Aaron Pedersen

Jenny Keith-Hughes | Mixed Media
jennykeithhughes.com
 
You have a lovely house. How much of it do you use as studio space while you work?
There’s the garage outside where I build my blanks. Then there’s that room over there that I use as my studio space where I paint, pour the wax, and do all the etching and stuff. The room next to it is where I store my paintings and package them up when I do my shows.

How did you find this place?
I was living in South Korea, and I ended up picking up this dog because they were going to make him into soup. I had to walk by him on the way to work every day and I was heartbroken, so we wound up trading the owners of the restaurant an air conditioner for the dog. He was just a puppy at the time, and he was in bad shape with a broken leg and so dirty that I thought he was a little grey dog, but it turned out that he was a Rottweiler cross. Our big plan was to come home after Korea and get married and spend all the money we had saved on travelling, but we couldn’t find anybody to rent to us with a Rottweiler, because he was this monster dog. Eventually we decided that the responsible, grown-up thing to do was to use the money we saved to buy a house instead of travel so we could keep this dog.

What do you absolutely love about your studio space?
That it’s mine and I can have complete control over it. I like to surround myself with things that I think are interesting and inspiring. I’m a big nerd, so I have Star Wars toys kicking around and taxidermied insects on the walls. I also have a bunch of photos of my friends and family. I love feeling like I’m surrounded by people that I care about.

This is an old house. Does it have any tics?
The first few months that we lived here, lights would turn on randomly. The weirdest thing was that the dog we had was the friendliest dog, but when he came up to the door he dug his arms into the ground and I had to physically drag him inside, where he started crying. Then after we had been here for three months, I woke up in the middle of the night and heard this really strange sound, and I go into the bathroom and all the taps are turned on full blast. The water was coming out of the bathtub so hard that it was filling up. My husband was, like, the biggest skeptic ever and he was like, “You were sleepwalking and you did it in your sleep.” I guess maybe I did. Nothing has happened in, like, three years.

Each week for 10 weeks, SEE Magazine and Aaron Pedersen and Eugene Uhuad will be profiling a different artist. Be sure to visit the completed series at www.seemagazine.com.