50 Words With…Mamus

As an artist, you go by the name “Mamus.” How and why did you come up with that name?

I’ve had that nickname for a while. When a friend’s child was learning to speak, he wasn’t able to say James…thus Mamus [maym-uhs] was born. When I started showing my work I wanted to use something that sounded somewhat whimsical and more interesting than James Judd. Also, I have multiple illustrative styles that I work with. Using an alias for each helps me distinguish them and confuses the hell out of others.

Were you surprised that your pieces at TOYS were so well received? (You sold a majority of the pieces in the set.)

I’ve learned that most people tend to enjoy work with a curse word (fuck) in the title. So, I wasn’t really surprised that a room full of people drinking beer and wine liked them. What shocked me was that I sold anything considering the amount of wonderful work that was in the show.

Where did you go to school? What did you study?

I studied ceramics at Herron before dropping out a few years ago.

What is your artistic medium of choice?

Currently, I find myself using mostly polymer clay combined with found objects. There’s just something about using a material that most would cast off as a craft medium that’s interesting to me.

What’s your creative approach to developing art?

I’ll walk around thrift stores thinking up ideas for just about everything I see. It’s kind of awful, I have a massive amout of crap that I’ll never get around to completing.

What projects are you working on?

I’m working on ideas for a large scale show/installation. Probably something around 300-500 small extremely affordable sculptures enclosed in their own little world. I’ll start working on them and find a place to show it after the new year.