Steven Agin's Artist Profile Card (Left) & Art Card (Right)
TAH: Will you describe the day when you drew the image that is featured on your profile card?
SA: Funny you should ask. It was a million years ago (or maybe about 35 / 1975) and I was living in my first loft – on Lawrence St. in downtown Brooklyn. In those days we worried all the time about the Buildings Dep’t. busting us for illegal loft living. Man, we never answered the door if we weren’t expecting a friend. So, I heard that getting a ‘legal’ A.I.R. (“artist-in-residence”) for yourself, deemed such by the city, could help mitigate, possibly (and the fire dep’t. wanted to know anyway so that they could come save you in the event of a fire – you posted the A.I.R. and floor # on the outside of the building for them). So, I applied for one – to the “Parks Dep’t.” (- crazy, huh?). You had to submit slides, prove you were a working artist, and so forth. Well, surprise if I am not ratified by the city of NY. And the document (a quite unprepossessing one) arrives in the mail. And I open it up and am buoyed to have won a small validation as an artist (very small to be sure). And, I was moved, right at that moment, staring at the ancient, green, wooden-framed mirror, above the shallow, cast-iron slop sink (that served as my kitchen and bath sink – for washing dishes and morning ablutions) to, draw my “artist’s” face. With the nearest pencil to me.
Now writing, it doesn’t sound like much of a story but, I liked the drawing (I’ve done 1,000’s and 1,000’s), I love drawing, and I hung it up and it has survived to this day. Every drawing, of anything is a self-portrait, this one is just a more overt and memorable one than others.
TAH: The name “Susan” appears frequently on the cards you created for The Art Hustle Series 1. Who, or what, is “Susan”? Is “Susan” an ongoing element in your work?
SA: Susan is the human being I have ever been (and am ever) closest to. She is the subject of much of my work when it is about beauty, and woman, and love and sex, and my place in the history of art with regard to the female which is an example of and metaphor for the artist’s quest to reach, plumb, and define (and define one’s relation to/with) something outside oneself, and the cosmos in total.
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TAH: How would you describe the philosophy of your creative process?
SA: I couldn’t. It would take so long as to vitiate its value. What’s more, it is left for those who would know it to examine my work and guess it for themselves. And that, hopefully, would do them more good. I will say however, simply because it gives me pleasure to, that the process, is: constant, intermittent, violent, passive, aggressive, indolent, perspicacious, immodest, humble, certain, and hopeless. As my friend has said, perfectly: “Lightening steers the universe”.
A Customized Original Art Card by Steven Agin
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TAH: What artist(s) working today inspires you?
SA: Anselm Kiefer and Cy Twombly. Truly, mostly those under 7 years of age (I have probably never seen any such work that: I did not admire, and inspired envied and theft). I like to see the work of living artists like seeing faces emitting from NY subway exits at rush hour.
TAH: Did you, or do you, collect trading cards? If so, which ones?
SA: As a kid, I treasured my baseball card collection but probably more for the color and variety of graphics (as with DC comic books) than from a knowledge of the players. And also for the power of the fetish of possessing a bit of a hero’s identity.
