Humdrum Artist Series: Elijah Moul

‘Humdrum’ is a series of profiles on twelve of Los Angeles’ finest up and coming multimedia artists, reflecting the roster of the group art show of the same name opening at des pair books in Echo Park on September 16th.

I don’t know if it needs to be said, but I’ll say it anyway: you should be at that opening. Not only because the art is good and worth finding parking, but because print is important, physical space is important, and supporting artists is important, and by attending, you knock out all three. What is a community without the people who are in it? And when they show up, where will they sit? How will they observe? And what will be their vessel? Behold, the functional sculpture work of Elijah Moul, one of Los Angeles’ most eclectic and perhaps most applicable artist. His work is rigidly comforting, and refashions objects with purpose into a new format. Well would ya look at that. Doesn’t that look comfy?

How did you get started as an artist & how has your practice evolved to where you are now?

My mom got me interested in art as a child. I remember wanting to draw a squirrel, and she started teaching me how to sketch. Art class was always one of my favorite classes in school, but I had the opportunity to play football at the college level and had to take a break from creating. I was reminded of my love for the arts when COVID ended my football career and got me back out skating with my friends. We spent all our spare time filming and editing skate videos, hosting premiers, and putting together shows.. Having this time away proved to me that if I was going to go any further in school, I wanted to focus on something more creative.

I enrolled at Otis College of Art and Design, majoring in product design and minoring in sculpture. My education provided me with two different schools of thought, a broader fine arts perspective, and a well-thought-out and planned product design mind.

When I started at Otis, I had a personal issue with all of the waste generated and the amount of raw materials, which I felt were being wasted. I have a preference for reusing and recycling materials, as well as a hard time letting things go to waste. I chose to use found materials, as well as exploring how to transform trash into new raw materials. Items such as wood scraps, fabric remnants, newspaper, cardboard, wheatpaste posters, advertisements, signage, and trash have become my materials of choice.

Fine arts taught me about found objects and intentionality. It was a challenge to translate these ideas into product design, but by my senior year, I had discovered several different waste streams that I could access and continually pull from.

How does your creative process usually start? Does a vision or motive come first or do you find the meaning/end point as you work?

I take my inspiration from my immediate community and the world in which I live, specifically West LA and the Southside of Santa Monica, where I grew up. Sometimes, just skating or driving around the neighborhood, I find things on the street, in an alley, or in the garbage. Collecting different castoff objects inspires me to see and think differently. I love experimenting, testing, and playing, which is how I discover what I like about a certain object or piece of trash. It might be the layers, transparency, strength, versatility, or illusion that attracts my attention. I try to figure out how to utilize these items or properties.

My parents and teachers have taken me to museums throughout my childhood, and I have gathered an extensive list of artists, designers, and musicians who inspire the way I think and what I create. I also like to research ideas after I have them to see if something similar has been done in the past. The vision comes first, but in the end, it is not usually the same exact vision I had when I started after I have created, edited, changed, and refined. I start with a feeling that emanates from fine arts and process that through my product design brain to create something that I believe is functional art.

Have there been any significant feelings, experiences, or themes that have influenced your work?

A strong feeling of despair that we have destroyed our earth, and we are continually making it worse. I want people to see this waste and be confronted with it. The pure amount of overstock and consumption is compounded daily. There is so much fucking trash on earth, and every day more is made. I want to find a new life for this waste, rather than allowing it to take its traditional path to the landfill.

Growing up in Santa Monica, I was indoctrinated with ideals of “reducing, reusing, and recycling”. As a teenager, I remember single-use plastic bags and plastic straws being banned. I also remember them being replaced by “reusable” plastic bags. Living near the beach, I witness firsthand the trash that ends up all over the beach from the storm drains across the city.

While I was at Otis, I saw how much waste my fellow students created that eventually got thrown away. I did not want to contribute to that. It felt like it was a natural evolution that I could use what other kids were disregarding and create my own new materials from their waste.

Los Angeles is a particularly intense and often uncomfortable place to be operating in. Do you feel like this pressure of perception and competition has affected your work or identity as an artist?

I love working in my city; this is where I feel the most comfortable. I love all the different sorts of people, whether it be ethnicity, class, or community. There are so many different groups, subgroups, genres, and cliques going on all over the city, and I am happy to belong to the groups I identify with and have the friends that I have. Whether it be hanging out with my friends I grew up with on the westside, coworkers on the east side and in the valley, or classmates in DTLA or the Southbay. I continually find more inspiration and reasons to love LA.

Sometimes it’s hard to see myself as gifted as some of the extraordinary artists or athletes who live here, but it's not something I let affect me. If I am happy with something I am doing, that’s enough for me. I think I am already my own harshest critic and bully, so everyone else is easier to deal with.

What do you feel is lacking in the modern art scene and why?

Increased visibility of artists with disabilities, I think the ECF Art Centers around Los Angeles and the Tierra del Sol gallery are awesome. I enjoy seeing the art that is being created in these places, as it feels so free and pure to me, definitely deserving of a wider audience.

I think that people care too much about other people's opinions and perceptions of their work. That fear of judgment holds many people back, myself included. I think there is a lack of creators who are making work for fun or out of experimentation. I can fall victim to this self-consciousness as well, but I think there is a feeling of inescapable failure and the stress of an overall ideal attitude out there that can be overwhelming.

I enjoy all kinds of street art, especially the creations you see next to a homeless encampment or at a bus stop where someone is just freely letting it go and drawing, scratching, scribbling, or whatever they feel. It would be awesome if this kinda stuff was memorialized like a Banksy, but I do love palimpsest, so keep it going.

What role does technology play in your practice and how might that change over time?

Technology is a tool I have utilized in the creation of some of my projects, but it is not something I rely on. Technology usually comes into play after I have had an idea. Sometimes I use it to mock up ideas or to see them digitally in 3d, but it all starts with trying to sketch the ideas I see in my head first.

While in school, I was encouraged to use and incorporate technology, but I am becoming more concerned and interested in physical techniques and analog work. One project that I created using CNC woodcutting scrap pieces started on paper and moved to the physical world when I collected all of the scrap pieces I was going to use. Then it moved into 3d modeling programs like Rhino and Solidworks, where I traced all of the scrap pieces I had collected. I recreated each scrap on the computer to figure out the best orientation for the pieces, as well as where they would be joined together or are lap-jointed. I took my plans from the computer and executed them in the wood shop.

I feel like technology will continue to be a part of my practice, but may fade as I am not required to provide digital assets, which was required of me when I was in school.

Do you believe your work belongs to you or the viewer?

The work belongs to me until I give it away. The work doesn’t exist without me, but it also doesn’t exist without the viewer or the outside world. Most of my source materials and ideas come from the outside world, but my work doesn’t exist without my intervention and articulation.

At what point do you believe a piece of work is ‘finished’?

I believe that my knowing and deciding when a piece of work is done is what lets me call myself an “artist”. It always changes for me with each work or medium, but I feel like projects move through processes of ideation, testing, realizations, refinements, and finishing. The finishing can be sanding, oiling, painting, positioning, or even photographing. Even after all of that, the idea may not be finished as new iterations will be made and or tested out. For me, a piece is officially finished when I decide to share it publicly.