Fred Free
Boston, MA
Website
fredfree.com
Social Media
Instagram
How would you describe your work?
Spontaneous cut and paste documentation of memories and future memories displayed in a kind of orderly and random chaos infused with thoughts about love and architecture and other concrete ideas.
What inspires you?
Finding text fragments on the ground, music, large empty spaces, my childhood, my son, dreams, numbers, bar codes, hands, highways, alleys, sci-fi, mundane moments, surreal moments, contradictions, lists.
Can you speak about your process?
By putting things together that were never meant to be together, I explore materials and form and order, disorder, color, connections, coincidence, time, speed, equations, mystery, history, personal history, identity, intuition, education, preconception, rules, commodity, community, communication, language, relationships. And more. It's always different.
Every piece is like an unplanned road trip triggered by an image, idea, memory, current event or music I'm listening to at the time. Any number of things. Just no plan and no arranging or rearranging along the way. Logistically speaking, I go into the studio, usually pick out some random books or mags or found papers and a base I have on shelves and in boxes, cut out some bits that interest me that morning, put them in 4 small piles (people, things, graphics, words), pick a starting piece to place first, glue it down, find the next piece, glue that one down, repeat the process 5 or 6 times, maybe make some marks in the beginning and/or along the way and live with the results/destination.
How did you become interested in art?
It's something I've done in one form or another since I was a kid with no other interests ever on my mind. Because of that it's really impossible to know how it all began. Or maybe it started in Kindergarten when my teacher felt bad for me after receiving a Secret Santa gift of used underpants and gave me a big box or crayons to ease the sadness.
Do you have any favorite artists, movies, books, or quotes?
Because i've gone through what feels like way too many phases of creativity I tend to get inspired by certain favorites and then move on from them as I go forward and discover new possibilities and interests. But there are a few favorites from my childhood that I look fondly on as initial inspirations for my artistic journey: Archigram, Monty Python's Flying Circus, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Phantom Tollbooth, Fahrenheit 451, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, "We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams." and "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." (Willy Wonka)
What advice do you have for younger artists?
Don't take advice from older artists too seriously. You have your own voice and live in your own time. Almost everything I've done and gone through applies to me and me only. Or not.
Any more thoughts about art, creativity, or anything else you would like to share?
(remember to have fun)
