Mac Premo x BKc : Make Stuff

I sometimes think that I know who Mac Premo is, but then I surprised by the little-big things that you do or say. So for the record, who is Mac Premo? How would you describe him to an alien who lands on earth.

Who is Mac Premo: I am a family man: I’m a father; a husband; a son; a brother; a friend. I can’t say that I subscribe to the idea that family comes first, because I don’t really operate in a way that bifurcates family from whatever else I do. My family is who I am— in all its joy and struggle and responsibility and discovery. My family is who I come from and who I will be. The philosophy I bring to art making or work or anything really is forged in the practice of home.

My friend Hunter coined me a stuff-maker years ago. I think that also works a s an apt label. Because, you know, I make stuff. I also identify as a skater. Not because I hurl myself down sets of stairs on a wooden plank anymore… those days are far behind me. But because of how much skating shaped my worldview. Before I found skateboarding, a curb was just a curb. Once I discovered skateboarding, that curb became an opportunity, it became a vehicle of self-expression. Skating taught me to see the world completely differently, and that the potential of your surroundings can be deeply influenced by your own perspective. I think the fact that the majority of my artwork is collage based is a direct result of this shift in vantage point.

You are a carpenter, stuff maker, film maker, thinker, collagist and collaborator? How do you creatively balance all of those things?

I don’t really see those things as needing my stewardship in order to find their equilibrium. All of those actions are responses to different creative problems, and the creative problem comes with its own circumstance. The medium I express myself in is contextual, and exists in the context of its own endeavor.

I’m saying too many words. It’s like this: I often make stuff out of wood; but if I’m hungry, I make stuff out of steak. One act is me making a sculpture, the other is me making dinner. They are both the same maker, but how I make just depends on what I make.

18 years or so ago, I remember you at a crossroad of deciding to continue to pursue art or going corporate. Fast forward to today and you are a 13X Emmy award winner, with a portfolio of some serious projects. It’s clear that you chose your art—Expand on that.

The only thing in the world I can completely control and completely rely on— at the same time and all the time— is my word. I don’t talk shit and I don’t lie. It’s not hard. Look, I’m not saying I’m a bastion of virtue… I say a lot of stupid shit. But my follow through is true— good, bad, or indifferent.

Subsequently, I kind of use my word against my own self. It’s like an elaborate self-sabotage. If I say something, it begins to materialize. So going back about 18 years, I was a very new dad, and I had navigated my twenties through New York somehow avoiding undeniable art world fame. I was staring down the cost of adulthood and trying to see into the future as a partner and provider for my family. Saying out loud that maybe I had to forego art and seek financial stability through joining the corporate work world forced the concept into reality. It gave it shape and actual possibility— and because I said it, I had to truly grapple with it. I think basically I threatened myself, and I used saying it out loud to those around me to ensure it wasn’t an empty threat. I had to scare myself crooked. I guess it worked.

Besides, I’m utterly unemployable. I wouldn’t have lasted a week in a corporate situation.

Sports— We can’t talk Mac Premo and not talk about sports, baseball to be exact? Feel free to expand on that. But long distance running??!! How did that happen? Was it the mental or physical aspect of running that drew you to long distance running? Or the challenge?

I do love baseball. A lot of that has to do with my dad— we share the love of the game, from its history to its analytics to its terrible facial hair decisions. We’ve been to all but 4 of the major league stadiums together.

Baseball is also an incredible example of contradiction and inevitable anarchy. It has so many rules, such specificity, it is so finite and sometimes overly complicated in its structure— just the opposite of anarchy, yet weird stuff happens all the time. The rulebook outlines this rigid configuration; but the game as it plays out is idiosyncratic and peculiar. Even when we all wear uniforms and organize a finite ruleset, we’re still weirdos and we can’t completely control the physical world around us. And speaking of the uniforms, I mean, come on. There may be nothing more glorious than a proper vintage wool baseball jersey.

On running: I blame you.

I’m getting older. I need to keep moving because movement is life. I still skate everywhere and play on a bunch of softball teams, but I needed something that was a bit more structured and purposed. I needed something that would really impact my health and well-being. I used to say that I started running to run away from death, basically just trying to stay on this earth with my wife and kids for as long as I can. But now I feel like I’m running toward more life. Running with TeamWRK and being accepted in that running community was something I absolutely could have never anticipated. I feel very lucky to be around such a diverse crew of capabilities, yet so deeply equal in respect to each other. I talked earlier about identifying as a skater, and I will do so long after I can even walk, much less skate. But skating is not always that welcoming. Skaters can be dicks. And in a lot of ways I loved that- I loved being pushed and I relished the competition. That intensity is the fire that forges character. But in this running community I have found that the intensity of the individual is seen, encouraged, prodded and provoked relative to its own terms. Every personal record is a world record. It feels very healthy in the soul as well as the body. It’s also inspiring as hell to watch people like you, people like Ava, looking at Andres signing us up for that marathon… its tremendous to watch transformation happen.

We are here today to not only share but also talk about your capsule collection with The Brooklyn Circus. Is this the next chapter for you? And what have you learned so far from the process? What does success look like for you in a collaboration like this?

Collaborating with you on the capsule collection has been so exciting, such an enlightening experience. Is it the next chapter? I don’t know. I feel like I’m still authoring the introduction to this book. But so far this process has been deeply inspiring. It’s fascinating to watch the machinations of the business side of things. As a director, I’ve become very familiar with the way a commercial gets made, all the stuff that goes into creating that product— from the germ of an idea to being in charge of a shoot on set with 80 crew members to the minutia of editing. It’s a process with lots of roles and players and specificity— but it’s one I know. To endeavor in another realm, be part of creating a different product, but through a process with just as many moving parts and different players, has been a whole new world.

I have been to the Fashion District hundreds of times in my life. And I was always aware that this is where fashion happens, whatever it is I thought that meant. But going with you to pick out fabric and meet with tailors and talk patterns grounded my awareness into a palpable reality. My father always says ‘Everyone’s a person’. It sounds simple, like duh. But when you use that metric to measure every experience, you discover just how rich and complicated the things we take for granted are. Clothes don’t just happen. They get thought of, they get built through the cooperation of a million factors. We all know this, but to walk with the process has been exhilarating and humbling.

Success for me in this venture is more than just sales. Clothing is simultaneously very intimate and also extremely outward. It represents attention to detail and personal decisions on a very private plane, but is also the billboard of yourself as you walk down the street. I want to be part of making clothes that people can feel confident in, clothes that connect with folks on a personal level, while presenting consideration and quality that announces itself. Really my guiding light here is to partner in designing clothes that I want to wear, and finding folks with whom they resonates. It’s funny, I make ads, but I don’t distribute them, I don’t strategically place the media. With this project, I need to really seek out the folks this collection resonates with, and— if all goes well— on a large scale.

As for success, this feels more like art does to me than many of my more commercial ventures. By that I mean, when I sell a piece of art, there’s a personal connection with the person who buys that art. Hopefully I’m providing something a little more profound than just decoration. Maybe I’m entering conversation or partying in a poetry with that person. Triangulating around whatever it was that connected them to my work. With this collection, it feels like we might make something that brings folks joy