still like to get to add to the collection, just no cashflow. Other than that most of my time consists of making art in some way or another.

Curbs and Stoops:   What do you have coming up? Where can we see more of your work?

Monster Decay:   The stuff coming up is being kept on the downlow, you can keep an eye out on my blog for more information as its being released. You can see more of my work art at www.monsterdecay.com, from there you can check out my blog, flickr, and website.