I met Forrest on 44th street just before 9th ave. I just loved the way he looked against the graffiti on the garage door. I photographed him and then asked a few questions.
Name: Forrest
Age: 28
Profession: Starving Artist (http://forrestgerke.com) / Bookkeeper
Nationality / Origin: American Irish & German
What is love? Love is… I don’t know that’s none of my business. (laughs) I’m still trying to figure that one out.
What about in a bigger sense, how do you define love. How do you know when you love somebody, How do you know when love is coming your way: I guess it’s when you’re willing to give something to somebody without necessarily expecting anything in return and when doing that is enough to make you happy, with that agreement, I guess that can kind of define it.
What is a time when you had that experience, either you’ve given or received knowing that nothing is expected: With my family, as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten a lot closer with my parents and I went thru a kind of difficult medical situation recently and was unsure of how to handle it and where to go and my parents were just so giving and didn’t ask anything, didn’t expect anything from me so that was something that really kind of made our relationship-well it was good at that point anyway, but it kind of propelled it even further. So that was good.
What’s your favorite thing about your family, now: My parents are pretty unconventional, in a lot of ways, they were kind of hippies, but they always keep an open mind and always try, rather than finding what’s different about people, they try to find the commonalities and I try to learn from that and use that idea in my own life.
Did they encourage you towards becoming an artist: Yeah, it was something that I always wanted to do and they were always supportive. They were pretty up front with me that it wasn’t going to be the easiest choice to make and it wouldn’t be that lucrative but they knew that it was something that was important to me and so they were always supportive.
…I work a day job, 9-5 and my evenings and weekends I try to spend as much time working on art and music. So I’m always busy, I’m never bored. I always have plenty to do.
Forrest; starving artist / bookkeeper
When did you decide to become an artist: Age 4
What did that mean to you: I started drawing pictures… I would draw for several hours a day when I was a little kid and so it was just something I enjoyed doing so much, I couldn’t imagine not doing that every day. So I guess when I was really young I knew that that’s what I loved to do.
Was there a particular kind of art that you wanted to be doing in art school: I’ve always liked to draw people and portraits, so I focussed on figure drawings and figure painting and so I think, art school exposed me to different materials and different ways of doing things and ideas, but I still kind of stuck with working with people and portraits.
What do you like about working with people: I like that if you draw a person it can go in two directions. you can either do something really specific about a time and a place and get something that’s sort of unique about one individual or if you do something that’s more like figure drawing or painting, you can kind of divorce it of any kind of time and context so you can communicate something that’s a little more universal and emotional and I like that.