I think we all have a tendency to have things. Even, I've noticed, people on the street collect things. So I think there's some kind of human impulse to collect. That's why they build museums, I guess. Michael C. McMillen More Quotes by Michael C. McMillen More Quotes From Michael C. McMillen One big disturbance, I think, between L.A. and New York is that New York is so condensed and together that it's very hard to be private there. There's a lot of constant interchange, people know what you're doing all the time. Here in L.A. it's the opposite, it's very spread out, unless you make a conscious effort to go someplace and look at something, you don't see it and we hear about it. So in that sense, it's a city where you can be very anonymous if you want to be, or even if you don't want to be. Michael C. McMillen effort people thinking I see myself as a very eclectic person and artist. I use all kinds of sources for the work as maybe some large pieces. Ideas come from all kinds of areas; literature, popular culture, dreams, you name it. Michael C. McMillen artist dream culture I think at one point, a whole new younger generation of critics come in and they're really aware of zeitgeist in their group, and the older artists tend to get forgotten as their critics retire and do other things or stop paying attention. So there's a factor of aging that I think is to be considered, too. As a middle-aged artist, you kind of get put on a shelf for the young ones. Michael C. McMillen artist attention thinking I think that to be a good artist, you have to have ideas as well as manual skills. It's a blend of the two, hopefully, and there are a lot of people there that can do things well, but they might not be devoid of good ideas or maybe they're not especially interesting ideas, or maybe there's a good idea that a person is unable to execute in the manner that does justice to the idea. Michael C. McMillen artist people thinking I don't go to galleries every day because it's so rare that I like what I see. There's a lot of bad art out there and a lot of it is because art has found its way into the university, where it probably shouldn't be. Michael C. McMillen art I happen to like regionalism, whatever that means. I like the idea of art that somehow specifically reflects some aspect of a community or culture from which was created, the idea of uniform art sounds dreadfully boring and almost fascistic in its implication. So in that sense, I really celebrate the idea of a place that allows for a range of ideas and certainly L.A. does that. Michael C. McMillen community mean art I like the idea of watching the sun go down in the ocean. I've always felt comfortable about that, I like sunsets. There's something about a westward movement that seems fascinating, although the Irish refer to going West as a metaphor for dying. I see it differently. Michael C. McMillen sunset ocean dying L.A. as a geographical entity is very much a mixture of surf, desert, and the mountains, earthquakes and urban sprawl. Within an hour of driving, you can be out into the desert. I like that very much about living on the edge of a continent, conceptually is an interesting place to be. You're at this kind of juncture of a tectonic plate. The idea that the Pacific Ocean is right behind us, on a macro scale, is an interesting place to be. Michael C. McMillen mountain ocean interesting One nice thing about L.A. is that you can work here in privacy, but that also works against you because you can get forgotten here, too. I think in New York, it's hard to be left alone. It's hard to have privacy whereas here, you can have it. Michael C. McMillen privacy nice thinking I don't refer to myself as a sculptor, but I use the word "visual artist." I prefer that, because that leaves the medium wide open because I've got ideas for film and video, things I haven't had the time yet to really fully explore, probably never will, but I want to be able to have that option open to kind of do that. Michael C. McMillen film kind artist Making art can be maddening at times and frustrating and not always rewarding, frequently not rewarding. But you do it because you believe in it and you do it as a passion that drives you, and it sustains you during those lean times. Michael C. McMillen passion believe art Being an artist is two things. You accumulate experience and time, and if you have something that's interesting, you have to be persistent. That's very important. There's nothing instant about it. It's a way of life, actually, where you choose to spend your life doing this activity called making art. Michael C. McMillen important art interesting A person who is driven to spend their time and energy doing something must believe in it, whether they want recognition for it, money from it, or if it's a cathartic experience to do it, whatever their motivation that is valid for them. That's the artist's motivator. Michael C. McMillen motivation energy believe I don't keep up with the art world. It's out there and if I did that too much, I wouldn't get my own work done. So I look at it every so often, "Oh, yeah, oh, okay," and go back to work. Life isn't that long. You got to do what you can when you have it. Michael C. McMillen done long art I don't need to control the mind of my viewer. Now this might sound contradictory because I want to make these installations set up an environment that will produce a certain kind of experience in the viewer, but beyond a certain point, I take hands off and leave it up to chance and personal experience. So maybe it's a marriage of control and no control we're talking about where the artist produces the artifact or the environment and then walks away from it, and the second half of the equation is the viewer and their personal history and how they feel about what they're experiencing. Michael C. McMillen chance artist mind I want to create objects that will stimulate the viewer in ways that I am stimulated by these objects. Now that's an ideal situation and the artist has no control over what his audience is going to think, but they can try to communicate some quality, some poetry through the work and just hope that the viewer has something in the vicinity of a similar experience. Michael C. McMillen artist trying thinking I love the idea of carrying on some kind of tradition using some of the artifacts from people that touched my life. They're a continuum, too. I still use my father's tools and some of my grandfather's tools. There's a very romantic streak in me. I confess, I'm a romantic, but I like the idea. Michael C. McMillen tradition kind people
