“Creativity is the only thing I have hope for in this world – and ProjectART UBU is the vehicle for it.”
Trip Morris
This article is the first in a series of interviews with the core members of ProjectART UBU. These interviews are meant to give you an in-depth sense of who we are and why we believe so much in ProjectART UBU and the infinite creation that is the human spirit.
Question: Where were you born and what was it like growing up?
Answer: I was born and raised in New York, and by raised I mean I raised myself. I was always an outcast and my parents were never really parents. Most of my time was spent trying to fit in with others, but I found that the more I learned about myself, the less I could fit in.
So I focused more and more on myself and finding out who I was rather than being a part of this giant ocean of people who lack any form of self-awareness or authenticity. People just seemed to be constantly going through the motions of pain and suffering and drowning it all in cheap and meaningless things, just to make themselves feel good or at least be accepted.
I hated my life up until about three years ago. That was when I finally learned about my self and discovered who I was rather than who or what people told me to be. I didn’t do well in school for many reasons – I just felt like it was a waste of time and mainly focused efforts to teach conformity. I grew up in a very strict religious household, raised in a cult-like atmosphere, completely brainwashed really until I turned 12.
I had an epiphany at that point. My life was always full of very spiritual experiences, and that epiphany of self and those experiences have influenced me throughout my life. I would say that most people wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen or gone through – and at the time, I didn’t either honestly.
Question: Did that have any influence over your creative mind as you are today?
Answer: My upbringing gave me a great disdain for what people consider normal or – I guess I began to have a real distaste for how people could be so comfortable in deluding themselves and others if it meant that their “bubble” would stay intact. To me, that’s worse than fake. It’s re-enforcing a false narrative just to make yourself feel okay.
It’s a level of deceit that I feel ruins lives completely. And if someone doesn’t have that in them, that willingness or mindset to deceive in order to be accepted, they go against what everyone else around them says, and that can really make you doubt yourself.
A lot of my life has held very spiritual experiences, as I said before – things I was always told were wrong or against God because they were different than what others knew or expected or experienced. Because of that, I was told my skills and talents were wrong, they didn’t fit into that little “bubble” of those around me, and their own religious beliefs. That alone made me more outgoing and allowed me to envision sigils to multiple spiritual aspects.
Many of my works touch on this, and they always make me want to understand even more of that side of life. I use meditation techniques and lucid dreaming as one of my main outlets for my creativity and they are a very vital part of who I am and who I will become. I spent a lot of my time growing up in those spaces and I think it was almost a form of self-defense, a way to just deal with what was going on around me.
I truly believe that humans keep denying parts of this world that exist just because it’s too much to comprehend, or at least to make ‘living’ convenient for them. Once you know there are 100s of millions of different places that exist, it’s a very scary thing and I think that often pushes people to fight themselves and their own minds even more.
Question: What was the first type of creation you did, and why?
Answer: Creation, or my form of it, came to me through lucid dreams. I would see images and shapes in my mind and they slowly morphed into alchemical symbolism. I use my dreams to illustrate what I want to create and they have basically become my muse as they progress more and more into complex designs, each containing deep meaning and totems that truly need to be thought through to be fully appreciated and understood.
Question: How does creating make you feel?
Answer: At first, it was a means of communication – a language. I had this epiphany and for some reason at that point, I temporarily forgot or lost the ability to speak. It was truly terrifying. I knew the words, but it was like they didn’t exist. It’s like if you were to change or move a website to a subdomain by accident, and it all goes to that subdomain, so when you try and go back to that website – it’s just not there. The information just doesn’t exist. So, I had to draw everything that I thought. I was pretty isolated by this point, so it didn’t matter that I had to draw to communicate, but that was when art truly became my language. The entire experience, while terrifying at the time and disturbing, was rewarding in the end because I came back with a lot more than I lost.
Now, I hold no fear. I create spontaneously, and that’s how I like it. I never show a work in progress because it never looks like anything at all until it’s completed. It doesn’t resemble anything that anyone could really recognize. Often, I will create or start something and 2months later I will go back to it and within 40mins it will be exactly what it was meant to be – an image that people can relate to and see and take in.
Question: What impact do you want your creation to have and what do you think is the best way to make that impact?
Answer: I want my art to be for those people that like to stare within a work and see what the artist created – abstract, but not completely. Like a scroll that only a person of the same mind can really read. That’s not to say it’s not art that can be for everyone – it’s just that it holds so much more for those that can truly see what I’ve intended in each piece. The art I create is for people that strive for that aspect of authenticity – people who genuinely care about their true self and the truth that’s out there.
Question: Where do you see your creation going in the next year? 5 years? More?
Answer: I see the fame and the possibilities that my artwork will have – to me, it’s inevitable. Whether it takes a year or more or until I’m dead. I often refer to my style of work as being Al-chemical – a combination of abstract, surreal, and spiritual. I think that holds a benefit for so many people and with such a wide audience, I can see it truly becoming established.
Question: What is one of the most meaningful experiences you’ve ever had?
Answer: I meditated to a degree where I accessed a part of myself that never existed.
Question: How do you think that may have influenced your creative mind?
Answer: That experience fundamentally changed how I am as a person, how I think and what I believe in. I accessed an entirely new part of myself and it made me into the complete polar opposite of who I used to be.
Question: Why do you think creation is so important to today’s society and our future?
Answer: Without creativity – there is no progress. There is only stagnation and devolution. It might not show up at first or right away, but if there’s no true creativity, everything eventually crumbles. As a society, it’s all we have really. Everything starts with creativity – whether it’s from a technological standpoint or software or clothes or art/painting or talks and seminars etc. Any concept requires creativity and without it, as I said, there is no progress.
Not everyone in the world will have huge capacities for creativity, but there are always going to be a group of people that hold that influence, and without them, without those minds, there will be no progression in society or in humanity. I think there are too many people nowadays that copy others instead of leading them. Eventually, we will forget about masters like Rembrandt and Picasso. There won’t be anyone left for us to build on and all we will have is people re-iterating ideological, spoon-fed ideas over and over again.
Question: Why do you believe in ProjectART UBU?
Answer: I feel like it’s one of the last few things that can help what I think is the lack of creativity in the world today. People are just coping ideas now – rehashing and revamping – there’s nothing new. Even tech companies now have no drive, they are actually removing features to give the illusion that something is “new”. That, to me, is telling of a society that is running out of things to make. If they have no access to creatively driven people or minds, how are they going to revolutionize and innovate?
I feel ProjectART UBU is one of the few things that can remedy this crisis that people don’t even realize we are in. We are too distracted by politics and division. We have become too self-absorbed and we just aren’t leaving anything of any value for the next generation. No culture, no newness, no innovations or progress or authentic ideas.
It’s all the same. Just copy after copy. Every other generation before us has left something behind to build on. They all contributed in some way to our society. I just don’t see that in this current generation – I don’t see us giving back. All I see are people exploiting others for some superficial gain that they will never be around long enough to spend.
Question: What is your position with ProjectART UBU and how does it impact potential and current members?
Answer: I am the co-founders of ProjectART UBU – and I think that impacts people in every way. I want to give people the opportunities that I was never afforded. I want to be, truly be, for people. I feel like the only places for artists or creatives of any kind are galleries or very narrow paths – and the risk to reward ratio is too high. I think people should be recognized by their talents rather than what they are doing or where they come from.
I feel like just having galleries show things and having artists pay to show their creations is so restrictive and often very unaffordable for many true creatives. I want to connect with these people. I want to set up a designer with mad skills and connect them with a company that is looking for someone just like that and build on that until they succeed. I want to create avenues for creative minds to actually create and live by that creation and not just hold jobs they hate just to survive.
I want to give people outlets to create and be able to monetize those creations so that it’s something they can do and love doing and make a living from it. The next Einstein could be settling into being a math teacher somewhere when he could have had the chance to develop flying cars or new technology. I want to be a part of making that real for him. I want innovation and progress and truth in our creation. Honestly, just because someone can’t afford to get in on opportunities is sad and something worth fighting for.
Creativity is the only thing I have hope for in this world – and ProjectART UBU is the vehicle for it.
Question: What does authentic or authenticity mean to you?
Answer: Being who you are, who you know you where meant to be regardless of circumstance and trends around you. It’s as simple as that. People have lost that concept – everything around us, whether politics or pop culture are all conforming to something. I get that need for confirmation, but conforming has gone way past that need. I don’t think someone should be something they’re not just to satisfy people. It’s like a cycle that will never end. Just be who you are, even if you are cast out or demonized for it.
As the co-founder of ProjectART UBU, Trip Morris is looking for ways to build on a bright and creative future, bringing out the purely authentic in everyone. Keeping it Authentic.
