It’s true, SFist has been obsessed with Swarm Gallery in Oakland lately. Their latest round of artists have been amazing, Tonight,yet another great show is opening there tonight: ARTIFICE OF FORM
Nathaniel Freeman, Josh Keyes and Andy Vogt. All three artists are rapidly gaining acclaim for their innovative and surprising art. Andy Vogt was kind enough to take the time to answer SFist’s questions below. Vogt’s art blurs the lines between painting and sculpture. So much so that as a viewer you are sometimes left wondering what it is you’re seeing. As much as we love his art, we’re not sure we’ll be roaming the Mission with him any time soon: too many dead animals!

Where is the best place to see art in the area?
Hard to pick one since they all have something different to offer. I always enjoy shows at Ampersand International Arts, Gregory Lind Gallery and Southern Exposure. Over in Oakland Swarm and Blankspace

What's your take on the art scene here?
I moved from Pittsburgh, PA to SF so the scene was immediately inspiring with so many people making work.. I hadn’t been making visual work in Pittsburgh. Now that I’ve been working for a while and paying attention San Francisco feels a little small compared to the expansive scenes like NYC and LA. That’s good and bad when you consider the pressures to ‘make it’ in those over saturated places.

Something that most people don't notice/ appreciate about your art, that they really should.
I’m really a photographer at heart... also most of the wood I use in my work is 50 to 100 years old

Where can people can see your art?
as of Sept.1st at Swarm Gallery in Oakland and Ampersand International Arts in SF and on my website.

Name
Andy Vogt

Introduce yourself in one sentence
Waste focused visualizer

Age and Occupation
Thirty...and then some
Freelance prop and model maker

Home Town
Cabin John, MD

How long have you lived in the Bay Area and Where?
7 years in Glen Park. My studio and job are the Mission and I live on the ‘outskirts’ even though its just past 30th street someone scratched “suburban frontier” in the cement near my house. Really, it was pretty much the only place I could find when I arrived here (2000) just prior to the dotcom implosion. I got the rent reduced when things cooled down and now I’m stuck below market value. Biking home is all up hill.

Favorite place to spend time online
the woodshop doesn’t have internet access

Favorite local business
Muddy Waters coffee shop on Valencia St.

What I'm currently Reading
just finished Slaughter House 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

Best Deal in San Francisco
Alhamra Indian Food on 16th – cheap, fast and near zero ambiance

Favorite mode of transportation
bike when possible.

Best Band or Musician to come out of the Bay Area
Split Huey Lewis n’the News and Melvins.... that would be a nice studio collaboration actually

Favorite Bay Area Stereotype, and whether or not you buy into it
‘we’re all a bunch of liberals’ : not true, at least not my neighbors.. Especially the cross dressing/Rush Limbaugh listening rocker who lives next door= totally conservative

Favorite local hangout
The Uptown

SF has the BEST
recycling program

You've never lived in SF until
come to appreciate all the value of warm sunny days

Favorite Bay area politician of past or present
Gonzales had it wrapped up

Now that Mayor Gavin is single, who are you going to set him up with?
someone who uses as much hair gel as he does.. That’d be a good lookin’ twosome..

You can tell someone is a local here IF
they can sense an open parking space before it appears

SF would be soooo much better if only
if only, there was a bigger BART system that ran all night

Best Fish Tacos
El Metate (Bryant/22nd street)

Best movie filmed in or about SF
Dark Passage

Favorite artist to come out of the bay area
I think Thomas Kinkade spent a few misty fantasy-filled weeks here..

Place you always tell visitors to check out
Clarion Alley Murals.. The perfect mix of piss and paint

Favorite Bridge in the area
the ’soon to be demolished’ trestle span of the Bay Bridge. It’s like driving on a train set.

You have two hours and $15 bucks to kill in SF, what are you going to do?
that’s about how much it would cost to park at a two hour parking meter downtown. That’d be fun!

I have found/sold/bought the following on craigslist
-bought: a slide projector
-donated: 3 dead flies

I want all the SFists out there to know
smuckers?

Tell us a San Francisco Story
one day near my studio (17th/Mission) I saw the dead body of a skate.. (Like a sting ray.. A winged fish). The body had been dumped in the gutter and it was big.. Like 20 inches long. The wings had been cut off and it was face up in a pool of blood. They have very human looking mouths. The next day I saw someone climbing the front of a building on mission, attempting to retrieve a 6 foot snake that had slithered out of a window. To the delight of the taqueria crowd below, the guy got the snake while hanging from the pipes on the building and yanked it free dropping it to the street where a barefoot tattooed skinhead guy caught it- and the crowd went nuts.

Question you'd ask if you were doing this interview
How long will I be able to see those kind of sights in the Mission... How long do we have till a Starbucks opens on 18th st./mission?