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Tony Ward

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
in Other Males of Interest

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someone is in a Tony Ward mood. lolllllllllllllll

might ahve to ake a vid of him for a certain bff if she wants it that is

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    NameAnthony Borden WardDate of Birth June 10, 1963 Height180cm/5'10"Shoe Size42.5 EU/10.5 US/9.5 UKHair colorBrownEye colorHazelSuit40 regularWaist 32 HoroscopeGemini

    • Born to Robert Borden Ward, from Kansas, and Karen Elizabeth Castro, who grew up in Northern California
    • born in Santa Cruz, CA and grew up in San Jose, CA
    • Model career began 1981
    • has three children together with Shinobu Sato Ward: Tora (Tiger) Dali Sato Ward, Lilli Tatsu (Dragon) Sato Ward and Ruby Love Sato Ward (Sato means sugar in Japanese)
    • Model, Actor, Artist, Photographer, Designer, Painter, Writer, Producer, Director
    • Lives in L.A.
    • has 26 tattoos

    AAbove MMaenner Aktuell Advocat Malepak And Men Max Arena Mao Attitude Men´s Look Magazine Axxess ModaBBlink Mondo Uomo Blitz MR H Japan Brutus N(not only) BLUE Butt OOutCCitizen K Outrage Colt PPer Lui Crush PlayboyDDazed and Confused Posi+Tive Detour RRolling Stone Details Riders Diva Russh Du+Ich SSqueezeEEdge Schön! Ego Slurp Esquire Japan Spoon Esquire UK Stern Exercise TTelegraph UKFFaces Ten FHM The Dictionary Filler The Face Frieze The Undergear Catalog Front Tokion Flaunt VVeniceGGenre Vogue Geil VMan Glamour WW FASHION Tokyo Globe WAD GQ WienerHHarper´s Bazaar Hercules Ii-D Inked In Style In Touch International Male IO Donna KKing Italy King Sweden LLA Style

    AAG Jeans IIceberg AllSaints JJavaanse Jongens Alternative Apparel J. Lindeberg Armand Basi Justin Davis Aubin and Wills KKappAhlBBacardi Rum LLevi´s Baldessarini La Maison Simons Bailey Hat MMustang Belvedere Vodka NNK Blue System Noir JewelryCCalvin Klein Nordstrom Camel OOdyn Vovk Cavalli Perfum Otto Cinque PPalmers Citizens Of Humanity Parasuco Chanel SSelected Code Bleu Sky VodkaDDewars Whisky Six In The Face DeLeón Tequila Sisley Desigual VVolvo Dolce et Gabbana WWrangler Diesel ZZylosEEluxury FFendi GGuess HHause of Howe H.I.S. H & M

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    2009 SeptemberFILLER Online Magazine, The First Issue Photography by NOAH SCHUTZinterview

    While Tony Ward and Daniel Louis Rivas were waiting for their independent film, One Lucky S.O.B., to get green lit, they started investigating other creative avenues. Daniel, a painter for many years, knew Tony had been keenly involved in art and photography, so he arranged for them to have a show.

    “We just decided that we have a good time hanging and laughing and contriving the next fiasco,” says Tony. “It only seemed right that we stop wasting precious seconds of our lives and make some paintings, make some money, make some new friends, and live fucking life like true artists … loudly!”

    Herewith is an artistic conversation of loud proportions:

    How has the experience of painting helped you make any sense of life?

    DANIEL: I try and stay in the moment. It’s the connection in all things living & non-living that makes up the vaults in our mind. You don’t want to hold on to the perfect moment forever. It’s letting it go that gives this its real value. We are just documenting the experience of existence. We were here, trust me.

    TONY: Doing these paintings is like a swift kick in the balls that sucks your breath away. I am a mad person when I paint, when I create. I want to shove my cock into LIFE and fuck the daylights out of it and serve it up on a tray for the world to gaze upon!

    Uhh, okay. What were the challenges of collaborating on this project and sharing a single canvas?

    DANIEL: No unique minds are similar. The more we disagree and see each other’s point of view, the longer we can maintain our creativity together. The harder it, is the longer we can sustain the freshness of the always-changing world.

    TONY: Danny is faster than me at doing his thing. I am much slower and have to meditate and find the images in my mind, and then I am so damn anal about my technical and how I will achieve a specific image in my mind onto the canvas. I was never schooled for painting so every time I step to the canvas I am giving myself a great challenge, like realistic cadaver parts, reptiles, or, of late, a giant Dodo bird.

    DANIEL: Painting on a canvas is a moment and passing feeling that you have to act on, or it forever vanishes. I am an action painter.

    TONY: We are two totally different humans. He uses mainly one brush, his favourite, I need many, and have lots, and I am always complaining I need more. He jerks off fast, I jerk it slowly, methodically. He attacks the canvas, I stare at it, stare it down hard!

    You got to paint over one another’s work. How did you handle the emotions?

    DANIEL: That’s when the ego has to take a backseat to creation and revelation. At first, it was frustrating, but I’ve learned to accept and trust this experiment of ours will reveal more truth in the end. I pace a lot when it’s Tony’s turn at the canvas, or I take a nap, and hold my breath and pray for the best.

    TONY: I got over it, especially because it’s mostly me doing the over-painting and him pacing around behind me. Now, I just don’t give a shit. I think it shifted to “what-the-fuck-ever!” when Danny varnished over one of the paintings I particularly loved with a dirty brush and fucked the motherfucking painting up. That has become a part of the art now.

    DANIEL: Sometimes it’s like birth or rebirth, and sometimes it’s like going to the dentist. But having the dentist be a really rad, hot chick with double D’s and thick extraterrestrial lips.

    You definitely have some distinct approaches to the canvas.

    DANIEL: I am trying to shed the lizard skin and become the man I was meant to be, putting the pain back in painting.

    TONY: Everything kind of disappears when I paint—just a brush, colour, and sweat dripping down my forehead into my eyes. I want to believe I can do anything; as a matter of fact, I know there is nothing creative that I cannot do. I just have to wrap my mind around it and step to it!

    Is the collaboration why your paintings often explore the notion of identity?

    TONY: Identity is liquid, gaseous, vapour trails, it’s perfect like that. Like a smelly wet fart! If I am trying to say anything in my art, it’s STOP with the identity thing, it’s killing you! I don’t self ID, I think it is crippling and self hatred. I LOVE MY QUANTUM REALITY!

    Are the masks in your paintings another form of identity?

    DANIEL: The masks represent our transitions from what the world labels us to what we really are at the core. What you think of me is not really what I am. Are feelings facts or fleeting ego? I’ve always been obsessed with masks from every region & time period. Aztec masks, African masks. The everyday masks we wear to get through this experience. The world is trying to kill us. The cigarette companies, the alcohol companies, the fast food companies. Where do we draw the line and just be us in a world of ignorance? Is the mask permanently glued on our faces? That’s why we titled a painting, and called our last New York show, “Is That Your Real Meat Face?”

    TONY: Everybody mentions masks. They are not masks! I reveal what is under masks!!!

    How has this project unmasked the relationship between the two of you?

    DANIEL: It has made us more in tune with what the other is going through at the present moment. Being an artist, actor, model, hooker, waitress, it’s all time. Tony and I are hustling and trying to have fun, feed our families, staying one step ahead of the landlord and the law and surviving the best we can.

    Moonlighting is a part of the hustling game, do you consider yourselves more artists now than actors or models?

    DANIEL: I think any good, interesting actor is an artist and writer regardless. When you hire me for your movie or your TV show, you get a perspective, a point of view. I live my life with a box of colours that I drag from mystery to mystery. I’ve never been straight off the bus from the mid-west. I am not an L.A. fuck doll.

    TONY: Fuck all that model and actor bullshit!!! It’s a monkey’s job, and it’s getting to be just as glamorous as working at Der Wienerschnitzel.

    I was born an artist, I just had to give myself permission to go for it. I have lots to do while I’m still sucking air, and I’d like to leave some hot form of legacy for my children. I look at living life as an art form— it’s not just the obvious, “Hey this is my art thingy!” I am an artist in every minute of my existence. I could be painting, making clothes, gardening, cooking, acting, sexing, taking a crap, whatever. I am an artist.

    A crap, huh? Well, speaking more figuratively, what does the creative process drives out of you?

    DANIEL: The hilarity of heartbreak. Travelling around the world making movies. In love, in hate, awake or asleep. With money and without money. How come I’ve always been so fucking weird? Figuring out what I am going to do with the rest of my life. The demons! The hope and the regret.

    TONY: Vomitous layers of gut, bile and plaque! I believe in the exorcism of the creative process, especially while painting. I’ve gotten so worked up I have cried while painting, jerked off—not on my painting—sang, laughed … Really, the best is the shit it drives out of my head!!!

    Once it’s all driven out and it’s there on the canvas, what do you see as being beautiful in both your art and art in genreral?

    DANIEL: I think beauty is a feeling. I find beauty in the action of the moments, movements, and the attack on the canvas. Have you ever been punched really hard in the face? The first thing you see is what’s most absurdly beautiful.

    TONY: Beauty is when someone is screaming their feelings out in the art. I just know beauty when I feel it!

    Last question, what do you hope your audience takes away from viewing your collection?

    TONY: I hope it inspires you all to speak, loudly, your mind. Whenever, wherever, and to stir up the muck!!! PEACE, YOU HOT FUCKERS!!!

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    2010 June JulyRUSSH Magazine AustraliaBUNNY AIN´T NO KIND OF RIDER!

    Ieva Laguna and Tony Ward

    Photography by Will Davidson

    Tony Ward hit the world stage in his smalls in 1983 for Calvin Klein. Ward – Madonna’s former beau and one of the many between the sheets of her infamous Sex book – has since worked with the likes of Herb Ritts, Karl Lagerfeld and Steven Meisel. With his own name – Mr Ward – inked on his chest (in a heart, close to the heart and kept company by 21 other tatts), he now adds RUSSH to his long list of conquests.

    I was spotted at...

    Trixx – bein’ a tramp, no doubt. But, if you mean when I was discovered to be an objet d’art, well, I was failingly attending to my higher learning at West Valley College in Saratoga when a sweet pervey history teacher named Joe House spotted my tight nubile freshness and proceeded to run the game down to me. The you-are-amazingly-beautiful-and-have-you-ever-considered-being-a-model deal. I asked, with a stupid wry smile, “What the hell is that?” He said, “I think your could be a STAR”. I said, “Uuuuuuhhhh, what? OK!”

    I never thought I...

    Would be President of the United States. Never had a desire to, actually.

    First impressions are...

    Often really fucked and they should never be trusted!

    To unwind after a hard day’s work I like to...

    Pinch myself and try to wake up from the hilarious tragicomedy of su-reality.

    Right now, I’m listening to...

    The Patient by TOOL on the album Lateralus.

    I couldn’t live without...

    My children: Tora, Lilli and Ruby.

    The last movie I watched was…

    That was any good!? Ong Bak 2. Tony Jaa could crack the world in half with his knees, elbows and shins!

    The last book I read was...

    Poems by Billy Childish.

    My biggest indulgence in life is...

    Taking self portraits.

    One of my favourite jobs so far has been...

    Laying Keystone tiles in the Florida Keys while I was on a seven-month drug rehab vacation.

    I always wanted to...

    Be a primo ballerino!

    The best advice I was ever given was...

    Don’t get a nose job!

    My biggest regret is...

    That I don’t have any.

    My career highlight is...

    Coming – my photographic autobiography.

    If I could drive anything on the road, it’d be...

    My beat-down 91 Honda Accord … after I drop a jet engine in it!

    On the weekend, you’ll find me...

    I hope NOT!

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    2010 MarchInterview published by VIVA Models Berlin

    IT FEELS LIKE SUCH A POSE

    A conversation between Tony Ward and John Dine at Kaffee Burger (Berlin) the other day… Photography by John Dine

    We’ve been at Kaffee Burger – Cafe Burger? Uh, no… is this the one the one at that white trash place? No no no no it’s on the corner of White Trash, an old location that still looks like 30’s Oh with the bar Yeah yeah! with this bar, it’s –Oh, that’s really nice well I had a, um a meeting with Magnus Reed, he’s a photographer ok a British photographer who lives here what’s his – Magnus Reed, he’s kind of a big deal, he’s a really good guy, and we’ve kind of been talking about getting something going with branding (music) …getting a small collection

    Are you – I’m not a designer ok (laughter) you have a collection. I have these, about 120 pieces, t-shirts and and they’re all hand-made. I did all this stuff, it’s all hand-made, it’s leather and different things (cat meows) silk and other stuff, I was – fur – and I was getting into destroying clothes right when destroying clothes was kind of over. So, yeah. I sent it all over to Japan, to Junya Watanabe. He’s the designer – or was. Then I got a part in a film and I took off for a while. It took months to shoot it. I shot for two months with the crew, and then I had to wait to shoot my death scene.

    So it was trying to figure out– 8 months? 8 months, just for the, just for the shooting, so, yeah. And I went back afterwards – so, actually everything that I have, is like, a sample – and when I got back, – when I decided to start these drawings, jackets from the 1800s, very tailored suits, it was, a complete change. What are you, uh, what are you going to call– My company’s called Six In The Face yuh, but but I haven’t decided. That seems like the most exciting part. The – ? – finding the, I mean maybe it’s the M R – M.R.W. Things that you want to wear Only. Only. And only one collection – one time out and try to get it photographed. Already – I was obsessing for a year and a half and it fucking made me nuts cause L.A. was not the place to do it. At all. So does it have to be Europe? Well I would imagine, yeah. Do you have anyone in mind? That’s what I mean. At the time – and that’s where Magnus comes in – I’ll come up with my top 20 feelings about who I’d like to do it with. I get the feeling that what I’ll do is like Rick Owens – ish – in that world He’s the designer’s designer, someone said to me recently. Really. That’s funny. The cuts are really great. I did a fitting once and the guy in charge just came in, and lay on the sofa with his shoes off while everyone pinned things, and he would say, ”I just want it a bit longer” Rick Owens? No, this other guy. I thought, what a way Yeah, you sit there and watch people drape these things, and you say, maybe ”oh, perfect” It’s the dream of consulting Well, I’d never drawn a suit but I had a lot of books, from the early 1800s to the 40s, like Clark Gable and Bing Crosby. I love – I’d wear a suit every day if it was something that I liked – not like – I mean I drew these crazy technical drawings You did that. Yeah. With a pencil and a ruler (laughter) Are you interested in trading under your name? I have to – I have to buy land. I have to build my stone castle. I’m aware I’m a commodity, but I know that I can put out. It’s just an extension of my art. It’s just a medium. Whatever the fuck it is. So I’m just going to make some clothes that I would wear. I love the stuf by Tom Ford he just made a film I went to the premiere in Paris. He’s so – have you seen it? No. It’s the best film of the year by far, and he’s a very articulate, intelligent person, and it’s a fucking beautiful story. And Colin Firth just fucking murdered it. And that British kid from About a Boy Is that who that kid is? No shit. The young, the Pure White Boy. He did a really good job. And Julianne Moore’s in it as well. I like watching her work but you can fucking tell she’s a mad woman. Her aura is like Glenn Close, and I really wouldn’t want to turn my back on Glenn Close. So when you go to these premieres… I hide. I saw Tom Ford, but uh None of them are really comfortable there. They put on their red carpet face. I saw really early on that I was not about that scene. I’ve had periods where I was alright, and then others, like when I went out with Madonna it was a fucking nightmare – I hated it, I hated being anywhere in public with her. But at the same time I fucking was in love with her, and we would, we would was it an art game? Were you John and Yoko? It’s a game. But she’s not the sort of person that you could ever have a relationship with. But that’s alright… that’s what she created. This identity that she has a hard time divorcing herself, like – 8 o’clock at night – depending on bedtime, was the only time she would turn it off, and so she wrote in her diary, like writing in her diary every night before bed, the plan for the next day for her assistants. A list. How old were you 27. It’s almost 20 years ago. She’s older than you then She’s an amazing woman. Our relationship was hours and hours and hours of talking, but the thing is she wanted to be like a mother. You realised recently that you’re a control freak… Yeah. She seems like a control freak. I think I was very inspired by that, in life How does that dictate things now? Everyone has to find out for themselves, if you’re ready to hear it – first you’re not ready to hear it, then it doesn’t mean you’re going to act on it – it took me years to finally get sober, and cleansing and all this shit that I’m into, the death of three men in my life, that changed my life, in one year, my father, my grandfather, my older brother – (noise) – it was all in a row, it just threw me into an acid trip. Literally – but it definitely cleared my mind. I had never really invested myself. I took all my clothes out my closet and started chopping them into pieces, and my wife said, Oh, you’re a fucking weirdo, and I went out and bought a sewing machine. Whatever I’m doing, I’m fucking doing it – I wanted to paint this little fucking aborted foetus, and I spent months on it making it as exact as I could. You wanted to make the perfect abortion? But it’s a very humourous painting, in a way. And then I see this cat in a mask – because my partner paints a mask in the middle of the fucking thing, he’s always painting dead centre in the fucking middle. I said, what am I supposed to do with that? I’ll make it a cat. But it’s an impossible cat to paint, the way the fur is… what, you paint the same paintings? Yes. I have to respond to it. Is anyone in charge? I have – if I had to say – it would be me: I’m more opinionated, he’s more soft – not when he’s painting but, he did this painting which was supposedly his ex-girlfriend, she left him, like one day she didn’t answer the phone and didn’t for the next six years. So he draws, he does all these paintings commemorating this relationship with this chick and with one of them, he’s like, ”That’s my girlfriend”. I said, You fuck. So in the painting I – I cut her head off. He kept talking and talking about this chick, and I’m like, Get over it Sometimes he’ll write something like, ”Oh God, help us,” and I’ll scratch it out, or write something over his words. The funny thing is, most of the time I’m going over his things – if he does anything to mine I say, You know I’m going to have to go back over that. I’m more anal.

    When I started shooting, my second photo shoot that I did, Steven Klein inspired me, a lot… I had all these set builders… My second photo shoot cost me 10,000 dollars, and it was an editorial. I had 70+ people on my set. It was like a fucking circus. It was ridiculous. And I was drunk and stoned off my ass but I was focused, I was lighting it, doing the whole shit. It was based on Fellini’s Satyricon and I drew storyboards and it was epic, it wuld have been – I would have needed a week to shoot the fucking thing – (noise) – and after that… no, no – I mean I liked having those people, like Sharon Gault, you know Mama Makeup, she came down with about seven students who she teaches in this makeup class Does everything go under the name Tony Ward? No. Mr. Ward. And first I was Pope. Pope and Madonna… Then Mr. Ward. But is there an- another, an alter-ego – Not really. I change my identity from day to day but it’s always under this umbrella Yeah, if I were to learn how to perform a song I might be someone else, like Prince, ha ha But when you’re modeling… Oh, constantly, they would freak out all the time, I would fucking show up with fucking, some fucking latino beard or I’m on a job and come the next day with bleached blonde hair… but there were definitely periods, I had periods. At first, I mean at first they would want me to be this pretty perfect body and I played that part for a while. To me that was being an artist. I was very serious about how my fingers were in a picture – I was very aware – I’ve always been body-aware. So I knew what my toes were doing. When I did those first pictures with Herb Ritts, when you see them, that was my shit – he was just going, Oh my God, Oh my God and your body is the one medium, or the one colour you use in everything Well, I was a gymnast in high school and uh, I studied martial arts, I studied karate, tae-kwon-do. I studied ballet. So it was my first tool. It still is though… uh, – how do you feel about decay That’s why I’m smoking, right now. We’re going to be fucking dirt. I held my dad’s ashes in my hands. I put him down under a tree, put it all over my face, fucking bathed in his ashes – but it was uh, the experience was – this is fucking tribal. This is what we’re supposed to do. We’re not supposed to be afraid of death. We’re supposed to realise that I’m going to be dusty bones, in the soil. But it sometimes… it seems like work is way of dealing with, you’re not, I mean we’re not tribal, maybe we’re animal… That’s good. We are. And I think we’re new baby animals. How old is the earth? It’s unbelieveable. When I die I’ll become another animal. I’m going to become a squirrel. And after that gets eaten by a bear I’m going to become a barbed plant. The stone is the highest being – it doesn’t have to, it’s, it just sits there and is perfect. Maybe your parents weren’t hippies though No my mom wasn’t a hippy, she was real like, she, my mom went to school in the fifties, and uh, real like, Americana… my grandparents were Portuguese and so they all worked in fields, they’re all fieldworkers, my grandfather – my grandmother – he grew up in Hawaii, but his family moved from Portugal to Hawaii, so it’s only a couple of generations. And my mom was just, uh, she went to catholic school and she was a ballet dancer for nine years, then she got pregnant at 18 and that was it People wait a long time to get pregnant now. Yeah – we’re free, and and we get the jail sentence when we’re born –

    Is dying freedom? It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m, if it happens today fucking whatever… really, I’ve done everything needed to do, but I wanna do a lot more – there’s a lot more I wanna do –… I mean I think of being an artist, and I think what does it mean, am I going to be Da Vinci, am I going to be a fucking genius? You’re the Da Vinci of muscles. You know, everyone identifies me as the iconic, these images… Ok, not muscles – flesh. O.K. Well, that’s my whole thing.

    At school I drew a picture of my hand, you know my hand, and cut out a picture of a woman from Playboy, this woman, a nude on a chair, reaching up, so, she’s hanging from my hand, and I’m holding her over a frying pan. The head said to my mom I think Tony’s got some issues with women he said it to your mother, you know… what’s she going to do about it? Well, she was cool. She smoked pot. She was one of the first line women, she was for 10 years, she was hanging telephone lines, she was one of the first women in C – in California to be a line woman. So she really is – she was a god. She was my first god. Do you see yourself as an American image Not really. That’s what the term Antimodel – we can’t share the same thought, didn’t we talk about that? – No two people can, I mean we can look at this cup, but… it’s Sartre saying we’re little pools of nothing, or something like that See, I love that stuff. I was talking to this girl the other night, a Chinese girl, a very, mmm – good friend of theirs, and uh, she lost her eye – very young, right after her first album came out… She was in a bar and someone stabbed her in the eye. She was very intense, she said, Oh, I’m an alcoholic, I’ve got problems… but I don’t know why I’m…

    I have tended, my whole life, to be everyone’s therapist and it wasn’t like I know fucking everything, but, you know, but I was always this ear – and they were, ”Oh, there’s a guy I can unload my shit on” Over the years I had to say: Done. I’m not anyone’s therapist. I try to change how I am. I used to badger people, but now, people say, like people say – I cleanse myself, I’m sober. I excercise a bit. The cleansing thing is quite important to me. I just say, Here’s some books, you find it. It took me a while to find it. When your body goes, will you still be interested… It’s already started – I may as well record it until the end. Of course I would like to feel… we went to this spa, the Liquidrome the other day, you know what Liquidrome, do you know it? It’s really great – you can lay down in the water, it’s like, a salt pool, floating with the music under the water Oh, I know it with your head in the water and the music… what kind of music is it? oh, different, it’s different days, you know, jazz, techno music Jazz! they had a live dj (laughter) anyway, I mentioned feeling like your body’s alive, feeling it Does health equal feeling alive? I don’t know – when I’m 90 years old and I’m too old to skateboard

    You’re producing movies O.K. We got a script, my partner Danny and me got these scripts: he co-wrote one of them, and I was, sigh, I hate them, these are really horrible… but Danny’s Aunt is a director, and he’s like, I told Betty and she’s so excited. So it’s right at the beginning and we have this one movie – there was some, I, they’re all about drugs, so we read them and they’re all drug stories, and no one cares about that any more, no one’s gonna buy that any more. It’s done. So anyway the director did a total re-write of the script, she uh, so all of a sudden it became this machine, so, I started coming up with money, we were finding money from all these people, I got someone to invest, and all these people invested and it started going really quick. We had the DP and art directors and costume designers and all the shit connected with them – we had money – we had money placed and everything, like executive producers and it was being made within a year, and uh, the economic thing happened and all the money just vanished. But getting that close was kind of lucky anyway… and you get into this kind of mindset, and then they wrote out the contract without our names on there, so that’s what you start facing, fucking power tripping, but we had all these, we had Jennifer Tilly and all these low-level name actors coming in, and also in the end the producers were kind of like, We want to replace you guys, because it was supposed to be me and Danny starring in it. Even more bullshit. But I just wanted the producer credit, in the end we were all willing – Danny wasn’t too willing, his sister already said, Fuck it, I’ll step out, and I said, Find someone else, but then Danny becomes like, But I fucking found money for this.

    In the restaurant the other night, you know, remember I said that you’re giving yourself a voice, and you’re not supposed to have a voice because you’re a model Well, it’s a mental creation. It’s mind control. We’re not supposed – we’re not meant to, it was a general assumption that you’re a pretty little thing and secondary to the clothes and I never accepted – so, that’s, I used to say, I’m just as important as these fucking clothes – and that’s when I started going to jobs sometimes I was fucked out of my mind on drugs, and and staying up for days on end, and I had a friend, one of my photographer – he’s really close – would fucking buy me a bottle of whiskey every photo shoot and book me with fucking hot girls, I mean I practically fucked girls while he’s photographing me, he was just fucking – into it, so it was fun but that’s uh, that’s fine if, as long as you don’t stand up and, start talking (laughter) Well it’s evolved. All of these models have voices now. People – the statue of David doesn’t speak People would like him a lot less Yeah. It seems like the ultimate nightmare for someone who’s wanking Well, now my mouth fucking caught up – what are you going to ask me? What’s your favourite fucking film? Fucking food columns – can you say what’s your favourite food and what time of the day you wake up and do your push-ups

    Do you enjoy this I like doing it, but again, if I could not have my picture taken ever again, I’m not like my father, he tried to do the right thing, he was in the marines, not the marines the navy you know, and an A student, really nerdy maybe… how does that square with seeing pictures of yourself I like it. I could show you pictures where I’m really fucked up but at the time… drugs is just a passageway where you can be euphoric or very dark, but my thing – what made it self-destructive, you’re just so involved in the identity of it, until you say, I don’t want to indentify myself as a junkie any more Isn’t being a model a way of kicking your identity? What do you see when you look in the mirror? For the first time in years, I photograph myself constantly. It’s not, I mean, of course I try to take pictures that I like… but what I like in myself, not everyone, I mean I see this darkness that’s never going away, but I don’t even look in the mirror and see someone I don’t like any more. I don’t look at myself and say, You’re a fucking scumbag. I fucking hate your guts.

    I think, going back to commercialism, when you see your face in some campaign, something has been broken – when you want to feel private, the mirror is not going to help Yes, now, I ignore the mirror. You look at your image the way you look at this cup. Yeah. I didn’t realise for a really long time that it was like a cup, just like a cup, people see something timeless and disposable, and nothing more than that, so, my identity – but at the same time, you know, when I met these guys who archived all my work, when I – I knew it but when I actually saw it, this tribute, it took me years to realise… That was my job. A very long fucking parade. But you’re looking at your flesh… and it will continue. I don’t know how long people will want to take photographs of my body. My body is very different now – where was my peak? I don’t think it’s over, and it never will be, and certainly when I was very young, because I was obsessed with Bruce Lee, in my mind I chose not to live past 22. That’s where I’m staying forever, that’s what I am – at that age you’re willing to see. The pictures of you when you’re 22 – they’re amazing, like a little cat or something, to gay men I was just like… and I was really young. I was standing around with a boner, and I was alright, I was comfortable but I wasn’t, I was tittilated, I was excited and horny – I went to photograph with Jim French, he flew me to Los Angeles to his home – he was an amazing hose, didn’t come on to me, nothing weird or anything like at and we shot for uh, like three days, and I stayed at his house. And it was always, ok – here, get naked, here’s some baby oil, he gave me baby oil, and for so many years, my whole life just the scent of baby oil gave me a hard-on… he was just taking pictures and I was just lounging around the whole time. He would say, Play with yourself, they gave me Playboy magazines to look at – I’m getting at one point like I couldn’t get my dick hard – this is like, the most impor- the last shot of the day…

    No one ever tried to take advantage, nobody, never, and especially back then I was much more of a macho dude – I mean for me, in my experience – at a fitting in Paris this stylist reaches in and fucking adjusts my dick (laughter) some funny stuff like that would happen is sex still interesting? In your work it seems past-tense… It evolves. It’s fucking – eroticism is ever-present, always. My sexuality changes all the time you’re still an object of desire, but not the young and vulnerable, uh, wasn’t that a big part of your erotic life… When I did the In Touch famous shot, of my Big Round Butt shot which was the cover, that was it – that was on all the guys’ refrigerators and all that stuff, and uh, so I was known in town, people saw Colt… Did things change sexually once your image was out there? I was very private and, in my sex life, it was like in a sex club, like in Berghain – very specific and it had to be… I don’t know if it changed but do you regret not being a 22 year old sex object No. People idealised me. I was exactly what they wanted me to be

    So, you know I had a stylist who was, really early on, really early 90s – he was like, Oh, I know you – you were a hustler and a porno star, you did all these videos… he just had this mouth. So somehow this reputation grew out of an identity, someone told Madonna I was a hustler on the Boulevard and she was bummed out, she came home and asked me about it – I said, We just spent days unloading all our guts on each other. I would have told you if I was a hustler. She should know better… but in essence, when you roll back and look at it, I was a hustler – I was scouted by my professor at college who was finding people for Jim French what were you doing at college Nothing – general ed. failing miserably, couldn’t handle it, but I worked with all these photographers and they were really great people in the Bay Area, they shot my modelling pictures for me and I would trade off doing nudes for them. That’s how it started. They would pay me – I would come in for a photo session they would pay me like 50 bucks, 70 bucks, and once in a while I got a little blowjob out of the deal with it, this little guy, so that was my first experience with homosexuality, but I never identified it as that, I just thought, Oh I got a boner, why? laying there and being massaged by some old dude he’s totally into it, and I’m like Oh my God, what the hell just happened… when people have this idealised idea of me it puts up a wall, until it gets broken down… do you think you’ve got better as a model, than when you started pfff… I know what I’m giving. Recently I’ve had people say, No, just sit there. So I sometimes I like, I get into a groove and I’m doing the same thing, I guess. So I have to forget – I mean, personally, I would choose the in-between pictures but you’re still posing I pose – I pose my whole life. When I’m driving – down the street, it feels like such a pose.

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    • Author

    2009 JuneTOKION Magazine

    CHEERLEADER FOR INSANITY

    Tokion July 2009

    Article + Full unedited interview with Mr. Tony Ward and Daniel Louis Rivas

    by Takeaki Yamazaki

    Permission: To give ones self the consent and allowance to freely explore the infinite array of experience that life offers. Artists Tony Ward and Daniel Louis Rivas aim to scream this message directly at the audience with their new collection of paintings. Embarking on a collaborative journey of creativity together, they’re making it a point to explore the relationship of two artists, one medium, the process of creation through autodidactic means, and inspiring everyone they come across along the way, somehow, in some form.

    Having found success in the worlds of modeling and acting, both Tony and Daniel are discovering how their past experiences have shaped the creative minds they are today. Exploring the notions permission, identity, relationships, and the magical act of transforming energy from our emotional spectrum into creativity, they evoke a unique world that surfaces from each canvas. This most recent endeavor of theirs, collaborative painting, sends them preparing for an upcoming European tour.

    Take

    This sort of collaborative painting is relatively unheard of in the art world. The process in each individual, which meets on a canvas together, creates an interesting situation.

    Tony Ward

    I love our art, I love what we do, I love the energy we have. It’s awkward, it’s uncomfortable; we’re painting over each other’s shit [work], mostly me. And not everyone is going love what we do, there are always going to be people who hate you, without reason, without even knowing you, they’ll hate what you represent, hate what you do and what you stand for. And then there are people who will love you and love what you do. And to me, they’re all the same. I don’t care, It doesn’t matter what anyone has to say about what we do. Bottom line, I’m vomiting on a canvas, I’m getting rid of my garbage, and I’m processing. That is the process! There’s my process, maybe it sucks for you, but there it is.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    And we have fun. We have a good time doing it; we have a good time collaborating. This is just another, very important, avenue that we decided to journey and travel down together. We’ve developed a

    friendship and it feels really natural. A lot of things in this world feel unnatural, and you know it, you know it in your heart. You know when something is off.

    Take

    How did it feel when you two first got together? How did you first get together and decide to collaboratively paint?

    Tony Ward

    I got a part in this movie and we hadn’t seen each other in about 5 years and I asked him if he knew an acting coach to help me to prepare for this film. His acting coach lives downstairs, so we hung out more often and one day he called me about this show for Ghetto

    Gloss [a gallery in LA].

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    It all started in here [in this room]. Just brainstorming for hours. I’d always been painting, I just called Tony and said lets have a show. It was getting close to Xmas, why not? I knew Tony had done some photography so I thought I’d show my paintings and he’d just show his photography. But then from that, it became this…

    Tony Ward

    It was his suggestion. He said, “let’s do some paintings!” I had my hesitations about it…

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    It all just led to this, it evolved quickly too. From the early paintings to what’s happening right now. And it’s amazing. It’s magic because it really hasn’t been that long.

    Take

    You both start on this entirely different path and suddenly end up here.

    Tony Ward

    I think its genius. It’s a ploy of sorts and it’s quite weird. I don’t really like Andy Warhol, I mean I respect the entity and the energy of that period in time, to launch pop art, it’s impressive, its pretty amazing. I’m not saying that we’re doing that, but this is pure energy. His energy and my energy, combined together. Saying we’re artists and we’re working on the same canvas. Here we are.

    Take

    That says a lot about your process, which is not just a solitary venture in each of you separately, but rather the meeting of both, the collaboration, which results in some interesting art. Can you elaborate on this unique process?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    It’s inspired thought. Often we second-guess ourselves. When it comes to acting and painting I try to be there, in that moment, and not think too much. In the rest of my life, I’ll see a pretty girl and hesitate and Tony will tell me to be more like I am when I’m creating art with life. It’s what I’m trying to figure out…

    Tony Ward

    Yeah, and the whole thing is that there’s no figuring it out. You just have to do it. I view it in a more primitive way. I’ll look at it [a painting] and read it, tune into the feeling of whatever is going on and then I see it. Sometimes I’ll start painting around it and it’s so awkward. Like a sculpture, you just keep chipping away because you know the masterpiece is somewhere inside of it, so you keep chipping away. I’ll look at something, and every time I feel like I can’t touch it. I question, where do I go? What do I do? And then this guy, he just attacks it, he’ll put a face right in the middle of the canvas, BAM!

    Take

    There are bound to be people who will have a certain perspective of you two for not having certain credentials or training from institutions. On your website, you speak of the autodidactic ability and process you both explore. Knowing that your art comes from a autodidactic process that you’re capable of discovering, does this empower you and your art?

    Tony Ward

    It’s a bit crazy, I know it’s powerful because I believe in what’s going on inside of me. I believe we all have it, we’re all artists in some way. Whatever we’re working on, I believe that that is our art. We’re like little bombs, compressed. And if you allow yourself to open up and to be open to a number of things, then you don’t confine yourself to one specific thing, one specific way of thinking. I think...I think I think a lot. [laughs]

    Take

    Knowing you have this autodidactic capability gives you the ability to approach creativity from a different vector than someone who is simply classically trained. Creativity has always come from the process of problem solving. You’d never confront these problems and

    experiences without having chosen these particular paths.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    All that’s happened in our lives has brought us here, to this moment. The art world politics don’t really bother me. Those people who may question our process, about it not being classically trained. Well, were the cavemen? Artists I love like Francis Bacon and Basquiat and the idea of Schnabel and Diego Rivera. I just have a healthy belief in what we’re doing, in our art, in what we’re creating. The politics don’t really bother me.

    Tony Ward

    I look at his [Danny’s] stuff and might see and say that it may be a bit like Basquiat, but the more I get to know him, the more I see that its so purely him, it’s ridiculous. I love Picasso, I’d read about people like Tulus Lautrec, Egon Schiele, and Bacon, I was really moved by these kinds of artists. They were insane. They lived this crazy tortured life where they just had to do it [create art]! Now I don’t like looking at inspiration at all, I don’t like looking at other artist’s works. I want it to come from visions from inside my own mind. But whatever moves you. Whatever you gotta do, you gotta do it. What strikes you. I’ll never look at one thing and say this is me, this is what I do, this is how I do it. My interests fall so vastly wide that that exploration feels more free to me. That’s the way I want to go about and do it. I’m also such an anal perfectionist that that can also get in the way of me, if I start thinking too much. And it’s like what you said about the autodidacticism, that process of how to do things, it can be such an agonizing process, [at one point] it was hurting my stomach trying figuring things out. Like how to paint this fur for this painting [a painting of a Civet with a mask titled, “Civet doesn’t know the masquerade is over].

    Take

    Is there any real identity connected to the paintings?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    There is, it’s that imprint from our parents, from our DNA. My dad is a singer and an artist, I just started forming a relationship with him, I hadn’t seen him in about 20 years but there’s something I’m channeling that I don’t even know that I know. And why I’m attracted to crosses, and this Aztec imagery. I grew up Jewish, I had a bar mitzvah. Some of my earliest memories are of being in churches and being fascinated by Jesus and often we don’t even know. It’s backwards its forwards.

    Take

    I read that you spent some time as an ‘artist in residence’ at Herman Brood’s atelier. What did you bring back from that experience?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    I brought back a lot. It was a privilege to be the only American artist to be allowed to paint in his studio after he died. I didn’t know much about him, then I spent more time in Holland. I had a lot of encounters with his ghost. It changed my art, just from research and being in that space and talking to people who knew him.

    Take

    Did it change your technique or your vision? Or have an entirely different affect on you?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    Not really the technique, more so it changed my vision. A lot of what we’re talking about is how he actually lived. He was this freaky guy, he was a drug addict and a rock n roll guy, and he was out there, walking around with a parrot on his shoulder, he lived it. I’m still processing that whole experience, there’s something I find very kinetic, there’s a deep connection between me and Herman somehow. Even though it’s such a different culture and such a different life, being there, painting at his studio with his paintings and his bed and his porno collection. It was wild.

    Tony Ward

    I don’t know much about Herman’s art work but I like what I’ve seen. But talking about vision, Danny showed me this article about Dash Snow and it talked about his creative process, about his alternative lifestyle. It’s an odd dichotomy because we don’t use drugs as part of our process. And I look at artists and would think you have to suffer or you gotta be crazy. I went through a lot of my life thinking I was crazy. My dad, my brother, both a little off, so I thought I was crazy. I was reading this book by Osho, ‘Joy,’ and it basically says that there are certain things that we do, certain affirmations that we have to STOP. NOW. These such expressions of

    ourselves, we manifest. So I stopped calling myself crazy, and stopped caring what other people thought about me, just stopped. And I knew other crazy people, really crazy people. How this relates to the art, Van Gogh cut his own ear off; I’m not going to think such things are going to affect my art. In my head I think I have to be this weird eccentric artist and wear my pants backwards, wear only red hats everyday, or have a fake puppet on my shoulder. Do I have to be that dude to be taken seriously as an artist.

    Take

    Both of you being actors, I’m sure you’re aware of the mask play that is a very significant exercise to explore identity in theater. Having masks in nearly every painting, what do these masks have to say for you and about you as artists?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    I wear so many different masks and even I still have the question, who the fuck are we? I love masks. Aztec masks, Mayan masks, African masks; and we’re always wearing masks, all of us.

    Tony Ward

    [we wear] Masks on masks, layers of masks. We wear different faces all the time. It’s the facade we’re giving to the world. Different parts of our personality come out over that initial facade. Layers of crud over other layers begin to build up. In the work, it comes out. Underneath all this, this is who we are, and it’s really not cute.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    I’ve learned a lot from Tony. No matter what situation he’s in, he’s himself. It’s tough to be like that in this world. We’re always here and there. We constantly change but stay the same. He’s his own greatest work of art. We both hang out and act like little kids, we have fun. Sometimes you hang out with friends and have to put on this mask for this person or that person. It’s always fun to rediscover the joy and freedom in creativity.

    Tony Ward

    I’ve been stone cold sober for going on 5 years now. More than ever I want to be a freak. I want to be freer than I’ve ever felt before. And I feel it now. It’s about fighting against the ideology of who and what I am. This came from my mother. You have to not hate and just be free. Just express yourself the way you have to express yourself without worry of others opinions. We’re so caught up with eating right, looking right, smelling right, it’s crippling. Everything is very PC now. We have facades when it’s actually really grim today. I don’t want to ignore that, not with myself, not with my art. I have loved ones I care about, I want to inspire and go out and be inspired. I’m a cheerleader for insanity. And I’m fascinated by kids, they need guidance.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    and kids need real hope.

    Take

    Where would you say this art comes from to display such an open nakedness? Are you taking off your masks?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    It’s straight from the heart, for sure. It comes from places we’ve all been some only some of us have been. I’ve been through addiction, heartbreak, love, a family dinner. Acting is someone else’s work, it’s going to change in the editing room. this is ours. They’re moments, they’re experience, they’re priceless. There’s this magical thing that’s happening right now with our art and our paintings. It’s a mirror to nature.

    Take

    It’s sensation. It’s death, its happiness, its love, its disparity, all at the exact same moment.

    Tony Ward

    You hear artists talk about this. We do a painting. All the joy, the bliss and fucking frustration, all that effort, is done once you put the brush down. Then it’s freedom, it’s there. I did it. Maybe it’ll burn but the joy of it is that it’s there. As an artist, I hope that this piece of art moves someone so much that they want it on their wall.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    I believe in magic

    Take

    What would you say magic is to you?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    Magic is a chain of accidents and coincidences that become something tangible. We get together and create magic.

    Tony Ward

    That book, ‘Many lives, many masters,’ says something like, ‘everything is a message.’ Birds in the sky, bombs falling, people dying. Everything is a message, a mirror, to show us ourselves. When I was painting this baby it got real heavy, I started to cry. I started thinking of the real child in this picture I was looking at, the guts hanging out of its side, the skull flayed open. When I hear about people murder and unconsciously harming others, it’s a mirror. I know the pain. I relate to the anger, I get them, I relate to them. I can be judgmental at times, it’s an ugly trait I’ve been fucked by society and people. But there’s also this immense magical universe that conspires to make things happen. I believe in energy, I believe in the universe. It’s a candy store and I get to choose what I want to dip into. I am free to do what I want to do. And there’s a direct response from the universe. I was in Japan; I was walking with my pregnant wife. There’s this little old lady coming towards us down this narrow street and I’m in a rush, I’m frustrated and I step out into the street. I’m hit by a bus, knocked out of my wife’s hand, and sent flying 15 feet. I get up and start yelling. But then I took a second and realized what was really going on, that it wasn’t the lady or the bus, but rather it was me. I learned to take that second to look, to learn to really slow down and pay attention. We all have to take a step back and look at life, see it.

    Take

    Putting yourselves through such a process riddled with sensations both good and uncomfortable while pushing the edges, the limits; how do these movements affect somebody? How do you intend for them to affect us?

    Tony Ward

    I want it to give us all permission. If anything, I want it to show people that if these knuckleheads [us] could do it, so can you. Good luck too. If anything, be a doer, have a goal everyday and work towards those goals.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    …And being unique. A lot of people don’t have their own voice, and we’re these two guys with our own voice, collaborating and making

    this unique voice.

    Tony Ward

    Especially kids these days. We have our family, our town, our society, and kids are being pounded with information these days. Their brains are like little networks, I can’t imagine how they think. And this permission is educating. We’re all here to learn, forever. And I can split off and take whatever idea I have and create. It’s a big lesson and a good lesson, to share yourself 100%, let that inspire other people, be excited that its inspiring other people and don’t be afraid that people aren’t going to like you.

    Take

    To simply let go.

    Tony Ward

    Yes. The key is permission. I’m a free human being, and if I’m not free, I’m living like this. Its so simple, but we don’t know that, we don’t know that it’s that easy to simply let go of ourselves. I did the Belvedere vodka photo shoot with Terry [Richardson] and he’s like, get naked. I’m in a restaurant and next thing I’m naked in this restaurant pouring vodka on me. And my mind is saying yeah its fun, but is my dick small? We’re born naked, its how we are. It’s unnatural to be worrying about my length. But when you just do it, it’s in front of everyone. It’s right there, it’s permission. Next thing you know there’s 10 people naked too. 23 years down the line of time, the unborn audience: What understanding would you hope for them to gain from your creations?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    That love slays the darkness.

    Tony Ward

    I like that. It’s true. The essence, when it’s boiled down, life is about teaching and learning. When someone looks at this in 23 years, someone might look at these and wonder if there’s anything

    political or social going on. But it’s in the permission you give yourself to be free, to create. You look at the artwork and say, I can do this. I think about this entire conversation, you get permission, you get permission to have a goal, and then to work towards it with a focus, you can go off but you can get back on, that’s part of the permission to be free. But to be on that journey and keep going.

    Take

    Your art tells a story, the story of that journey, of your lives, here, today. There’s been a few paradigms in art that are only part

    of the story, part of the evolution of what you’re telling, what you’re creating. What would you say that story is?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    My first thought is that, I want to walk in the light. I’ve walked in darkness for so long, a junkie, a liar, a thief. And now its important for me that I walk in the light, fuck the darkness, I’ve been there, its in my closet, I don’t want to live there.

    Tony Ward

    I’ve talked about it concerning art. It’s an extension of the idea of not needing other artists to be inspired. The fact other artists are doing, if I like the outcome or not doesn’t matter, the fact they did it is what matters. I believe, what I want to believe, is that I’m a recorder in my time, today. If someone asked what my art was about, I want it to say, ‘this is my experience, here, today, in 2009.’ I’m not reaching back, other artists had their time. Artists like Da Vinci, they were recording what was going on in their lives, then. It’s transformation. I’m going to listen to metal and skate and paint until I’m 90. I want to do until I drop dead. My last expression, hopefully, will be me taking a picture of myself on my deathbed, the ultimate self-portrait.

    Take

    At this point in time everything is possible. Everything is potential. How do you go about capturing a moment? Transforming the potential into the actual?

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    There are times where I won’t paint for months and times when I’ll finish 5 [paintings] in a week. Now it’s more disciplined working together. Capturing is about not thinking about it, being in it, in the present moment and not so much in your head.

    Tony Ward

    That’s when it can get to be annoying. In the action of doing this, people react quickly. We did this bunny painting and people suggested we do a series of them. Suddenly we’re influenced and I’m trying to tell him how to make these bunny paintings. But what I try to do is close my eyes and see something. Confront what’s in front of me and not let my thoughts get in the way. And I have fuck-all technique, the process of the autodidacticism is rough, he’s seen me get frustrated.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    But he can paint shit that I can’t even imagine. It’s awesome!

    Take

    Through your collaboration and the shared relationship, creativity has taken everything to a place where ego has all but vanished. How would you like to take things to another level?

    Tony Ward

    To really start to deface one another’s work. Because honestly, it’d really hurt. I’m really detailed and anal and to think about working on something for a while and then just watching Danny splatter over it would hurt for a second, but then it’d settle in and we’d feel it and it’d be okay. I think that would be an interesting process to explore. I appreciate what a lot of artists are doing, I like it, but I’ve never really seen anything like what we’re doing. It doesn’t make it better or worse than anyone else’s [art] but I’m grateful. It makes me feel easier to know that we’re doing something, to know we’re doing this.

    Daniel Louis Rivas

    We like what each other is doing, we’re pretty good at that, at liking each other’s stuff. It’s magic.

  • Quote
    • Author

    2009 May

    WM_logo.jpgwhitehot | May 2009

    Kofi Forson in Conversation with Tony Ward

    Tony Ward, artist, actor, model icon, first made his imprint on the scene as model by working with acclaimed fashion photographers as the late Herb Ritts and Steven Meisel. He gained a sense of notoriety in music videos, Justify My Love, Erotica, among many others. A legendary role in the low- budget film Hustler White added to his misterioso appeal. A burgeoning career as an artist in the early 1990’s has resulted in his current status as painter. He along with his partner, Daniel Rivas will soon undertake what he calls "a rock and roll art tour", making stops through Europe.

    Kofi Forson: It was great to see you the other day. What were you doing in New York?

    Tony Ward: I was there to shoot a cover story for Tokion Magazine.

    This would mean a modeling job?

    Actually it’s based on my art work with my partner Daniel Rivas. I came up with an idea for a portrait…kinda like Richard Avedon. For the cover shot we recreated one of our paintings. I am Daniel’s character and he is mine. It’s really a bizarre painting called Give Me Head…

    How long have you been painting?

    I started painting around the early 90’s for about four years during the time when I was hanging out with Lady M. She wanted to see me develop as an artist. She helped me get art supplies as well as an agent but that was at a serious time in my life when I was a mad-drunk-drug addict-fool. (Laughter)

    What happened to these paintings?

    Honestly some of these paintings were done while I was in rehab. I painted only on found objects, plywood for example. I did some paintings in Japan on paper. All of those paintings have dispersed into the universe. Some people have some of these original pieces. Others I gave away. I painted for about four years then I quit. I picked up the camera and started shooting.

    Back during the time of Lady M. she must’ve taken you through some art circles. Did you get a chance to meet artists you admired…perhaps work with some of them?

    Strangely enough I just met Francesco Clemente. Seriously I haven’t met notable painters. I met David Hockney years ago. (Sigh) Funny about me I’m more interested in the energy of artists.

    There has to be artists in general who have inspired you.

    My favorite painter when I became aware of art was Picasso. A lot of people start out with that rudimentary style of painting. Painters are interesting to me…Toulouse Lautrec, Egon Schile, Francis Bacon…I love Russian Propaganda art. I love artists who are anguished in their art like Van Gogh. I guess artists I’m impressed with are not around any more (Laughter)

    So then how important is the bio of an artist to the art?

    I think it’s vital. I think of myself as a millennium painter. I’m recording in time and history what I’m experiencing today. Decades from now they can say this is a recording of humanity…encapsulated in my point of view. What I’m doing at the moment is colorful but there’s a heavy subject matter and commentary underneath it all. I try to keep it raw whether I’m painting a dick or someone’s brain splattered open. It’s an example of what I’m thinking about or how I view life in the present day.

    How do you explain the idea of being a successful male model and living the role of an artist…be it tragic or not?

    Let me make a quick comment on the tragedy aspect. I don’t view myself as a tragic artist. I lived a fantasy much like the Dash Snow and Terry Richardson’s of the world. People who live this dark and ugly thing we go through. (Sigh) Before I went into my second rehab I was doing a lot of painting and I was on heroin. I was shooting heroin. It was my reality at the time. I had an epiphany, awareness and an awakening. I actualized that romantic ideology of being a suffering person. I’m speaking more truthfully. I try to put my clarity into what I’m currently working on. Thing is if you’re on crack, heroin, alcohol, absinthe or whatever…that’s your vision. That’s your view of life. The art is created and filtered through that substance. As for now I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I’m very conscious of what I’m doing and saying. I’m not suffering anymore.

    It must be difficult to deal with how the media portrays you?

    I think with time the image becomes broader. I’ll just make this quick comment. I lost a lot of jobs based on how people portrayed me…whether as an ex-porno star or hustler it all relates to me because we’re hustlers in our own way on whatever level. If you’re a dirty mother-fucker or a good guy getting off on a thing, whatever your thing is we do a job and get paid.

    Your film credits include Hustler White. Are there any films we should look out for?

    Yeah, Story of Jen…It opens in Paris on June 10.

    I can’t help but ask you about Mickey Rourke.

    I’ve known Mickey for a long time. We used to hang a bit.

    Seems like it’s not a forgiving industry but good to see him make a triumphant return.

    It’s interesting how people almost destroy themselves…Always great to see a comeback. (Sigh) I’m almost 46. I’m still modeling.

    What plans do you have for your paintings?

    Danny and I have put together an art tour.

    Is this like a rock and roll art tour?

    We were painting on the same canvas. The response was so good we decided to stick with the collaboration. We found ourselves a manager. Now we’re headed to Amsterdam and other places in Europe.

    Congratulations on your work for the new GUESS campaign.

    Thanks. It was worth the wait.

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    2009 Februaryi-D MagazinePhotography and interview by STEVEN PERILLOUX

    "Before I even arrived in L.A. there were pictures of my naked ass on guys´refrigerator doors all across the country."

    Tony Ward, one of the most prolific and recognisable male models of, well, ever, is standing outside the lobby of the Culver Hotel in Los Angeles, talking about being pigeonhold. Over his career, Tony has been the subject of some iconic male erotic imagery, shot by the haute vanguard of fashion photographers, from Herb ritts to Steven Meisel, Greg Gorman to Jack Pierson. "So that´s who people expect me to be," Tony says. "I meet people and they go, "He Tony, are you gay, Tony? Are you straight, Tony?" And I say, " Hey, I´m Tony, nice to meet you." I don´t define myself , I don´t de-fine myself at all. I do what the fuck I want when I want and it upsets people some of the time!" He pauses before adding, "A lot of the time." For a guy who carries so many titles - model, gay icon, photographer, painter, actor, producer, director, husband, father - he certainly dislikes labels. For a guy who, for more tham 25 years, and most notably in the early ´90s when he was dating Madonna, had his personal parts on public display, he surely doesn´t like to be, ahem, tied down. "I don´t give a fuck about that. The nudity, the sexuality out there, look, it´s like an appendage, it´s like a finger. I don´t see how people can stomach the torture of prisoners or the slaughter of innocent people all over the world and even raise an eyebrow over some sex."

    During his relationship with Miss Ciccone, Tony was featured in several of the singer´s videos including Erotica nad Justify My Love, as well as in the titanic, rare and thus exorbitantly prices SEX book. Featuring seeming candids of the couple and others simulating all manners of congress, photographed by Meisel, the book caused quite a stir at the time of its release. "It´s funny," Tony says, "at that time we did the book it was shocking, now it´s like something you´d see in any European magazine." So how did it come about? "When I was with Madonna we were exploring, she was exploring, we were exploring things together and we felt like people were ready for a punch in the face. Youz realise when Madonna does something it explodes, all over the world. It was really nice to be a small boy on the Tsunami that is Madonna. really, I honor her." I wonder aloud if he minded his supplicant role in the videos and book, the submissive image. He smirks, then, referring to one of the most notorious photos in the collection, laughs, "she had her face in my ass, man!"

    "Before I even arrived in L.A. there were pictures of my naked ass on guys´refrigerator doors all across the country."

    Tony Ward, one of the most prolific and recognisable male models of, well, ever, is standing outside the lobby of the Culver Hotel in Los Angeles, talking about being pigeonhold. Over his career, Tony has been the subject of some iconic male erotic imagery, shot by the haute vanguard of fashion photographers, from Herb ritts to Steven Meisel, Greg Gorman to Jack Pierson. "So that´s who people expect me to be," Tony says. "I meet people and they go, "He Tony, are you gay, Tony? Are you straight, Tony?" And I say, " Hey, I´m Tony, nice to meet you." I don´t define myself , I don´t de-fine myself at all. I do what the fuck I want when I want and it upsets people some of the time!" He pauses before adding, "A lot of the time." For a guy who carries so many titles - model, gay icon, photographer, painter, actor, producer, director, husband, father - he certainly dislikes labels. For a guy who, for more tham 25 years, and most notably in the early ´90s when he was dating Madonna, had his personal parts on public display, he surely doesn´t like to be, ahem, tied down. "I don´t give a fuck about that. The nudity, the sexuality out there, look, it´s like an appendage, it´s like a finger. I don´t see how people can stomach the torture of prisoners or the slaughter of innocent people all over the world and even raise an eyebrow over some sex."

    During his relationship with Miss Ciccone, Tony was featured in several of the singer´s videos including Erotica nad Justify My Love, as well as in the titanic, rare and thus exorbitantly prices SEX book. Featuring seeming candids of the couple and others simulating all manners of congress, photographed by Meisel, the book caused quite a stir at the time of its release. "It´s funny," Tony says, "at that time we did the book it was shocking, now it´s like something you´d see in any European magazine." So how did it come about? "When I was with Madonna we were exploring, she was exploring, we were exploring things together and we felt like people were ready for a punch in the face. Youz realise when Madonna does something it explodes, all over the world. It was really nice to be a small boy on the Tsunami that is Madonna. really, I honor her." I wonder aloud if he minded his supplicant role in the videos and book, the submissive image. He smirks, then, referring to one of the most notorious photos in the collection, laughs, "she had her face in my ass, man!"

    2009id03_small.gif 2009id04_small.gif

    A veritable symbol of masculinity himself shirks the description. He doesn´t like the negative connotations, the social expectations, the arbitrary criteria. "I prefer to be a man," he says, "That means providing for my kids, teaching them about life, you know, stepping up to whatever comes your way." Having recently lost several family members, including his father, within the spam of a few months Tony was forced to seriously consider manhood. "I thought I was man before, but when you lose the people who tought what that means it´ll wake you up. But wehen I was out in the forrest, spreading my father´s ashes, I felt this really tribal, primitive thing, being a part of the cycle of life. I felt connected. to my teachers and to those I teach. I knew that someday, if I´m lucky, my children can do that for me and I jst felt ´ahhh,´you know? Peace."

    The cycle describes by his carrer as one of the sexiest men alive began when, as he was failing out of college, he was discovered by a scout on campus. The man suggested that Tony´s figure, toned from his hobbyist body-building practices, along with his striking Romanesque face, would make for success as a model. "I was like, ´ah, whatever, man.´I thought I was the uggliest dude in the world, you know?" Not surprisingly a host of others - including a model manager - disagreed, protested even. "They said, ´No, we´re gonna make you a star,´ and I said, ´Really?´ And they said,´Yeah!´, so I said, ´all right.´" They set to work straight away, sending pictures of Tony, both clothed and nude, around the country. That led to his meeting legendary photographer Bruce Weber who, immediately entranced with his subject, created a series of arresting images. Surely you remember the black-and-white shot of Tony, statuesque in a pair of tighty-whiteys, with the Empire State Building behind him - portentous of a massive carrer to come. Among Tony´s earliest supporters, his first friend in L.A. in fact was photographer Rick Castro who persuaded Herb Ritts to cast Tony in a shoot that would later appear in Ritt´s first book. "Herb´s saying,´I don´t know, his nose is all funky,´ and Ricky is saying,´nah, man, you´ll see, he´s got something.´" Well that ´soemthing´proved to be so intoxicating and inspiring for the greatest eyes of the time, it became a wellspring for some of the most famous images of the epoch. It would again be Castro who would give Tony his first film role, in the now gay cult´s movie, Hustler White. "It´s a color, like fire-engine red," says Castro. "Hustler-white [The hustlers] wear these white jeans and as the cars drive down the street with their headlights the white illuminates and shows their basket really nicely." Of the experience Tony says, "It was fantastic, a gift," but of Hollywood´s reaction to his performance as a hustler, "Well, there is a lack of imagination. Same story, once you do one thing that must be who you are, to them." For Castro, who remains one of Ward´s most frequent collaborators as well as representing him as a painter and photographer at his gallery in Hollywood, it´s like this: "Tony´s the best example of the model as an artist. I´m not the only photographer who has become obsessed with him. A lot of very famous photographers have become fixated on him, obsessed with him, and created some really strong and famous images. Because of his energy."

    That energy is brimming over right now. Now at age 45 Tony still shifts and flits around like a pre-teen. Even as he talks st length about his regime for detoxifying the organs (Jordan Rubin´s book Patient Heal Thyself is his functioning gospel) he´s full of bile and vitriol for puritanism, politicians (save Obama) and the passage of Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriages in California. He´s combustible and passionate. By turns he expounds on Buddhism, Deepak Chopra, Osho, anarchy, death, power, control, sex, love and art. He has a million plans, projects, and irons in the fire. A short film, insired by La Jetée, which he is producing for Bailey Hat Company; then a feature film he´s producing and acting in; also another film, The Story of Jen, in which he plays the lead, presently on the festival circuits; oh, an internet forum for filmmakers; a fashion line he´d like to do with Alexander McQueen... "I don´t want to just be a picture in a magazine. I have some things to say,. In fact, I have too much to say1 I´m doing a photo-autobiography with [art director] Sam Shahid. I have a ton of material and I love the idea of a pictorial biography to tell the story." He shakes his head, marvelling at it all for the moment. "Man," he says, "I´m just trying to work so hard I can´t see straight." He´s been out in the sun all day, working on paintings for an upcoming show, and apologises for being dead tired but the way he talks with such vigour I wonder if his mint tea isn´t spiked with something just a little more.... substantial. Not likely. Tony´s been sober going on four years now. "I was an alcoholic, or, rather, I am an alcoholic - I´m a twelve stepper and all that." He readily cops to a hard diet of hard drugs once upon a time. But rock bottom come in the form of "trying to paint, trying to be this painter, jacked on heroin, listening to Janes Addiction and just nodding out in the middle of the painting. When I woke up I was just like, ´This is a joke. You´re stuck, stuck in this ridiculous idea of yourself.´ I was trying to be this thing instead of just being me, you know?"

    That´s when he decided to open it up. Keep changing, trying, exploring. Stop defining himself as one thing instead of another. He calls himself the antimodel, if anything, an artist. "Yeah, just an artist," he agrees. And he´s much kinder to his body now too. Aside from the raw diet and naturopathic cleanses he just joined a gym, but doesn´t do anything too strenuous. "I walk like those dorks, high stepping on the treadmill and I don´t use the weights like you´re supposed to. I just kinda swing´em around like this." He leaps up and twists his body around, whipping his arms this way and that, "like I´m swinging a battle axe."

    For Tony Ward "Life is this crauy groovy canvas," and he´s looking for every way to continue filling it up with his boundless energy. "Plenty of models, plenty of guys who have done this thing," he says, "they´re still around, old dinosaurs like me... I keep working, it´s kinda mind-blowing to me. It´s not about loving it anymore. It´s almost like a duty. To me, my last photograph is going to be a self portrait as I drop dead, you know," affecting a death rattle and slumbing over in his chair, "click!"

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    LATEST RIVAS/WARD COLLAB

    Here is a first look at the unofficial movie poster of JUNKIE, starring Robert LaSardo and Daniel Louis Rivas.

    Mr Ward is the co-producer of the film, even though there were plans for him to play a part, but that didn't happen. Directed and co-written by Adam Mason and in post-procuction now.

    A pitch black comedy about two heavily addicted, drug addled brothers, Danny(Daniel Louis Rivas) and Nicky(Robert LaSardo). When Danny decides he's going clean, Nicky reacts aggressively, driving Danny from one insane experience to another as a whole host of bizarre, surreal characters descend on their house, all with grievances to bear, debts to reclaim or trouble to cause. It quickly becomes apparent that Nicky is a malevolent influence on his brother, an impish nightmare hellbent on Danny's self-destruction.

    As Danny's life spirals out of control he must fight tooth and nail to kick the habit and rescue himself from the personal hell Nicky has consigned him to, whilst simultaneously attempting to repair the deeply damaged relationships with his increasingly bizarre friends and family.

    This movie will be at festivals soon! So watch out, more soon here!

    post-35528-1312476898_thumb.jpgpost-35528-1312476904_thumb.jpg

    from tony-ward.com

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