Gillespie: Well, I was into it man, I would read two newspapers almost everyday and I would read Newsweek and U.S.News & World Report, you know, this was all pre-Internet you know.
Rumpus: You had to go to the library.
Gillespie: Totally. Exactly. And my dad was—and still is actually on the city council in Ralston, Nebraska, which is pretty sweet. And my voter registration is still in Nebraska, so I can vote for him every time he comes up.
Rumpus: He gives you a call to remind you.
Gillespie: Yeah, exactly, he sends me my absentee ballot.
[Laughter]Gillespie: So sometimes, I would make fun of the city council. I would go to city council meetings, and if somebody brought up that they wanted more stop signs on a certain street, and the city council voted no on it, then—if it was in front of the school—I would say something about kids getting hit by a car or something, you know? Or just whatever silly politics was happening at the time. Or then, the whole Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky thing happened when I was doing it. So, there was a lot of that. Of course I was pretty young and a little insecure as far as that subject matter went. Mostly I made McDonald’s jokes and things like that.
Rumpus: Do you remember any specific examples?
Gillespie: I do. And actually, it’s pretty timely now. It’s about the whole Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy in the military. And again you have to remember I’m, like, 11 years old; I don’t know what I’m doing. And I drew Paul Revere riding on a horse through town, screaming, “The homosexuals are coming! The homosexuals are coming!” And now, I feel horrible, about that ’cause I’m not like that. I’m not 11 anymore. And I just was thinking, oh Paul Revere. I’m a kid. Paul Revere is interesting and the military and people seem to be really upset that gay people are gonna be here, so that’s kind of what it boiled down to. And they did not publish that one.
Rumpus: I see maybe you might get a kick out of getting reaction, too.
Gillespie: When I was younger, for sure, yeah, yeah. And I guess maybe now, a lot of the drawings I make, the double-depth ones, you know, they’re pretty difficult to look at. I just had an opening last night that I didn’t get to go to in Kansas City and a pretty nice gallery. And the woman actually e-mailed me this morning and said that all night long all she got was people saying, “Oh, I can’t stand to look at those drawings.” So, well, I think people enjoyed them but–
Rumpus: How does that make you feel?
Gillespie: I don’t know, I’m pretty into the drawings. It’s weird to work so hard on things that people don’t want to look at, you know, or maybe do want to look at, but optically I think there’s some confusion.
Rumpus: Yeah. What’s your ideal relationship with the audience?
Gillespie: I just really hope they like my stuff. I think that most artists, too, are just looking for some form of acceptance or at least acknowledgment. I don’t necessarily think of the audience when I’m making my work ’cause then that would just drive me crazy, and I’ve done that in the past. And I would make—particularly in college—you make things that maybe your professor would like or fellow students. And then you get a little older and wiser and you think well that wasn’t a very good idea. What was I making back then? So you try to get away from that.
Rumpus: So, you have an opening next week at the Giant Robot Gallery here in the Haight. What do you hope to get out of something like that? I mean what’s your ideal outcome?
