My memory is fuzzy as to how Vanessa Prager first came to my attention, but I fell in love with her work immediately. A co-editor had hired her to illustrate a section of short stories in the pages of Flaunt, and I remember thinking how beautifully she captured not only the essence of each story, but the moods as well. Her pieces were done in blue and red pen, over vintage sheet music paper. When I started to see Prager's name pop up in shows around town, I realized that she was more than an illustrator, but she used illustration as a medium. When I dug even deeper, I realized that Prager is the rare artist who welcomes challenges and thrives on collaboration. I was supposed to meet up with Prager, as she is L.A.-based, but by the time our schedules co-ordinated, she'd already left town for her first solo show, at Jenkins Johnson Gallery in San Francisco. So, we made due on the phone. Prager's show, The Moon is Down, is open from May 10th through June 30th, 2012.

You’re in San Francisco right now?
Yep. I just got here.

Did you fly?
No, I drove. I left yesterday. I went up the 1, and I stayed in Carmel. It was the weirdest hotel ever. Have you ever heard of this place that Doris Day started, with the dogs? It’s really kitschy and awesome, and a ton of old people stay there. It’s so much better than the W. Doris Day founded this place. There are pictures of her everywhere. It’s filled with her movie posters. And dogs run rampant.  They sit at the bar; I mean, it’s crazy. There are so many dogs there.

Tell me a little bit about the show. This is the first time you are showing with them?
Yep, first time I am showing with them.  First solo show, first show in SF. A lot of firsts.

Do you feel nervous?
I wouldn’t say I am nervous, because I have been doing the show thing for so long. It always comes with some nervousness, but you get into it, and you cant stop at a certain point, and it is that way until the end. And then you are nervous after the fact.  I don’t know, I guess I feel nervous. But I’m too busy to feel that nervous.

How did you know what kinds of things you wanted in the show? And did you have a period of time where you were trying to finish a lot of stuff just to have it all in the show?
Well, yeah. But I only wanted really good work. That was my guideline for this show in particular. For this show I was going back to my roots as a painter. Which sounds weird because I haven’t been painting for that long. But I started with hyperrealism to learn how to paint when I was teaching myself. Technical perfection was not at the top of the list. And now I feel like I am trying to incorporate both. I want it to be well painted, and also be of a dreamlike quality. So, I put a lot of emphasis on that. There are 23 pieces in the show. It’s paintings and drawings.

I was looking at them, and you said that there is this surreal, dreamlike, almost fairy-tale quality to it. Where does that come from?
I try to give it dreamlike quality, but make it really real to somebody at the same time, to the point where they are like, ‘That could be happening right now. That feels a little right and a little wrong at once.’ Everyone has that quality. Everyone has dreams; they have imagination. People walk down the street, and they see one thing, and then they see how it could be. And I try to play on the idea of utilizing your imagination in a way that I think people can relate to, instead of making it so out there that it’s surreal.

Are they actually from dreams?
Not from when I am sleeping. I have a really rampant imagination, almost childlike. So, it kind of goes along with that idea, where you know it’s not real, but it’s kind of a dream at the same time.

Some of your work has almost a sinister feel. It seems to be like there is something that’s about to happen or just happened. It kind of reminds me of a Gregory Crewdson photo. Do you feel like your work has a darkness to it?
For sure, but I feel like it’s only seen by people who can relate to that, and that’s what I like about that. Everyone has a dark side, and it’s not a bad thing. I feel like that’s what makes up the best things, is the dark and light all at once, and I think a lot of people that I know feel the same way. Everything’s not perfect, you know? And yeah, there is a lot going on behind the surfaces, and I think that if you actually look at it, then everyone knows that. Things are not what they seem. I utilize that.

Do you often look behind the surfaces?
Yes. You meet someone, and then you try to see what’s actually going on. I think that’s more real.

There is also an inherent prettiness to your work. There’s like sort of a William Eggleston feel to some of the paintings. Does photography play a big role in your work?
It definitely does. I use a lot of old vintage photos for inspiration, from the ’40s and ’50s, because I like how everything is blown out. I like the real elements. I call on photography, because that’s the most real. I don’t reference specific photos anymore, or draw from photographs, but it’s part of my inspiration. That whole time of Americana captures really well with photography.

I imagine that you are an analogue person, like you like olden times, and that you are also feeling like the ’30s and the ’40s were an ideal period. Do you research those periods for your work? Do you wish that you could have experienced that time?
Yeah, kind of. I don’t sit around researching it too much, but I do call on a lot of that time period because I am drawn to the classic and timeless feel of it, with the hair, and the clothes, and the way people were. Not like it was all perfect, but everything about that time is very intriguing to me. I don’t sit around doing in-depth research, immersing myself in the past either, because I think that wouldn’t make my art ‘of this time.’ I just use it for inspiration.
     I also think it’s nice, because it’s something to start from, aesthetically, and then I can go from there. And it’s something that people can relate to, and if you go from that, and then add a super intense color or a fantastical element to a picture, it just seems a lot easier for people to understand. If the subjects have their hair done up in a ’30s do, or they are wearing like a nice suit—I just think it works.

You use a ballpoint pen, and it instills your work with this blue gauzy haze, and then you also use a red ballpoint pen. What attracts you to certain colors?
I just think they are so great. I only use blue and red ballpoint pens, and the blue is cold and can be the darkness of the picture, and the red is the warmth and the lightness of the picture. Sometimes it’s best to work color and light down into bare elements. When you get into oil painting, you can go just nuts with color combos. The ballpoints are kind of like black and white, but not. I am obsessed with intense color. The most color I can get out of those blues and reds is ideal.

Let’s take a step back: what was your art training, and then how did your specific style evolve out of that?
I never went to art school. I started drawing when I was 16, with a pencil. At 19, I started oil painting, because that’s what I wanted to do. I just started messing around, but I wanted to learn and be technically good. So I did that for a couple years until it was easier. But it was hard to put what was in my head down with oil painting, because it’s frustrating until you know your medium. The ballpoint pen opened the door for me, because it was so fast, because you can get something from your head down on paper in a matter of hours. With oil painting, it takes a lot longer. I never even liked pencil and paper; it was just so boring to me. But with pen, I really liked how intense you could get the colors. I really liked that you couldn’t erase it; you had to really work with what you had.

It’s really interesting to me that you are self-taught. It’s pretty brave.
Or naïve.

But you had to have a certain trust in your ability to figure your career out. And I am wondering why you decided that you didn’t want to go to school. Was that a specific choice?
It wasn’t. I finished high school, and I was in L.A., just doing my thing, and I didn’t ever think about it. We’re not a rich family at all—I never really had anything set up for me, so it didn’t even cross my mind. Also, I didn’t really think it through. I just started doing art, and I realized I wasn’t going to work a normal job so it just evolved. It was never really ‘decisions.’ I mean, it was, but little ones along the way. I started having shows immediately, and at that point I realized that being out in the world and showing my work was way more valuable to me than learning how to do it.

By the time you were 19, you were like, ‘I am going to figure out how to be an artist.’  Did you even really know what an artist was?
Not really.

Showing at a gallery is so confusing and complicated.
Totally. I knew none of that. If I actually knew, I might not have done it. It’s so over-bearing, and it’s such a closed off world. I didn’t know what I was getting into at all. But I think that’s why it worked.

I appreciate that. Because you are self-taught, and you didn’t meet all these art school kids who have different kinds of aspirations—that just want a show and such and such gallery, art career-driven students—you do a whole broad range of things, and you don’t limit yourself in certain collaborations and media.
I always want my art to be immersed in people and life and stuff. I feel like the art world can get a little disconnected. I realized that as I was going along. I always sold to my own collectors, and did my own shows, and did collaborations, and all these random things, and I always want it to be that way.

Take the store windows. What does that mean to you, artistically?

It’s fun.

Would you say it’s also a way to realize a different side of your work? It’s almost an installation, and since you’re self-taught, it’s like practicing installation for you in a weird way.
Totally. I did a few of those, and then I did some installations at shows, and I mean I learned so much doing every single project.

I don’t know that many artists that take your route. Are you attracted to, or see a lot of artists who have a similar route that you took?
I don’t know any. It’s not quite the same, but I know people who are doing independent films. I can tell someone doing it for the right reasons. And art as a word would embody that concept, because artists are supposed to be forward thinking. And making new ways to do things. I think that should be in their blood, and I think that’s often forgotten.

When you did illustrative works with Flaunt, it was something that correlated to fiction. I wanted to ask if your work already has some sort of narrative or story.
Yeah, they do. But in an ‘alternate world’ kind of way. It’s all connected, and they all live in the same place. If somebody sat down with me and wanted to go over it, I am sure we could find some stories, but it’s just pieces. Things will flash, but it’s more like an alternate world that I am continuously adding to.

Is the imagination an alternate world, where you like pick out tiny little pieces of and try to communicate them?
Yeah, and it’s not really easily put into words. That’s why I work with pictures: it’s more about feelings and ideas. It is imagination’s way of getting out and being interactive with other people and the world.

So, can you tell me about the “Try” piece? It seems to be so core to your work. It’s the one the gallery is putting out there on the show invitation. Is this a piece that you feel very closely to?

Not more so that others. Sometimes some of the pieces will have more meaning to me or something for various reasons. “Try” is one I like a lot, but I think it’s really personal and subjective for people. Sometimes they just reach more people and I think that one, more people can relate to it. I do think they have lives of their own.

What happens after the show at Jenkins Johnson?
I’m doing an L.A. show, but I don’t have things finalized. That’s in the winter. I’m showing in a group show right now at New Image Art Gallery.