Featured Artist

The PoorArts.com Interview

PoorArts.com: Chris, you're a guy that wears many hats: acting, writing, directing, producing. I find that most people play a lot of extra parts out of necessity. What brought you across the line from an actor to a producer?

Chris Mollica: Restlessness. That's the simple answer. I'm like a shark. If I stop, I die. I had been in the city for about 4 months with no work and was getting a severe itch. So, a good friend and I had a conversation about the original Poor Arts twice (I also have the memory of a goldfish) and the rest is...well, in progress. On the other hand, it was also a want to get the projects and work that I love of other artists and my own out in front of the world. I've never been one satisfied by working in a vacuum. Art is to be shared. Thus, we share.

PA: You've also recently relocated to the West Coast. As obvious as this may sound, I'd like to know how the art scene in L.A. differs from the New York world?

CM: New York is more collaborative on all levels. In Los Angeles, it seems only once you have some sort of pull or project prepared to go do people want to jump on. In NY, there's the sense of "let's get a barn and put up a show." It's an amazing go for broke attitude that makes that city so great. Here, we're just broke.

PA: We've recently put up the trailer of your film "The Market," which is a departure for the site. What of your artistic sensibility did you bring to a documentary? What creative elements do you bring to real life?

CM: That's a tough one. I guess for both my answer would be "the moment." Always be in the moment. Right now is life. The guys down at South Street enjoyed what they were doing. They didn't think of themselves as a part of history, just guys doing their job. They'd laugh, joke, pull pranks on each other. They enjoyed what they were doing. I wanted to capture that, listen to what they wanted to say about their experience and the move as opposed to what I wanted to convey about it. I try to take that into every day. Always look to learn. Don't assume you know everything. It's tough. Especially when ipods are blaring 24/7.

PA: We've talked before about the relative freedom of artists at the absolute top and absolute bottom of the food-chain. But how can you exist in the middle? Where is the artist in the middle-class working world?

CM: In a closet apartment, eating a lot of easy mac and wondering why they chose this life. I guess it's really about understanding what you want to do, meaning what feeds your soul and what you feel detracts from it. I try my best to balance jobs I feel alright in with the free time to pursue my loves, therefore I remain a very low income man. Classes, meeting with similar minded friends to keep the artistic blood flowing. It's a different way for each I believe. It's tough trying to establish the line where you say enough is enough in terms of doing your craft for free. For me, this means a great deal of breathing and realizing that all great things take time and

effort. And I also lie to myself and say that looking back, these will be the best years of my life.

PA: Collaboration is certainly a theme of ours lately. In your collaborative experience, what is the most frustrating element, and what is the most satisfying?

CM: The other people and the other people. I've been lucky and most of the people I get to work with are really talented and what they bring to a project, their perspective, is priceless. You learn so much in a collaboration, if you're open and willing. At the same

time, the arguments, getting to the place where the two minds meet, can often be upsetting and stressful, but as a very good friend once told me, "If we agreed all the time, why would we need each other?"