The first work we ever saw from Scooter LaForge, was a playful bright blue bunny wearing a bow tie and “FUCK OFF” written around it’s head. Probably the most succinct introduction to his world. It gets more complicated from there. Scooter claims he’s making fun of himself in his work, but I can’t help but think he’s got a keenly developed sense of schadenfreude. I mean, what’s not funny about a screaming child getting peed on by a storybook bear.

His work has been shown in gay bar bathrooms, laundromat galleries, and Patricia Field clothing racks; Iggy Pop’s back, and mental hospital walls; and somehow combines a range of visuals from children’s book style-riffs, to watersports, cigars and leather daddy boots. What’s not to love?

Weston Bingham: Let’s start with your name. Scooter sounds like too perfect of a complement to your work to be the name your parents gave you. Is it?

Scooter LaForge: Ahhhhhh my name… I was working at a 7-Eleven in San Pedro, California, during my coming-of-age years, and hated all the the trash coming in there bossing me around to make the Slurpees and nachos, so I gave myself that name, after my sister’s dog, and ever since then I’ve gone by Scooter. It fits and I’m know as Uncle Scooter to all my nieces and nephews - it’s really cute.

WB: You just moved to New York (East Village, of course) from San Francisco. What’s your take on your new home?

SL: I frickin’ love it here, although I have had some hard times here, including being admitted into the psych ward at Bellevue Hospital, (no need to worry, I’m all good), I’ve been held up by gunpoint, held hostage and been married and divorced four times - but I wouldn’t change it for the world. It was the best move I’ve made. I wanted to be here and in the East Village since I was five. The movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s made me want to move here. I’ve found a place here for myself. You know what they say, if you can make it in New York City, you will fail everywhere else.

WB: Man, I want to ask about the marriage/divorce thing, but I’m going to go with: held hostage?

SL: My first job in New York City, I was managing the Earl Jean boutique in Soho, and one morning we came in for an early morning meeting and a man came right up behind me with a gun to my back and followed my in. My two co-workers were already in the store, and he brought us all downstairs and locked us in the office. I felt so bad for one girl, she was soooooo scared that she peed in her pants. The really stupid idiot only took $200 from our petty cash box, and bypassed the eight $4,000 leather jackets on the sales floor. Needless to say this was an inside job through our security company we were using at the time. I had to go and pick out the guy from a lineup at the police station, just like in Law and Order, and then I testified in front of a grand jury and the guy went to jail for 18 years.

WB: What does a night out with you usually involve?

SL: A night out is a rarity for me, I used to be a hardcore clubber, but those days are over. I do still go to private house parties, but bars and clubs are boring for me these days - I don’t drink anymore so all I do is usually cruise and play pinball. Lame, right?

WB: You have a formal art education, but you certainly aren’t concerned with proving any sort of pedigree. Have you abandoned the “canon” or are you picking a fight with it?

SL: At Cooper Union the more fucked-up the better - they push that in their painters. I’m not picking a fight, I’ve just always done my own thing. I did learn tons in school, but continuing to paint and not stopping is where the learning comes in. I have some artist friends who come over and look at my work and give me some critiques - sometime I take them and sometimes I leave them. My paintings are like black licorice - you love it or hate it. I have to say most people love them.
WB: What attracted us immediately to your work was your “naive” style used to deliver content that is far from naive.

SL: Sweet and sick are my messages. I’m not a formal person or painter - it makes things so much more interesting. I think one has to learn the essentials as far as drawing and perspective, and then go into abstract and naive styles. I love opposites, the unexpected, and things that are uncomfortable to look at.

WB: Your paintings are loaded with familiar happy childhood references and characters, but they’re all imbued with a sense of doom, anxiety, and cruelty. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Where does it come from?

SL: I had a bit of a fucked-up childhood, I was a total trouble maker. ALWAYS in trouble, cops always at my parent’s house, lots of drugs and alcohol - everything you can imagine, I did it. I don’t do any more drugs, nor do I condone it, but all of my past is why I’m here, and I don’t shut the door on the past. I do have lots of memories that I pull from, and sometimes it makes a great picture. I have had high highs in life and really low lows in life. Most of the doom, anxiety and cruelty and things, I’ve experienced.


WB: I used to be scared to death when my parents would read The Gingerbread Man to me - the story of the gingerbread man cookie that came to life and all the other characters chased him and bit off parts. Do you think the childhood imagery you use in your work hits others in a similar way?

SL: For sure, some of the scariest stories are children stories. It’s really fucked-up. Read Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - this man did not like kids.

WB: What would the plot of your children’s book be, Uncle Scooter?

SL: Well I would title it Master Scooter’s Secret Garden of Delight and Danger, and the premise would be that anyone who enters, enters at their risk but all of their fantasies would come true. One could get pissed on or sucker-punched, or even shit on (just kidding that’s really gross). But it would be like Candyland or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

WB: Talk about some of the recurring “characters” in your paintings: bears, bunnies, birds, cats, some of the Disney family…

SL: Each and every one one of these characters are friends of mine. I’ll leave their names out to protect them, but the bear and Ajax the cat are both friends of mine I met at the Eagle bar in New York. The guy sucking his own dick is a boyfriend of mine who was kind enough to pose for me - this guy is really hot - he needs to be one of your Boys of the Week.

I love them all and most of them have been my lovers or fuck-buddies at one time or another. Every time I have a trick over at my house they get a t-shirt or get to pick a painting to take home. I’ve always been afraid of people forgetting about me so they get gifts.

WB: So if they are your lovers and fuck-buddies, are you the one getting peed on, the cry-baby, or the dead things?

SL: God, I hope my mother doesn’t read this but, all of the above and vice versa for my partners.

WB: When you pass out the gifts, do you have quality categories? Like a good blowjob gets you a small painting, but a proper fucking gets you something more sofa-sized?

SL: [laughs] Totally hilarious! Yeah, the amount of fun I have determines how big the painting is. Usually everyone gets a t-shirt though.
WB: OK, honestly, what’s wrong with you?

SL: I’ve been trying for the last 36 years to figure that out! Go and ask the doctors at Bellevue Hospital. They have a collection of some of my paintings hanging in the Mental Hygiene section, by the way. Cool, right!

WB: So, you’re a case-study?

SL: Yeah, and I got accepted into this really cool program at Bellevue that very few people qualify for that is going on right now. So I am good with all the doctors there and believe it or not, I’ve sold some paintings to them!

WB: Of all the “legit” places you’ve exhibited your work, why do you think the San Angel Folk Art Gallery in San Antonio, Texas, exhibits your decidedly not folk art?

SL: Hank, the owner, has always been drawn to it, and thank god. This is the only gallery I have sold work from for the past 13 years. San Antonio has some sick motherfuckers. People keep buying the work, and I love them for it. At this point in time I’m not picky about where my work is shown. I’ve shown in a laundromat, and had a show in a really dingy bathroom in a gay bar.WB: Your work isn’t overtly, or even intentionally gay - what do you think is “queer” about your work?

SL: I don’t put myself in that box, and believe it or not, more women respond to my work than men. Crazy, right? I actually sold a painting of a boy sucking himself off, to a woman from Rhode Island, and she was like a Martha Stuart or Judge Judy type - total housewife.

WB: Your combination of whimsy and cruelty sounds like a sound foundation for a great kink.

SL: I do love the combination of fucked-up masks and sex - they turn me on. Check out the picture of me in the monkey mask and imagine getting fucked…

WB: Tell us about your t-shirt designs. Unlike a lot of t-shirt designers, you do a lot of hand work to each one, right?

SL: Yeah, they are all hand painted and hand silkscreened. I sell them at Trash and Vaudeville in the East Village and Live Fast in the Lower East Side, and now on your site. They’re inspired by the Vivienne Westwood Seditionaries punk rock tees from the late 70s. They have X-rated images, profanity, and are pure sex.

WB: What’s the next manifestation of your vision?

SL: I don’t know yet, but I guarantee it’ll be really fucked-up.

WB: Any shows coming up?

SL: Yeah, I do have a show coming up in San Francisco, I just had one in Texas and now I’m trying to find a space here.

WB: What’s the guestlist for your next party - living, dead, imaginary or otherwise.

SL: Frida Kahlo, Willem de Kooning, Joanne Whirly, Charles Nelson Reilly, Hillary Clinton, Marc Jacobs, Andy Warhol, Jean Benet Ramsey, Don Rickles, Judge Judy, Spaghetti Cat, Michael Jackson, Cat Lady.

Portraits of Scooter shot for EVB by Nodeth Vang
All artwork courtesy of and ©Scooter LaForge
Scooter LaForge EVB Artist Series Tee available in the EVB Store
.

Last 5 posts by Weston Bingham

• BOY BANG BOY, LONDON - July 30th, 2010
• LARS ANDERSSON FALL/WINTER 2010 - May 25th, 2010
• GIO BLACK PETER: EYES ON THE PRIZE - May 23rd, 2010
• L - May 7th, 2010
• MAX STEELE: SCORCHER #5 RELEASE - April 8th, 2010
• IGNITE LAUNCHES - March 14th, 2010
• ANDREW YANG AND THE KOUKLITAS - October 4th, 2009
• S2VS - September 19th, 2009
• WE HAVE WE HAVE BAND - April 17th, 2009
• I-BOY DIEGO - March 27th, 2009