My dad was an auto mechanic, he probably had a ninth grade, tenth grade education; my mother was a bank teller. So that kind of working-class background dictates the way I look at things. A lot of people think I work in this kind of factory mentality, making pieces of parts. I don't see my art as embracing that way of “assembly.” I see it as a problem-solving way of assembly. But yes, I’m rooted in a Midwestern thing, people always working. I feel guilty when I come to school, if I don’t put in a solid eight, I can’t go home. In the Midwest, as a factory worker, you had to make something out of nothing. You go in a place and eight hours later, you got some shit to look at. It’s not like these financial cats, you go into a place and you look at spreadsheets, there’s nothing tangible. But to go in, see a product, and feel a thing. I think it’s a different kind of mentality. Because the results are right in front of you. Either the results are right in front of you or they’re on your pants. Because you have dirt, grease, and grime on your ass. I remember people would say, “I go home not to wash the dirt off me, but to sash the work off me.” They’d say, “I still got my job on me.” That’s why I like art because you can see what you’ve done or hear what you’ve done.
Kevin Jerome Everson
