Jesse Littlebird says: “Art is standing naked in front of an audience.”
Jesse sits in front of his new mixed media painting, Brilliant Bulls Exhiled from the Village. He sports a mask that he and fellow artist Joel Davis made together.
When we interviewed him, Jesse had just moved into his new studio in Albuquerque. He greeted me with eggs and coffee and we talked in front of his most recent painting which towered over us in his living room. Like all of his work it had a loud, punctual voice of its own. It glowed over our conversation.
Jesse offered a tour of his house.
Car-sized paintings hung from every wall. He spoke as we walked:
“Sometimes I say things, but do I really believe it? You have to play a character once you realize that character. I try and make my character authentically me. I don’t want to say stuff I don’t believe but… sometimes you have to take risks. You’re only going to get what you put into something. Sometimes you got to go all in.”
“In my line of work everything is built on relationships and they’re very transactional. I want to have authentic relationships but I feel like a lot of people are trying to capitalize on me. Going back to the agent thing. Even people who have genuine intentions… I’ve had to be my own agent.”
He pauses for the screaming kettle.
“Alright more coffee.”
Moments later he settles into our conversation.
Who are you?
“‘I AM THE GREATEST!’ No I’m kidding. I’m Jesse Raine Littlebird. Jesse Muthafucking Littlebird. Someone who is overly confident but inside very umm.. I wouldn’t say insecure but a lot is going on. I’m crazy man! I was telling my friend Kyle, I think I’m actually crazy because I don’t know how I can think all these things all day long and then try to turn it into a positive thing.”
“I’m from Albuquerque. I don’t even like saying I’m from this city because I got a lot of love lost with Albuquerque. I feel like that more and more lately, as much as I love living here. I don’t know… it just feels like every time I try and do something dope for this town they don’t care. Or they try to stop me at every chance.”
“They don’t realize that I’m trying to give them something that they don’t know they want yet. So I’m not necessarily trying to please the general populace of Albuquerque anymore. I just want to please the people I respect.”
His laugh betrays caution in his admission.
“I respect the work you’re trying to do here but I’ve been interviewed before. I look back and watch those interviews now and I’m like, ‘Who is that?!’ I’m such a fucking weirdo. I mean I’m still my same essence but I feel bad for all my friends back then. If they’re still my friends now I’m like, ‘Okay. You stuck around for the finale.’”
“I think everyone thinks about their life as a narrative. I do it all the time. We all think our lives are movies. I think it’s because it helps us make sense of things in a world that increasingly doesn’t make sense. In reality, it’s organized chaos and ummm… mathematical equations. The Earth is already spinning on a trajectory that it’s already going. There is order but also chaos. As much as it’s explainable, it’s not.”
“People look at positive things as if they’re supposed to happen, but what about negative things? I think that’s what makes people cling to stories. This phone is crazy man! This technology honestly, if there was something that wiped humanity out and the aliens got our phones, they would be like, ‘Dude what is this thing? They carried around this lithium battery powered thing all the time??’ They wouldn’t know it connected us to the Tower of Babble.”
“A lot of my work has biblical undertones. I think it’s what makes my work exciting to me. I’m learning how to speak. I can talk about all this stuff but it’s just words. And then look at a book cover. A painting is like a book cover. That’s what’s exciting about my stuff is I’m trying to translate. I can already see where my work will be if I’m still alive in 10 years. No one else can see that. That’s what sets me apart from other artists working right now. I say ‘WORKING’ because if you’re going to work as an artist nowadays it’s so switched up from what it was 20 years ago. You try to make things that connect with as many people as possible instead of staying true to yourself.”
“I always look at things like, ‘This is a whole new chapter.’ It’s ever changing! People that follow my work closely might think I’m doing the same thing over and over, but it’s just a long chapter. To me it seems so obvious. If you’re going to be working in any kind of visual medium, you should learn how to speak in your own language.”
“What keeps me going is trying not to be attached to being unique. You can’t try to be unique, you’ll never know when you attain that. I just take my experiences and they all go into how I’m going to paint a line. All of my experience goes into the creation of one line. The act of emulating many different things and bringing them together is what creates the work.”
“It’s easy to get trapped in your mind and in your ego, thinking that you have to be the genius or the one who created God. Creation is God. That’s coming from me and I’m very egotistical.”
He busts out laughing.
“I don’t know if self awareness is beneficial to my art but that’s what I think. Honestly I want to be whatever is going to help people out the most. To help… I’m trying not to say community because I hate that word. I feel like in 40 years that word will come back but right now that word is so beaten to hell. They throw that shit around. We don’t have a real collective understanding about what a lot words mean. Dialects and language are very important to always be looking at and critiquing.”
“I feel like I have a good head for recognizing patterns. I’m not a math-minded person but sometimes I look at stuff and I’ll make a prediction. I couldn’t put a number to it but I know there is a chunk of people that do this and are influenced by that. Power comes from... well nowadays power is seen as a bad thing. Power doesn’t pick a side. Power is power. The ego chooses to use power for good or bad. That’s why the word empowerment is always placed on the individual. How are you going to empower yourself? If we are all trying to empower ourselves, wouldn’t it make more sense to empower each other and have good will toward each other?”
“That’s where I try to start but I’m not above my flaws. I probably get caught up in trying to empower myself especially when, bringing it full circle: I have a lot of love lost for this city. Maybe I’ll just do what everyone else is doing and empower myself instead. You got any questions?? That was really long. There were some gold nuggets. Shoot! Here let me get you some more coffee.”
Moments later he continues:
“All you have to do is look into yourself and learn what makes you human. What is this thing that connects all of us? That’s what makes people open their wallets, if you want to look at it from the capitalist perspective. It’s like what Virgil said. Do we need another chair? Why are we making more chairs? There are probably more chairs than people. Everyone in the whole world could sit in a chair if they wanted to. Why do we have to possess things? I mostly make art because I’m compulsive and need something to do.”
What Do You Do?
“I very unselfishly present myself to the world. I walk out naked in front of everybody everyday and with that comes a lot of problems. Honestly that’s what art is. I have a little more… confidence than other people. Everyone creates but not everyone displays it so confidently and unapologetically. It’s very naked, ya know? I’m not the best at anything I’m just more confident in it. I’ve never strived to be the best I’ve just strived to be as good as those I look up to. A lot of dead people and a lot of living people too.”
“When I was 27 I really started trying to educate myself on philosophical thinking and logic, but also theory. Theory is good because it’s not supposed to tie you down in one way of thinking. It’s supposed to open your mind to other ways of thinking. I’m almost 30 and I’ve only done that research and self building for 2 years now. I feel like I’m a kid in pre-school. I’m just learning this shit. I’ve had a pretty good foundation for growing up yet I feel like until now I haven’t learned patience. Patience you have to actively do. It’s not just something you have, you have to actively partake in it. I realized with a lot of self growth you have to practice it everyday. When I was 23 I was overly confident but back then inwardly I thought I knew everything. No one could tell me. Now that I’m almost 30 I think I don’t know anything and I have to practice every day to learn and to grow into all of the things I didn’t have the tools for before. Wisdom just comes with living. I get real mad at myself when I’m not practicing what I know. There are people that are still doing the same things even though they know so much. I don’t want to be a person like that.”
What’s been your most fulfilling job so far?
“That’s tough because when I look back there is always something that didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. When I start projects now I don’t have expectations. That said I do have a goal in mind and I visualize where I want to be. I try to have fun in everything I do now, even though sometimes you got to do shit that isn’t fun. I would say my next project… always the next thing I’m working on I hope is even more fulfilling than the last.”
“The most fulfilling is self growth and self reflection. There are a lot of good memories, like Jack Rabbit (a film Jesse made in 2017). I don’t know if that aged well. I was very naive and young. I didn’t know how to navigate it and stick up for myself. Any success with anything is always secondary. Success is winning the lottery, it’s not guaranteed. It’s a weird thing to chase. You could put your heart and soul into something and it could be successful or not.”
“I hope this next piece is better. I’m scared but that’s good. Every time I was scared and I look back and I realize how chill it was. I’m even more weary when I don’t have that feeling about a project. When I’m just getting pulled along somewhere. I think that’s what’s really changed about me in the past 3 years. People say I go with the flow. But I don’t. I paddle where I want to go. I have a clear intention and I do it.”
What’s been a challenge?
He exhales emphatically.
“Up to this point there are a lot of things I haven’t overcome yet. Self doubt.”
How do you cope with nerves?
“In the past I would cope with substances… nondescript substances.”
He laughs.
“I’m bored with that. When I hear people talk about their experiences taking edibles I’m like, ‘Dude, thats where you do self building. That’s the shadow work.’ But you get directly thrown into it with edibles. I feel like I’ve done so much of that. My toxic trait is I want to do that all the time. When I’m nervous this inner dialogue goes on inside, ‘You wanted to feel something real. Now you have a choice: black or white? Red or blue?’ It’s really hard for me to realize that there is a third, fourth, fifth, sixth option not just one or two. A lot of my nervousness comes from that. Thinking I’m going to fail or not. I just tell myself, ‘Okay, I’m here right now and the present is where I’m at. The future will make me anxious and the past will make me depressed, but I’m here right now so why not be here now?’ I can’t change the future or the past but I can change right now. THAT WAS REALLY GOOD! Wow.”
He smiles shows relief. He studies a painting nearby that’s in process. It’s a 6 by 6 foot mixed media piece titled Brilliant Bulls Exhiled from the Village. He stands and begins to work.
Who inspires you?
He’s works a deep purple into the canvas as he answers.
“When I think about the people who inspire me I consider where they were at in their lives. I used to think about the person when they were my age but more often now my inspirations are people who did stuff when they were older and further along in their careers. I think people get too attached to trying to make things happen right now, when they’re young. When you research someone you admire, you see just how long it took them to get there. I’m a fan of James Turrell. I think architecture and light really have an effect on the way we perceive time and history.”
He trails off into his painting. A feeling of peace fills the room.
“Sometimes it takes the people around you to telling you you can’t do something to push you forward. I’m way more forgiving with people now in that sense. They just don’t get it yet. It’s okay because they’re going to come knocking on the door later and asking to come in. People are on their own journeys trying to figure things out. ‘It’s a-okay partner.’”
What’s something you want to remind yourself in ten years?
“What’s that guy David Goggins do? He says every time he’s a little bitch he wants to record it and play it back to show himself how much of a bitch he was… Just kidding.. Hmmm.”
“To not be so hard on myself. And I hope I’m just as absurd as I am now. That’s why I get bugged when people try and change that. I don’t want to have to fit into a perceived idea of what people want me to be. It’s working out for me. Why would you tell me to change who I am? I don’t want to sacrifice myself. I’m literally not telling anyone else to sacrifice themselves.”
He puts on a tough guy voice.
“I’m just tryna be me. People tryna tell me to accept myself when they haven’t accepted themselves.”
What’s something you haven’t done that you wish you could?
“I wish I could design a space from the ground up. A place where people can be fully actualized creative beings and live a life free from consumerism and capitalism where everyone’s needs are met. That is what I really want. A mini society. Start with a hundred people. Make it accessible. I think people get thrown off by the aesthetics of the ones that are already out there. They’re too cliche. Even me, I’m tired of doing the hippie shit.”
“The greatest collaborative art you could make is to live in harmony with other people and have a real collective consciousness, trying to build a better world. I have people in my life with all different kinds of political beliefs and lifestyles, I’m someone that could really…”
He drops his paint brush.
“We all have so much in common! We want free lives, we want love. If you want something from your neighbor, borrow it. I WANT A G-WAGON RIGHT NOW. WHO’S GONNA GIVE ME A G -WAGON!?”
He laughs and picks up his brush.
What’s on the horizon for you?
“I’m going to build a place for people to show their work. Have gatherings centered around… I’m trying not to say buzz words… community, connection. I want the space to be creatively free. I want to inspire people with my productivity. That’s one thing I know inspires people about me. Because I’m crazy and so compulsive I have to make shit all the time. I like seeing people get out of their shells and create. In an art sense or a business sense.”
Anything else?
“I really appreciate people’s patronage and it really helps me out when people buy prints and originals. It keeps me in the mood to keep creating. I need people to keep supporting in that sense. I’m very unapologetic about that. You want to say you’re helping Indigenous people then put your money where your mouth is and buy my shit. For real. Buy my shit at jesselittlebird.com.”
Please support Jesse at his solo show in July at Lapis Room in Albuquerque. The show is titled A Declaration of Sanity.
And you heard the guy, buy his shit at: jesselittlebird.com and follow him on instagram at @jesselittlebird
Edited by Sonya Burke. April 25th, 2020
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