WEBVTT 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:13.560 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:39.280 TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK: I grew up in a very religious family. 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:41.440 There were several ministers in my family. 00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:43.600 You know, it was a sense of community. 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:48.868 It was um filled with beautiful  stories and great music. 00:00:49.400 --> 00:00:53.080 And those stories are things  that you can just kind of 00:00:53.080 --> 00:00:56.971 take along in your pocket and  take out whenever you need them. 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:09.560 I thought I wanted to be a comic book artist, 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:13.478 but over time I became interested  in different kinds of art. 00:01:16.831 --> 00:01:21.680 But I never lost that love for that  kind of storytelling, you know, 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:28.142 this idea of superheroes and  this panel by panel narrative. 00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:36.960 I like to pick language that  has a certain kind of a cadence 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:41.320 and I like to pick words  that have double meanings. 00:01:41.320 --> 00:01:45.972 Or, if you take a letter away it’ll  be maybe even an opposite word. 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:57.585 Sometimes words explode and its  just about each individual letter. 00:02:17.205 --> 00:02:21.760 TDH: Mounds are these half  human, half plant mutants 00:02:21.760 --> 00:02:25.080 that came to life about 50,000 years ago 00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:28.881 when an ape man masturbated in a field of flowers. 00:02:30.247 --> 00:02:37.080 His human parts are co-mingling  with the plant parts and, like, 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:43.139 it’s starting to bubble and boil and  something’s about to sprout out of this mess, 00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:45.668 and that’s the Mound. 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:50.520 The story comes to me as visions. 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:52.788 After I realized what Mounds were, 00:02:53.200 --> 00:02:55.600 I had a lot of questions for myself. 00:02:55.600 --> 00:02:58.080 So, where do they come from? 00:02:58.080 --> 00:02:59.520 How tall are they? 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:01.040 Do they eat? 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:03.760 Like, just all of these types of things. 00:03:03.760 --> 00:03:11.240 And in asking the question, you can  then almost have like an epiphany 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:16.280 and from there you just keep  going and it actually snowballs. 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:20.169 And to me, that’s what the vision is all about. 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:33.533 This painting here is called “By and By” 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:38.720 and this is the last in a series of paintings 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:41.960 that are about the life and  death of Mound number one 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:44.040 and his name is The Legend. 00:03:44.040 --> 00:03:49.299 And the skeleton of Mound Number  One has been left in the forest, 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:55.000 and all of the forest animals and even  some animals that are not from the forest 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.720 have come to grieve and to pay their respects. 00:04:02.440 --> 00:04:06.680 I’ve always like the story of Noah’s Ark 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:09.200 and the idea of all of these animals that 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:13.840 put their differences aside  to coexist in this one space. 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:15.880 And that’s kind of what’s happening here. 00:04:15.880 --> 00:04:19.440 All the animals from around the  world have gathered together 00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:22.603 to pay homage to this great creature. 00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:30.285 When you see black and white or  words within paintings, it’s Loid. 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:34.040 And Loid is kind of a father type of an energy. 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:39.000 And he’s also all about kind of black and white. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:40.519 There’s no in between. 00:04:42.080 --> 00:04:48.200 Painter is a spirit energy who is  kind of a mothering type of an energy. 00:04:48.200 --> 00:04:51.120 Anytime you see colors within the paintings, 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:55.477 that’s as a result of Painter’s presence. 00:04:57.813 --> 00:05:00.149 A lot of it comes back to my mother. 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:05.320 She is Painter and she is  Loid wrapped up into one. 00:05:05.320 --> 00:05:14.640 You know, she is the smiling face of Painter,  she is the color that you get from Painter. 00:05:14.640 --> 00:05:20.200 But at the same time she was  stern when she spoke her word 00:05:20.200 --> 00:05:23.600 you had to listen, so she was also Loid. 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:30.464 Mom: A lot of his art, I think, is  what he has seen over the years, 00:05:30.840 --> 00:05:32.360 over his childhood -- 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:35.720 some of the hurtful things, I think. 00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:39.400 And then he wanted to get in  there and do something about it. 00:05:39.400 --> 00:05:43.840 And I think he has created someone to do that, 00:05:43.840 --> 00:05:46.275 and that has become his Torpedo person. 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:52.600 Torpedo Boy is kind of my alter ego. 00:05:52.600 --> 00:05:55.687 And I created him when I was, I  would say, in the fourth grade. 00:05:57.443 --> 00:05:59.960 He can fly, he can lift things. 00:05:59.960 --> 00:06:01.132 He’s a super hero. 00:06:02.736 --> 00:06:07.996 And he’s super strong, except  he has an inflated ego. 00:06:14.869 --> 00:06:18.720 Mom: I think eventually he will really find out 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:20.960 who can actually solve it all 00:06:20.960 --> 00:06:24.711 and that goes right back  to his roots and the Bible. 00:06:27.035 --> 00:06:30.480 TDH: Painter and Loid, you know,  with their son Torpedo Boy, 00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:34.320 is a lot like the Holy Trinity. 00:06:34.320 --> 00:06:39.065 God sent his son down to save the Earth. 00:06:43.640 --> 00:06:48.400 Torpedo Boy is sent to like  protect these Mound creatures 00:06:49.280 --> 00:06:56.180 and to do good things. But  Torpedo Boy is terribly flawed. 00:06:57.069 --> 00:07:00.560 And his pride and all of his other human emotions 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:03.087 get in the way of him performing his duties. 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:08.360 He looks like me. 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:09.800 He is me. 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:15.658 I even have a Torpedo Boy outfit  that I wear while I’m painting. 00:07:20.320 --> 00:07:24.000 In the show ‘It Came from the Studio Floor,’ 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.023 Torpedo Boy is the protagonist. 00:07:27.760 --> 00:07:32.480 And we are taken step by step through where he was 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:36.920 when Mound Number One was attacked and killed. 00:07:36.920 --> 00:07:38.720 So, we get to see what, you know, 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:40.000 what was the hold up, 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.947 why didn’t he make it in time  to save Mound Number One? 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:51.920 In a way the scale of the show is kind of heroic. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:56.338 Like, there’s a giant Torpedo  Boy “T” painted on the wall. 00:07:59.200 --> 00:08:03.300 But, he arose and fell all in the same show. 00:08:03.300 --> 00:08:05.508 (laughs) It’s pretty pathetic. 00:08:15.200 --> 00:08:19.920 I tend to have an entourage  with me wherever I go – 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:23.039 not necessarily people, but objects. 00:08:24.080 --> 00:08:27.960 I have a collection of grocery lists, 00:08:27.960 --> 00:08:30.480 plastic tops, amateur paintings, 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:32.270 photos I find on the ground. 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:37.880 Balloons – you can never have too many balloons. 00:08:37.880 --> 00:08:40.800 This belonged to my  grandfather, who was a butcher, 00:08:40.800 --> 00:08:46.560 and I guess he used this to  shield himself from offal 00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:51.324 and various meat juices. 00:08:52.560 --> 00:08:56.560 I don’t know, I just like to  have echoes of my family around 00:08:56.560 --> 00:08:58.725 and then they echo into the work. 00:09:01.800 --> 00:09:06.603 Even here at home, I like to  have things out all the time. 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:12.320 I’m a big toy collector and  I’ve been actively trying to 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:16.449 piece together my childhood  by finding all of those toys. 00:09:17.360 --> 00:09:21.280 It’s just an effort to reconnect with a time 00:09:21.280 --> 00:09:25.160 when I was just a little more  open and receptive to things. 00:09:25.160 --> 00:09:28.861 And its just great to have these  things around me as a reminder. 00:09:31.040 --> 00:09:34.240 It’s almost a dangerous obsession, 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:39.160 like I have to get all of the toys  since some of my toys were taken away, 00:09:39.160 --> 00:09:41.974 I have to now get all of them back. 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:45.680 I had one when I was a kid,  but it got thrown away. 00:09:49.713 --> 00:09:53.760 Monica: Some people put things  in files or folders or stacks, 00:09:53.760 --> 00:09:55.840 but he doesn’t stack, he piles. 00:09:55.840 --> 00:09:59.000 TDH: I’m getting better about  filing things because of her, 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:01.920 because she’s organized, she can do that. 00:10:03.280 --> 00:10:04.613 It’s hard. 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:13.440 Anywhere I move, these  mounds seem to move with me. 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:18.960 It's like, in my car there’s a  pile of things that’s a mound. 00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:23.360 In my studio, there’s piles  of things all over the place 00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:25.721 and that’s how I pick from these piles. 00:10:54.760 --> 00:10:57.840 What’s happening with the  pieces that are in the studio, 00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:04.906 I see those as colorful blasts of  energy or communication from Mounds, 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:07.760 these visions of hope. 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:16.259 So in a way it’s like God’s promise  with the rainbow after the flood. 00:11:27.880 --> 00:11:31.880 In my work, I feel I’m finally  being able to bring together 00:11:31.880 --> 00:11:39.653 the worlds of comic book narratives  and the history of abstraction.