10 Questions with Mark Lee Webb

Mark Lee Webb received his MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. His photographs have been included in several juried exhibitions including WideOpen (Athens, OH), used on the covers of several university journals such as The Penn Review, and exhibited with the Louisville Photo Biennial. Here he answers 10 Questions with us...

1. Outside of art, what hobbies do you have or how do you like to spend your free time?

I am a jazz drummer, and currently I’m playing with The Upbeats Jazz Combo at The Black Rabbit in St Matthews. I’m also working on a set of three short plays all exploring the concept of exits - each with different manifestations and interpretations of what an exit is, or the motivation behind an exit.

     

2. What do you like to listen to while working in your studio?

Grant Green playing guitar.

3. Do you collect anything?

I’ll admit it’s pretty nerdy, but I collect fountain pens. And not just any fountain pens. I like the pens with clear bodies so I can see color of the ink.

4. What was your first job?

My first and my worst job was working at a metal warehouse. In high school during the summers I worked at a metal brokerage in LA. I was a warehouse laborer. No air conditioning hot as blazes. Using ketone and acetone to remove stencil lettering from huge pieces of metal. Then, after taking the metal for heat treatment, re-stenciling with new specs.

5. What is at the top of your bucket list?

Visiting Australia. Traveling into The Outback, and also snorkeling The Great Barrrier Reef.

6. What is your most irrational fear? 

Heights. Whether climbing a ladder up 10 feet to my roof or driving over the bridge at Annapolis crossing Chesapeake Bay. Heck, watching a movie and somebody in the movie is standing on the edge of a cliff or building it doesn’t matter I still get a weird uncontrollable feeling in my legs and my body becomes tense with fear.

7. If you could have one superhero power, what would it be?

To fly. Of course, I’d have to overcome of my fear of heights, but yeah I’d like to be able to fly.

8. What would be the title of your memoir?

I actually wrote my memoir in a set of poems, the manuscript subsequently published as a full-length book by Accents Publishing, “It’s Not Easy Being a Moth”. It’s easy to be a butterfly; everybody likes butterflies they’re prettier than moths. They appear more graceful. Moths seem rather dull by comparison. Awkward. I consider myself a moth. A little bit dull. Awkward. Often an outsider.

9. If you could instantly live anywhere else in the world, where would it be and why? 

Cloverdale, in Northern California. I grew up in California, in a place that at the time was a little horse ranch town just outside LA. There was a hitching post at the post office, and people used to ride their horses to Saturday afternoon football games and sit on a hill overlooking the field while the horses grazed. The smell of sage in the morning would permeate the air. That’s all gone; the town is now quite populated the horses are gone replaced by office condos shopping centers and parking lots. There’s no more sage. But Cloverdale still has the same feel and ambiance of that old California. You can catch the smell of sage on the wind in the morning. And every now and then you might see a horse and rider on the top of a hill.

10. What do you think your life soundtrack would sound like? “The Planets”, by Gustav Holst. Some people might say I’m Mars, Bringer of War. My Mom and Dad would have said I’m Neptune, the Mystic. I think at this stage of my life I’m more Saturn, Bringer of Old Age.