Interview with James Bourne, 2005

JB - My study is focusing on the untrained artist. How untrained are you? Did you rise to the criteria of a modular system or choose to ignore it and make pieces that worked for you rather than the art schools?

DS - I have a degree in Fine Art so I am trained.I learned how to draw, etc. I just make the art that I want to make.

JB - If you had not studied at the Glasgow School of Art, and been somewhere else with differing sidelines, do you feel that you would be doing what you are now?

DS - I think that the art scene in Glasgow has contributed to my becoming an artist. If had studied somewhere else it might have been different.

JB - Have you been influenced by the work of the outsider?  I mean by outsider, somebody who has no contact with the real world.   They create for themselves, without regards for an audience.

DS - I like outsider art, but the things that really interest me are the graphics that everyone makes; maps, shopping lists, diagrams, signs. The more inept the better.

JB - When starting a piece of work, do you think about the audience, or the space your work is going to fit into.

DS - I try not to.

JB - If through reading reviews of your shows, somebody tells you that certain parts of the work are really working, do you focus on these aspects of your art?

DS - Not really. But I do listen to everything people say.

JB - I am asking these questions because the founder of art Brut, Jean Dubuffet questioned what art is, and where it comes from.   By being in society and putting your work into that world, he felt that the art that artists create was becoming less pure.

DS - That was his opinion, and I'm not sure if it is mine.    I think he has opened up more questions rather than helping to decide what makes an artist.

JB - Dubuffet was French. They have to theorize about everything.