Pat Perry

Interview by Kristin Farr // Portrait by Anonymous

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Pat Perry

Pat Perry was born a ramblin’ man. Besides staring down Grizzly bears,
he’s ridden trains and hitchhiked all over America. He soaks the
landscape into his bones, talks to strangers, and filters those
experiences onto paper. This kid lives on the edge. “The lure of
adventure” is at the core of everything he does, and as he says,
“If you’re making art about things you really care about, you can’t
wait for validation. You have to be vulnerable, go for it, and hope
for the best. And that’s a crazy, wild adventure on its own.”

Kristin Farr: Where are you right now?
Pat Perry: Can you hear me OK? I just moved into this big
empty room in an old factory, but I don’t own anything.
I only have a flat file and a desk, so it’s going to be
echo-y in here for a while until I get a studio back
together. I’m rarely in one place for a long time, but I’m
trying to get all situated now so I can bed down for the
winter and crank out a bunch of new work.
What have you been up to lately?
I was in Maine working with a group called the Beehive
Collective. It’s an amazing thing happening in this tiny,
rural town. The collective is spread out all over the
country. Besides artists, it’s a lot of activists that are
talking about anti-globalization, big social issues and
scary problems. They make drawings that explain these
problems in simple terms. I was working on a drawing
with them for four months. It’s nine feet wide, and it’s
all about global trade agreements in Latin America.
The drawing was started eight years ago, and twelve
different illustrators have been working on it. There are
other people doing research in Latin America. We try to
stay anonymous about who did which part. The whole
point is that it’s not about personal recognition.
The drawing will get printed as a poster and distributed
all over. The people from the Beehive do lectures with
the posters at different colleges and community centers.
They’re anti-copyright, so if anyone wants a poster,
they can get one for free or donate something. It works
well: an abundance model.
I noticed you also gave away a free download of one of
your drawings.
I just wanted to see what would happen. I still sell ONE
prints on my website, but I think of where I was when Pat Perry lives and works
I was a kid or even now—I still can’t buy a ton of artwork, on the road and in Grand
not everyone can, but that stinks. Just because you Rapids, Michigan.
can’t afford it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have it.
TWO
His age is a mystery, but he
How do you use photography in your life and in your art?
is younger than Jesus.
I’ve always liked to take pictures. Like a lot of people,
THREE
I’m obsessed with recording things because you don’t
He is left handed.
want to lose your memories, you want to hang on to
them. For reference stuff, I might shoot digital, but for •••••
the most part, I only shoot with my film camera. You only
107th Engineer’s
get twenty-four shots on a roll, and it’s expensive to get Memorized Highway
photos developed, so every picture you take means a Oil on panel
2012
lot more. Also, with traveling and moving around a lot,
it’s not always convenient to make a huge drawing or
oil painting. That’s why I use my sketchbook so much,
too, because I can sit and draw at any kitchen table or
weird spot.
Does the work you do in your sketchbook feel a bit
like journalism?
I’ve been working on an artist statement to sum up how
I’ve been thinking about my work, and one of the first lines
is, “I think making artwork is kind of like journalism.” In a
way, it is. The best that I can do to explain it—even though
this might sound idealistic—is that art is a digestive by-
product of how you’re living your life, and that will show
through in the work. Even if you try to hide stuff, it’s pretty
impossible. If you want to make good art that you think is
honest and morally sound, then you have to be a good
person, or try to live a lifestyle that’s congruent with the
artwork you’re making. Those things have to match up,
and after that, the film camera, or the sketchbook, or any

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Pat Perry
You don’t second guess what you’re doing,
or question yourself, or have any
reason to draw other than what
moves you to make things.
drawings are just the vehicle you use to show what you
do every day and the way you look at the world.
Sometimes I question why I’m drawing in the sketchbook.
If I just did small drawings, I could sell them or put them
in a gallery. But that’s what’s great about it; it’s not easily
turned into something commercial. You don’t second
guess what you’re doing, or question yourself, or have
any reason to draw other than what moves you to make
things. I’ve been drawing in that sketchbook the same
way since I was six years old, and to keep doing that
into adulthood is pretty awesome. I don’t care that I can’t
necessarily do anything with all those drawings.
What other habits do you have besides drawing?
I’ve spent most of my time this year traveling, and what
I’ve been working on, besides drawing, is a book and
writing a lot. I’m really nerdy about trains; that’s a hobby
too. Writing and riding on trains—I spend quite a bit of
time chasing those things, like a little kid.
I wrote a book over the past six months, and I’m not sure
what I’ll do with it, it’s a good fifty pages, with all these
drawings and photos. It’s about trains, but you don’t
want to say too much about trains, because you don’t
want to encourage people to do something that is super
dangerous and illegal, but it’s also a pretty adventurous
story that’s worth telling. It’s about a two-month train trip
I did in the spring when I went from Chicago to Seattle
on the Highline, which goes across the north end of the
US. I hitchhiked for a while, and then I rode trains down
to Colorado. I never wanted to write a nonfiction story,
but then I started thinking, and it kind of hurts to keep all
that stuff bottled up inside. So much of my traveling I’ve
done alone, and I felt like I had to puke it out and write
it down. I look at it like a survey, where there are so
many characters—weird people, normal people, farmers,
and other people you meet in small towns. I am hopefully
using it as a way to talk about them, so you get a
collective idea of what people in rural and unseen
parts of America are doing. I’m hoping it’s something
I can put out this year.
Can you tell me a good train hopping story?
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Pat Perry
I don’t even know where to start. One crazy thing that
happened last summer was really intense. It’s a string
of events. I’d been riding trains with my friend, and we
parted ways in Glasgow, Montana. He’s a fisherman in
Alaska, and he had to catch a plane. I kept riding by
myself, and I had to go through Haver, Montana, which
is talked about as the hottest train yard in the country.
If you get caught riding in Haver, or even in the yard at
all, you go to jail for ten days minimum. Most places,
they’ll either tell you to leave or give you a trespassing
fine. I didn’t want to go through Haver, but there was
no way around it, and I had to escape this train yard in
the middle of the night. I ran over all these tracks and
climbed a bunch of trains to get out, but I ended up
on the wrong side of the yard, in the middle of a farm,
which was a maze of ponds, barbed wire fences,
and orchards. I was trying to find the road, and all of
a sudden these headlights flash in my direction and a
truck starts following me, and I got into this crazy chase.
I could’ve stopped and said, “Hey, I’m just trying to leave
and I don’t know where I am,” but it was the middle
of the night in Montana, and this is God’s country.
People aren’t afraid to beat you up or shoot you for
being on their property. Finally, I slid down a bank by
a pond, and was lying in this tall grass. It was so silly,
like a movie; it was stupid. After another hour, I escaped,
and he didn’t find me. I got into town and spent the night
on a hill behind some apartment building, pretty much
sleeping on rocks, and woke up the next morning at sunrise.
The next day was even crazier. This is a nasty story, but it
really happened and was kind of scary. I was hitchhiking
to a town called Shelby to catch a train, and I was waiting
all day. No one’s picking me up because it’s all farmers in
nice Ford F350s—no one that’s going to be kind or give
a kid a ride. Finally this guy named Darryl picks me up
and says he can take me to Shelby. He’s in his fifties,
balding, wearing basketball shorts and a polo shirt.
He seems pretty normal, and we stop at a gas station,
and he buys me coffee. And then he buys some baby oil.
I was like, OK, whatever, I don’t know why he needs that,
but I’m not going to make assumptions. We’re cruising
through the middle of nowhere in rural Montana, and he’s
asking me all these questions about gay culture, and if
I’ve been to San Francisco. Then he starts talking about
Catholic priests. I just keep saying, “Yeah, I’m totally open
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Pat Perry
It’s not always convenient to make a huge drawing
or oil painting. That’s why I use my sketchbook so
much, too, because I can sit and draw at any
kitchen table or weird spot.
to people being gay. My girlfriend and I talk about that all
the time.” I was trying to be understanding but also hinting
that I had a girlfriend. All of a sudden he takes off his shirt,
puts the baby oil on his hands, and says, “I’m just going
to tan while we’re driving. Do you want to tan?” And I was
like “No, I’m good.” Then he sticks his hands down his
pants and is totally jacking off. I’m just riding next to him
totally freaking out like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to get
molested!” I’ve got my hand on my knife in my pocket,
and I’m thinking to myself, “This is the day. This is the day
I’m going to have to stab somebody.” I’ve never been in
a fight in my life, and I’m not a hostile person. So I was
freaking out but trying to play it cool. Then he stops doing
that nasty stuff, and we get to Shelby, and he drops me off
at a gas station and doesn’t say anything about it.
I have a friend who always makes fun of me about
hitchhiking and riding trains, and he always says, “Man,
you’re going to get molested one day by some weird
trucker.” As soon as I got out of the car, I called him and
said, “Guess what just happened?” He thought it was so
funny. I was fine. I came out of it unscathed.
I have to tell you the next little thing, so this can all make
sense. I’d escaped this terrible yard and the farm, I’m all
dirty and have a nasty sleeping bag. Then there was the
weirdo molester dude, and then I’m stuck in Shelby and
have to sleep under an overpass for two days waiting for
this train to come. I drew some stuff on the walls and was
working on the book but was feeling alone and bummed
out. I finally catch a train out of Shelby right around sunset,
and that night we rode into Glacier National Park. It was
windy and the sun was going down, and there were
white mountains in the distance. I climbed onto the roof
of the train and sat up there as we cruised through these
huge mountains, past giant waterfalls and the glacier,
and I was all by myself riding this huge thing. It was
probably one of the best moments of my life, watching all
that go by, with the wind in my face. It was the best
feeling and made all that other crap worth it. That’s how
trains go. You go through a ton of crap and it totally sucks,
and then the most magical thing in the world will happen,
and you’re happy you did it.
Tell me about your residency in Alaska and how that
came about.
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I wanted to do a residency, and I like the national parks, previous spread
Out In the Yard
like most people making art who tend to be socially
Ink on paper
conscious and environmentally friendly. I wanted to 2012
go to Alaska because I’d never been there. There are
eight or twelve national parks in Alaska, and I found
Katmai National Park and emailed to ask if they had an
artist residency I could apply for. The chief park ranger
at Katmai wrote back and said they didn’t, but that he’d
seen my work and thought it would be a neat thing,
so we could talk and maybe make one up. The weirdest
thing was that he’s from the same tiny town in Michigan
that I’m from, so we hit it off. He employed me as a
volunteer park ranger, so I was able to use all the park
equipment and ride in the plane and on the boats. It was
one of the best experiences.
Did you have a plan for making art while you were there?
I always aim higher than I can actually go, where my
plans are not really plausible. I was thinking I would
make twenty drawings that were fully fleshed out.
My ideas changed once I got up there. It’s in a really
mountainous part of Alaska, and it’s so beautiful that you
get choked up looking around. On day two, I realized
there was no way that I could make any artwork that
would be better than being there, or even pay homage.
I tried to focus on making work about the human
experience of being in that place.
I saw your photos. You got pretty close to some bears.
It was crazy. There’s no road to get into the park, so you
have to fly in. Right when our plane landed, the pilot
was like, “Stay in the plane! Stay in the plane! There’s a
bear on the beach.” They were just walking by. Later that
day, I was walking down to a waterfall where the bears
hang out. I’m on the trail by myself, and there was a huge
Grizzly bear walking right toward me. It was like Jurassic
Park—you were always waiting to see what would pop
out of the trees. I’d had a bear orientation where the
rangers told me what to do, and it’s not like what you
read online. People say you need a gun and bear spray,
but nobody had that stuff. If you see a bear, you just yell at
it, break branches, be really loud, and hope for the best.
You do some dangerous things.
Pat Perry

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That’s how trains go. You go through
a ton of crap and it totally sucks, and
then the most magical thing in the world
will happen, and you’re happy you did it.
Outlived II I haven’t even told you about the motorcycles yet.
Ink on paper
18" x 24"
2012 That seems mildly dangerous, relatively speaking,
but yes, let’s talk about motorcycles.
All of that stuff isn’t fueled because I’m some kind of
adrenaline junky. I do it because I want to feel wonder
and things like that. Motorcycles and trains are often
what I end up talking about, but I’m also into historic
preservation and cataloguing birds. No one asks about
that stuff. The motorcycle thing is just how I’ve grown up;
most of my friends are involved in that kind of culture.
It’s more of a social thing. I don’t know if you know about
the Creatures of the ‘Loin in San Francisco, but that all
started with vintage mopeds, and now we all seem to
have found our way to motorcycles. It’s just a bunch of
crazy kids that like to build these Frankenstein, two-stroke
mopeds that are loud and then all ride around together.
Where do you want to travel that you haven’t been yet?
I overload myself with existential life crises all the time.
I just got back to Michigan, and with all the traveling and
crazy stuff that’s happened in the past few years, part of
me really wants to make sure that I still know how to be
happy anywhere and can still find beautiful things that
are inspiring. I want to ride trains later this year, because
it’s addicting, so I want to do that down south. In June I’m
going to Barcelona to speak at an art festival, and I’ve
never been to Europe, so I might spend a couple months
traveling around there.
Your style varies a lot. Are you conscious of that, and how
do you stay flexible?
I’m always overthinking my work and what I’m going
to make next. I have friends who will remind me why
I’m doing this in the first place—to do something that
makes me happy and is satisfying. The only things that
make me want to keep working in the same style are
things that shouldn’t be my first priority, like selling work
or being identifiable. It’s fun to be challenged and try
different styles. But sometimes I think maybe my work
just looks different to me, but to everyone else it all looks
similar. I can never tell.
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Pat Perry
The vehicle might change, whether it’s painting, writing,
photography, or drawing in different styles, but it’s all
grounded in the same ideas. I haven’t even come close
to making the art that I want to make. I have such grand
pieces of art in my head that I definitely feel like I haven’t
done what I want to do yet. I’m glad people feel like my
work is worthwhile, but to me, compared to what I was
trying to do, I’ve totally failed. Whatever I’m working on
is only a stepping point, so that the next thing I make will
be even better—more magical and wonderful.
Your drawings represent thoughts and memories really
well and how thought processes are so complex.
Yeah! I feel like my mind is so cluttered all the time—
trying to juggle a bunch of things. Even though I’m
talking to you on the phone today and thinking about
Alaska and trains, in the back of my head I’m also
thinking about how I picked my sister up from hockey
practice an hour ago, and where I need to drive tonight.
People are always asking if my work is about my dreams,
and I’m like, “No! It’s about real life. Even though it seems
crazy, it’s about real life.”
In a movie about your life, who should play you?
Somebody asked me this a month ago and I was feeling
really salty about it, so I said that John Candy should play
me if he was still alive, and the movie would be called
Nod Your Head and Pretend Like You’re Listening.
But I don’t have a real answer for that. Maybe Miranda
July because I like her deadpan humor.
Have you ever used a codename?
Oh jeez. I don’t know if I should say it because there are
so many people who think this name is legit… I’ve said
that my name is Carl Reemer, the radical dreamer.
For more information about Pat Perry, visit PatPerry.net
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