jotta: What sparked the idea to make BEAUTIFUL LOSERS?  AARON: There were some other people that wanted to make the film also. There was a lot of talk of making the movie and that the artists talked to each and decided that it would be better for us to make a film. If there was going to be a film, then the film should come from the art, from the artists and not from an outsider that might sensationalise some things.

jotta: Right, so there were suggestions by other filmmakers and producers? AARON: Yeah, I don’t think really any of us wanted to be on the screen. It was just more like, either we did it or someone else was gonna do it and tell the wrong story.

jotta: Who did you make the film for? AARON: Kids. I don’t think that young people are taught that they don’t need to follow the rules to succeed. And that’s kind of what the film’s about. So all the way through the editing process I was always thinking about what the kids were going to think.

jotta: Did you do screenings throughout with the kids? Or did you just kind of keep yourself in that frame of mind throughout the editing process? AARON: We did maybe half a dozen screenings, all different audiences. Some were with old people, some were with young people. I realised through that whole process that iscreenings are crap! It doesn’t tell you anything. Especially the ones with the kids, you know? I believe you can just make a film and  put it out in the world knowing you did a good job and people will watch. And it’s your vision.

jotta: So, these days the whole nature of the DIY ethos has changed completely due to the ease and immediacy of self-publishing. Where do you find the kind of DIY activity and this same ethos of creating work existing today? AARON: In every bedroom, in every garage, every basement, every independent record store, every magazine rack in those independent record stores, in any city in the world. In laptop music. A noise band. Somebody who’s out writing graffiti, somebody who’s making exceptional art, with psychedelic patterns with Spongebob Squarepants in the middle of it. It can exisit in all forms, in all mediums. It’s funny, people like to talk about the internet and culture, the idea of things being human, I think that it just made it bigger. The advent of the internet actually really helped physical media, there’s been a massive resurface of vinyl records. But the internet has actually helped the DIY culture.

jotta: And do you think that this increase in DIY in other forms has also seen an increase in collective creativity or collaboration? Because it’s easier for people to connect basically? AARON: I dunno if I’m qualified to answer that one for you. I can’t tell. I know that there’s a lot of people making, so many people that it’s mind-boggling. In all forms, in all mediums, in all ages. And as far as collaboration goes, I’m not entirely sure.

jotta: Was there a strong emphasis on collaboration amongst the artists in the film? AARON: There was collaboration and there was competition. Like, someone would show up with a certain kind of brush to someone’s studio, and another person would say, “Hey I wanna use that brush.” It’s like with music, playing each others’ instruments and equipment. The real collaboration was more to do with supporting each other and helping to build each others work. It was understood that the more you push each other the more other people push you. It also came from trying to outdo your friends though- it’s rooted in one-up-manship, which I think is healthy!

jotta: ANP Quarterly is something of a collaborative editorial process, how does that work? That whole process of creating with 3 editors who aren’t necessarily in the same place at the same time? AARON: Well, we do a lot of emailing! Usually each one of us will come up with a list of say, 10 to 12 things that we think are great, then email them in an email chain to each other. If we’re in the same place we’ll get together and have lunch and do it in person, which actually does happen a bit more often than not. We have a policy of all or nothing. From the first issue we knew that we’d run into issues in making decisions. We didn’t want to make it into a situation where two editors would gang up on another editor over a story so basically our policy is that all three of us have to love the story or we just don’t do it. And you’d be amazed how fast a list of 40 things can whittle down when three people have to agree. Because we all trust that process and so we’ll start with this huge list of things and we’ll go one by one and say thumbs up or thumbs down and by the end usually we’ll have the makings of an issue.

jotta: I suppose most publishing houses and magazines, even independent magazines, have a kind of hierarchy that they have to subscribe to. There’s a politics involved with advertising. AARON: Yeah and because we don’t have advertisers, you know, we just make the articles and then the design process kind of helps us decide what is going to be the cover. Which pieces are longer, which pieces are shorter, and it’s a very interesting process because none of us know what’s going to happen until the very end, in terms of what it’s going to look like.

jotta: So there’s never any advertising? AARON: No, I mean, you know, because of the way the economy is there has been some grumblings in the halls that we might have to start doing something along those lines, but we’ve managed to survive without it.

jotta: So is it self-funded? AARON: We work with a clothing company called RVCA, and Pat Tenore who owns RVCA is a huge art supporter. So there is a little RVCA logo that says sponsored by RVCA or whatever, but it’s very small and it isn’t an advertisement.

jotta: What are your thoughts on the importance of community and small independent galleries verses the institution of major galleries?  AARON: I think that this still fits over in the UK, but the Bush era created this art world monster, with these massive galleries and these powerful dealers and I totally attribute that to the way the world was working during that time. And in the next few years we’re going to be seeing a lot more really inspiring, really innovative small businesses in the field of art because the market has changed. I think that as liberal as the art world might pawn itself off to be in the media, at the end of the day it’s really no different than Wall Street. And I think that was a kind of gimmick in the last eight years and in the changes in the art world and I think that people like Larry Gagosian and Jay Jopling are totally out of touch and are irrelevant in a lot of ways to what’s really happening in art. I’m not just calling these people out as evil, they’re symptomatic of larger things. I think that they’re such lumbering beasts now, those institutions, that they don’t have the speed or dexterity to really be innovative anymore. And, I think we’ll be seeing a lot of smaller renegade operations popping up in the next few years. And I’m very excited for that.

jotta: So there’s an exhibition we’re working on for the release of the film in London called the DIY London Scene, which, no doubt, you’re aware of. AARON: Yeah, no, I’m aware of it. I’ve been helping with it.

jotta: So, we’re actually helping with that as well. jotta placed a call out for original art works from the jotta community. Are you helping to curate that show? AARON: I am, the exhibition came together rather quickly. Originally we wanted to include work from the artists in the film but it was really just too fast to organise an exhibition. We could have pulled together some pieces but it would have seemed rather hodge-podge. So we spoke more about it as, and just because the BEAUTIFUL LOSERS film artists are an American group, the movement we’re talking about is really a global thing that’s alive and well in London and has been for twenty years.   

We’ve actually done this a few times throughout the promotion of the film, exhibiting artists from the local geographic area that are part of the same group, for better or for worse. I was really inspired by that and that was the idea and what I’m hoping to do is to organise an exhibition of the 90s, the BEAUTIFUL LOSERS scene when everyone was a bit younger and that will be rooted in the exhibition from two or three photographers who heavily documented that scene.

jotta: And then the rest of it will be contemporary artists who are inspired by. . . AARON: Inspired by or part of, I mean, we were doing exhibitions in the UK before anyone paid attention in America, you know, there was a record label called Mowax, that I don’t think they’re around anymore but they used to fly me and Tommy Guerrero over there back in 1992/ 1993 to do skateboard art shows long before anybody cared in America. I think the Brits were hip before Americans on this one, ha ha, ya know? I mean I did that book on skateboard art in 1996 with Mowax and that was before, long before, anywhere else. . . maybe Japan. It was the UK and Japan, America came last.

jotta: Why do you think that was? I mean it’s not like skate culture was more underground there, was it? AARON: It was definitely more underground than London, but it was also that sometimes your own country can’t recognise it’s own art. Because being across the ocean you can have a better perspective on how things were. You need someone else to say that you’re good and then your country will pay you attention. It’s kind of like parents, my parents were like that with me, ha ha.

jotta: So what proliferation of projects have you got going currently? AARON: I’m doing a book with Barry McGee, it’s a nice hardcover and it’s going to come out in January or February of next year. And I’m currently living in Portland, Oregon and I’m working with an ad agency here who started an entertainment division developing a series of television shows. An experimental music television show, a variety show, some animated cartoon shows that we’re going to try to either release on regular networks or release on the internet, we haven’t figured that out yet. Yeah, it’s like a dream project because they just kind of said just make them. I hire a bunch of my friends and collaborators and different people that I’ve worked with over the years to come on board and help with it so it’s pretty great. Who knows where all that’ll end up?

jotta: That sounds amazing! AARON: Yeah, and the new ANPQuarterly, we’re starting to pull that together. And then in the fall I’m going to be opening an art school for high school kids in Los Angeles based on the DIY teachings. Art schools are very theoretical in nature, that always turned me off to it, so we started doing these workshops last year with high school kids and bringing in artists that are in the film to teach and Kanye West, I met Kanye West and he got really excited about it. Kanye West is funding it. But we’re going to try for a permanent school in Los Angeles and hopefully that will spread. A lot of the artists in the film are going to teach, Karen O is going to teach, and M.I.A. is going to teach. All these people have volunteered, like Jeremy Scott, it’s music, fashion, film, and art.

jotta: Wow. Do you have any of these workshops recorded or documented? AARON: Yeah, the last time we did it was last summer and we did it with Nike, but it’s called ‘Make Something.’ So Google ‘Make Something’ and put the word Nike, there’s a whole page there of videos of the classes we’ve done.