Louis Herring is a senior in the College of Fine Arts. He loves horror movies, chemical supplies and doodling on other peoples discarded prints. Adorned in a paint-covered apron, Herring works with print scraps, Sharpies and small cutouts of a blood-splattered Christian Bale.
Daily Lobo: Hey, what are you doing today?
Louis Herring: I’m making some art, but don’t you think someone else is doing something more important?
DL: You’re a part of the community, of course you’re important.
LH: Well, OK.
DL: So what are your paintings about?
LH: I try to combine different pieces of culture into one, like this piece has a quote from Dante’s Inferno, but it also has characters from American horror films.
DL: That’s cool. How long have you been in school? You’re a studio major, right?
LH: Yeah, I am a studio major, but I am also a staff member. And as far as the time frame for school, it has got to be close to six years. UNM allows staff eight credit hours a semester. But thankfully, I am finally done. I am graduating.
DL: Where do you work?
LH: In the chemical research lab supply department.
DL: So if I wanted to start a meth lab, you’d be the guy to go to?
LH: No, and yes, we do get that joke a lot.
DL: When you start a piece do you just start, or do you have an idea of where you’re going?
LH: Well, when I first started, you know, I would just start. But at this point I don’t touch anything really until I have a full idea of where I am going to go with it. I do these, the horror paintings and stuff. But people seem to like this art book I am making most.
DL: What is the book?
LH: Well, I have a box in the print-making lab with a note on it, asking for any and all donations. Then I take the prints and use Sharpie to make my mark on it …
See, this one was a landscape, but I realized this doesn’t want to be a landscape — this wants to be the devil eating ice cream … This one I named “Mickey Mouse on Crack.”
DL: So what do you call this book?
LH: “The Blur of Insanity!”
DL: You’re graduating soon, yeah? So what are you going to do when you’re done? Are you just going to focus on art or stay at your job, or what?
LH: I know I am not going to stop working on my art. I’ll stay here at UNM working, but I am going to make time to do art whenever I can.
DL: Cool, well thanks for taking the time.
LH: Yeah man, just don’t crucify me too bad.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
