Please provide a brief run-down of your life/career so far - please feel free to include any personal anecdotes that might throw some light on what made you the way you are and drove you to do what you do today!

In the early l990's I was an unknown painter in Seattle working in the style of Morris Graves who was my favorite Pacific Northwest artist. One day I decided to write a fan letter to another artist named Von Dutch who had also been a big influence on me, but much earlier when I was a teenager. Von Dutch made cars, motorcycles, guns and knives. He had disappeared and I wanted to find him and tell him he was still my hero. I found his address and wrote to him. He wrote me back that he was dying. So I made a portrait of him in the Dutch delft style on a tile and sent it to him as a token of my respect. A group of lady china painters taught me how to do this. I liked the look of that Dutch tile portrait of Von Dutch so much I continued painting on plates. Eventually I stopped painting on canvas altogether.

You have become (in)famous for your appropriation of traditional delftware, superimposed on more contemporary and frequently provocative, subjects, from weapons and biohazards to Nazi references and 'disasterware' display plates. What is your main intention? And how do the ideas come about?

In l995 I went to Slovenia to collaborate with the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) art activist group and ended up with them in Sarajevo on the day the war ended. It became apparent to me that cultural relief can be as important as any other relief for people traumatized by war. We drove from Croatia, through many checkpoints, to present two free rock concerts in The National Theater of Sarajevo. Bosnian militiamen were guarding it. All of them were carrying Kalashnikov rifles. This is where I got the idea to make porcelain weapons. Laibach is the NSK rock band. It is also the German name for Ljubljana. The band and the other departments of the NSK collective grew out of the punk movement. They started out presenting themselves as German as a provocation to Slovenia's Socialist status quo. Anyone with a sense of style must admit that the Germans had the most elegant uniforms and best designed propaganda in WWII. I began to use Nazi tropes because NSK was using them.

How do people react to your work - is it still possible to provoke in this realm? Where would you draw the line?

People get more upset with the dead cows and stabbed bunnies I make than with the Hitler teapot or other items that reference the Third Reich. Cruelty to animals is more disturbing to many people more than cruelty to other human beings. Nazi evil is such an overused cliché. The media selects a new a "Hitler" every year. It's become an award, like an "Oscar," that is bestowed on any president or political leader America or Europe doesn't like. I would not draw the line anywhere. I believe in free speech for everyone, not in free speech just for some.

And what about the process (design and production) involved? How important are traditional skills and hands-on craft to what you do?

For me the idea is paramount. I appreciate good craftsmanship, but always in the service of an even better idea. Virtuoso painters, craftsmen and designers can impress me, but not inspire me. Obviously, very ordinary and often overlooked things like kitsch have inspired me.

Your modus operandi has been picked up by a fleet of followers, like Chinese artist Lei Xue who recently came out with a range of crushed porcelain beer cans in traditional Chinese designs. How do you feel about these epigones?

My arch rival in Europe is Antonio Riello in Italy. His "Ladies Guns" were plastic replica air guns. He made them look like designer labels - Versace, Armani, Gucci, and Chanel etc. Guns weren't so popular as art objects then so I sent him pictures of my Delft guns because I felt a kinship with this other art gun maker. The next thing I know people were telling me about some ceramic guns and bombs they saw at the Venice Biennale. These were Antonio's Italian majolica guns not mine. Of course, I was jealous that he was at the Venice Biennale and not me. But I don't care anymore. Many artists are making guns and using gun imagery because war and terrorism are a zeitgeist now. It it is good for ceramics to have conceptual artists and designers using this medium as well potters. Their input is helping break the barriers down between fine art and the crafts.

How do you finance your creations and indulgences?

I have always sold what I make in galleries, shops and now on the Internet. I don't own much except the tools of my trade - no house, no car, no wife, no children. I am certainly not rich, but because don't need another job to be an artist I am considered a success in America.

You once described yourself as "The oldest promising young artist in the Pacific Northwest" - do we detect a hint of bittersweet irony?

No, this is a joke about youth culture. I don't understand it. In the contemporary art world you are either young and famous or famous and dead. The in between years are the difficult ones for artists. The media treats everyone as celebrities, but it likes young celebrities better than old ones. I have discovered the fountain of youth. It is the word "fuck." I use it sixteen times in every sentence I speak.

And finally, where do you plan to go from here? Any exciting schemes or ideas in the pipeline?

I am not Picasso and there is no bohemia left. I will probably never have anymore bright ideas so I want to go to Romania and enter a monastery. Unfortunately, I have no faith so I must lie to get into one. I never learned how to do this so I have begun studying now with a good teacher.