Balancing independent curiosity with community investment. I have always wanted to maintain my own freedom in order to do what I want, how I want, when I want, while also being able to support those I believe in most. My trajectory as a creative individual from youth to adult goes as such: writer, musician, visual artist, curator, researcher, gallerist; I've been a performer since birth. It's all been quite natural, to be honest.

I mean, why do peanut butter and jelly taste good together? Why did Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen complement each other so well? Some things are trial and error; some things just come together organically. For me, though, I think I most prefer to get legitimately weird and fully freak it, exploring truly unexpected connections. That is, I tend to want to do things like see what might happen if you were to, say, place "horny art," "stoic art," and "flaneur art" all in one smallish space, e.g. the 2025 exhibition Personal Politicks at my original Gene's location.

Well, I think a lot of people who consider themselves to be creatively inclined tend to be pretty myopic, pretty solipsistic. It's not their fault, though...or at least I don't think so. It's necessary to be selfish as an artist of any kind, at least to some degree. However, if you're going to appeal to anyone beyond your own circle, your own community, it's crucial to have some amount of self-awareness; it's essential to think beyond your own niche interests and preferences. Of course, you should (and probably need) to focus on exploring and expressing these things, but you also should (and probably need) to consider what is going on beyond yourself, your surroundings, your values, your anxieties, your insecurities, etc. This is a very big world with very big issues. I want to turn people on to what I'm thinking about, what I'm interested in, and what I think is important, but I don't want to be overly didactic or dictatorial about it. I think some curators unfortunately can't help themselves from going in that pseudo-academic, phony-progressive direction, and sadly, they often don't have the research skills or actual knowledge to back up their bold assertions. What's even more unfortunate is that even more curators, and perhaps even more gallerists, are too cautious to give any part of themselves over to anyone, out of fear of offending others. So to use your mix CD analogy: We often are left with a lot of art shows that are the equivalent of "Now That's What I Call Music!" Do you want to go see "Now That's What I Call Art!" when you go visit a major art city like New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, or Paris? I sure as shit don't.

Ha! Yeah, I suppose it does. As I've grown older, I've gotten really into fantasy basketball. That's my adult version of that sort of adjacent fantasy-construction hobby. But anyway, yeah...when I do think about it, I've been operating Gene's on a relatively low budget since I opened the gallery in May of 2024, and I don't believe it has held me back in any way; in fact, it has likely just forced me to get even more imaginative and inventive with how I approach things.

Sketch comedy is not something I ever participated in, at least not directly. That is something I have always had a strong interest in and that had a major influence on me since I was very young; however, I was never seriously connected to it until I started dating my current partner, Maggie Widdoes, who is an actor and comedian. Everything else you mentioned, though, were things I have been seriously involved with for a very, very long time. I started playing basketball when I was a little kid. I started skating not that long after I started hooping. I am still totally obsessed with both sports, and I consider them both to be two of the most ultimate art forms (they are physical poetry, in my opinion). Like many disillusioned youths in suburban America, punk was the first genre of music (and surrounding music scene) that was for real for me. But as I matured as a listener, as a musician, and as a participant, free jazz and noise began to appeal to me even more than punk; I craved more experimentation, I desired more extremes. The thing that connects all of these things to me, though, is poetry. I was a poet first, and I think all of these art forms are exceptionally poetic. And so, to that end, I guess I would say poetry shapes my instincts most strongly of anything I have been associated with thus far in my life.

Same as it ever was: Not losing your shirt on some status-quo bullshit. Carve your own path, do your own thing, create your own community, be your own person. I've been in and around the art world long enough to know that if you don't already come from heaps of wealth or you haven't persuaded someone who does to fund your project, you're starting at a massive disadvantage. That said, if you have something important to say and you have conviction(s), there very well may be a chance enough people might care. I am hopeful that more people will have the courage to start speaking up and doing things differently. Idealists like me can't help ourselves; we're stuck believing that this life pursuit we have chosen is worth it. You know why? Because it is...

Honestly, when I decided to open Gene's, I decided to shift my artistic focus. Gene's is my art now. I still write every day, but I no longer have a formal, dedicated studio practice. Running the gallery and organizing events and off-site exhibitions is so fulfilling for me. My objective for the past two-plus years and moving forward is to serve the artists I work with and the communities I'm fortunate enough to be a part of...

Well, I have learned over the years that I am inherently a fact-finder. I actually have a photographic memory. Those jobs were ideal for me. I loved doing that sort of work. I am a seeker, I am a digger. I can't stop, I won't stop. You know? When I was an undergrad at Rutgers, I would spend hours upon hours at the library, going deep in the stacks. Ever since my time in grad school at Virginia Commonwealth University, I have spent many days and nights, spiraling on some super-specific shit I'm tripping on at that particular moment. Funny enough, when I was at VCU, my nickname was "Hard Drive," because I could remember almost everything. My friends found that quality of mine to be endearing, helpful, and annoying. Anyway, how has professional fact-finding changed things for me? Well, working for multiple private-investigation firms has perhaps affected how I organize and present information, which is to say that I have found it can be interesting to build a narrative without (overly) editorializing things. And maybe working at "Jeopardy!" has affected how I consider broader audiences; I mean, I have loved that show since I was a child, and why is that? Because it is essentially "edutainment," and I think art can probably learn quite a lot from that model. And if I'm being completely real, my ex-employer can most certainly learn from the art world. What do I mean by that? Well, even though there is plenty to criticize about the art world, "Jeopardy!" and the rest of Hollywood have been going through a serious brain-drain moment for a while now, and of all shows, that should not be impacting "Jeopardy!" That show has been a bastion of decency, hope, and intelligence for as long as I can remember, and the two absurdly affable hosts I worked under represented all of those qualities and more, but the recent ESPN and Pop Culture money grabs prove otherwise. The art world, at its worst, can be hella shallow, but at its best, the actual art (the reason why we do any of this) on the walls, the floors, and the screens demands us all to use our brains in ways we didn't realize we were capable of using them.

Here's the thing: If you're participating in the art world, you can't escape the market, right? I mean, whether you're functioning as a commercial gallery or a non-profit institution, whether you're an overtly capitalistic abstract painter or an antagonistically radical performance artist, you are willfully participating within or rubbing up against the market. As a hyperactive and widely exhibiting artist for about 15 or so years, prior to starting Gene's, I learned some hard lessons about the art world and the art market. One thing I was sure of when I decided to start this peculiar model of/for a gallery was that I wanted to be artist-first and artist-forward. What do I mean by that? Well, I wanted my program to be about ideas first, because when I was a practicing artist, that's what I valued. Beyond that, I wanted to make sure that if and when I got paid, my artists immediately got paid. Many of the galleries that I worked with that were commercial galleries, or galleries posturing as commercial galleries, would delay payments for months on end. I never wanted to put myself in a position where I had to worry about that sort of thing. This sort of behavior would never check out, or go unchecked, in any other industry. How is it that it's okay in ours? Whatever; as soon as I get paid by a client, the funds go into my gallery's bank account and the artist's portion immediately transfers out and goes straight to them; that was a rule I made for myself right away. It's not that difficult of a concept, is it?

When Gene's was in Westlake, near MacArthur Park, it was in a neighborhood that was once one of the most glittery areas of Los Angeles; it was a place where you could imagine starlets walking hand-in-hand with their beaus along the lake. To be clear, this was many, many decades ago. For context, the gallery was less than two miles away from the location of The Ambassador, the hotel where Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Francis Kennedy. These days, Westlake has become one of the cuttiest neighborhoods in probably all of the United States. The city and its aloof officials have vacillated between neglecting the residents and unhoused citizens and actively harassing them. In fact, during the pandemic, the city actually bussed unhoused people from other affluent areas of the city to Weslake/MacArthur Park and essentially assumed it might turn into some sort of version of The Wire's Hamsterdam. Guess what? It did. Over the 18 or so months that I spent in that neighborhood, I saw a lot of intense developments and the depressing state of existence definitely took its toll on me. I started thinking about how if I were to stay there, how I and my gallery might begin to shift and evolve. Multiple times a week, people were overdosing right outside my building and nobody seemed to care, other than me and a handful of other folks. I was beginning to think I'd maybe start to invest more in mutual aid, in addition to gallery work, but then I began to consider, "Is this what the community needs? Do they want some outsider, some art dude to help? Would this be taking away from the gallery, from my artists?" It's all rather complicated. I actually ended up becoming friendly with a fair amount of folks in that neighborhood; there's a pretty decent chance they didn't remember me, for understandable reasons, but I just wanted to help them. That said, I'm not a social worker; I'm just a poet who runs an art gallery and has a heavy heart. At a certain point, my dear friend, Josh Schaedel, who runs The Fulcrum, in Chinatown, saw how it was weighing on me and was like, "Bro, you gotta get out of there; come be part of our thing," and he built out a space for me in the building where his gallery, Leroy's, and Seasons call home. Since then, things have felt so much more fun and so much more fluid. Honestly, Josh helped me create such an ideal situation for me, my gallery, and the artists with whom I work. And also, given the fact that I'm so community-minded, to now be so integrally connected to and with my actual community on a near-daily basis feels so rejuvenating and so necessary.

Yes, yes...that's totally true! Thank you for pointing that out and addressing it; damn, I feel like you really know me! Ha! It's actually really important to and for me to connect with people who matter to me in real and significant ways. To answer your question: I think a lot of it comes down to honesty and vulnerability -- two things the art world seems to be fundamentally fearful of (or at least insecure about), in a lot of ways. I try to be super upfront about who and what I'm showing and why; I try to be quite transparent and allow my sensitivities to show when revealing my interests and objectives. Of course, I want to uplift the members of my beautiful community whom I support; of course, I want to further expand said community and proliferate their brilliant ideas. However, I am also aware of how sameness is more than just a symptom. Ubiquity is a virus, it's a bacteria; conformity consumes character. Be the person you want to be; be the person you always wanted to be.

Gene's is a reflection and extension of myself; all of these activities are things in which I am invested and that I find worthwhile to share with others. Much like my former artistic output, I consider everything to be part of a more holistic, more all-encompassing practice. I believe that one thing can affect or influence the next and so on and so forth.

Leroy's, the gallery that housed that epic show is operated by one of my best buds, Ian James. Honestly, it's kind of like my ideal kunsthalle. It's got so much history, so much character, and so many secret, grimy nooks and crannies. It's a place where almost anything can be made possible, if you have the proper ambition and resourcefulness. Ian is more down to clown than just about anybody I've ever met; we have long bonded together over a shared, mutual DIY spirit and desire to build, support, and sustain a community of artists who think beyond their means. When he asked me to curate a show at his space, I asked him if I could do whatever I wanted and he was game for it. I can't think of very many other people or very many other places that would grant me the opportunity to freak it as hard as I did for that show.

Yeah, totally. Well, Leroy's always has a bar; the bar is integral to how that space functions. In fact, it's my favorite bar in the entire massive city that is Los Angeles. When I arrived to LA, the Mountain Bar had already closed and the Mandrake had already leveled up to a more professionalized sort of operation. Every art scene needs an art bar, and Ian has generously provided one for us for many years now. I cannot express my gratitude enough, on behalf of those I love to chop it up with, to be able to have a chill-ass place to congregate and commiserate on a weekly basis (if we choose to do so). As for the performance program that ran alongside 1TB Verbatim, Ian allowed me to book events every weekend over the course of the exhibition's two-month run. My intent for doing so was multi-pronged: To provide an ongoing platform for additional artists to be able to do their thing, to further complicate the vibe and expectations of the show by adding more complex peripheral layers, and to consistently bring more people to the space to see the show and spend money on booze to help people in crisis. The wildfires were so destructive and depressing and, to me, this seemed like a relatively minor but completely obvious way to help out. Honestly, I'm not an expert when it comes to mutual aid, so I don't think I'm really qualified to speak too deeply on how best to organize and offer assistance. All I can say is that it's clear to me when those in power refuse to do so, we must take things into our own hands and do whatever we can to look out for our neighbors.

Accessibility; it is far too expensive for most emerging galleries to participate or for lower- or middle-class folks to attend them.

As a proud and vocal socialist living in a capitalistic society, I try to be simultaneously aspirational and realistic. You can't change or improve any system within which you participate without being critical of it. I want to be able to provide for me and my family by doing the thing I love most, and I want to do whatever I can to allow the artists I work with to do the same; therefore, I have to participate in the market. Selling art isn't selling out; if you do what you do with conviction, you can have faith that you'll be okay. If you look at my program, it's pretty clear pretty quickly that the market doesn't determine anything for me. It is my strong belief that if you go chasing trends, you'll always be behind. You must find your voice and you must trust it.

It allows for me to respond to place and environment in a way I otherwise wouldn't be able to do. It also allows me to make new connections, both literally and figuratively. This is crucial for both me and for Gene's.

I don't think the word "small" applies to Gene's; it never really did. However, strange, intimate, and personal have always been and always will continue to be essential elements of the gallery and the various projects I pursue under the Gene's moniker or umbrella.