16 Quotes by Shea Hembrey

Where I grew up, there was a mysticism and creativity to everything. Everyone made things with their hands.

My grandfather was a healer, and he used matches often. Once, he burnt a wart off my finger and then rubbed the ash deep into it, and it never did come back. When he worked at a factory, people would line up next to his truck to be healed. He died before he could teach us any of his secrets.

I thought, 'A biennial needs artists. I'm going to do an international biennial; I need artists from all around the world.' So what I did was I invented a hundred artists from around the world. I figured out their bios, their passions in life and their art styles, and I started making their work.

I think that an artist should be a skilled craftsman.

My childhood is more hick than I could ever possibly relate to you, and also more intellectual than you would ever expect. For instance, me and my sister, when we were little, we would compete to see who could eat the most squirrel brains.

The way I grew up, everyone knew how to cook, sew... carpentry.

For me, art is make-believe. It's enchantment. It's a fable. I'm enjoying that and playing with it. Of course it's serious, and art is serious, but I'm not going to rarefy it.

It's an audacious thing to build a model of the cosmos. It's exciting how little we know.

I imagine explaining a work of art to my grandmother in five minutes, and if I can't explain it in five minutes, then it's too obtuse or esoteric.