Phoebe Gloeckner

Once Had a Daddy
Pencil and ink on paper.
Minicomic
Digital photographs.

My name is Phoebe Gloeckner and I suppose I’m a graphic novelist, although I have difficulty defining what I do because it actually has evolved over time from one thing to another. But what I have done consistently is write and draw, despite the form it takes ultimately.

I am the type of person who couldn’t do anything but what I do. The reason why is because I’m so easily distractible that I could never hold a job in any other sphere. It’s difficult for me to work with people in an office setting for example, I get bored and distracted easily. I had ADD as a child and was always being punished and got kicked out of many schools. So with this record there wasn’t really anything else I could do except to express the pain caused by my own personality in my artwork and to try and work it out.

I’m not being facetious, it’s really true. There’s nothing else I could do, and there’s nothing else I wanted to do, and I never had any question about it. I think I make creative art, my drive is to explore things that I just don’t understand. And there are many things I don’t understand. I think that writing stories and drawing, or whatever I’m doing at the time, forces me to look at something and consider an idea or a problem intensely over a long period of time. Somehow in the end I feel like I’ve at least found an emotional truth if the work is successful and it helps myself understand life better.