Zeitgeist founder and artist, Paul Fujita, spent time with PORT during his last days of living at his gallery, Zeitgeist, in the Everett Station Lofts. At 7 years in this location it's likely the longest lived gallery space in the artist run lofts long history as a cultural incubator. We talk about his life, engagement, skating and art. Next to preparing for a couple of large solo shows into 2007, he's moving into a house with his fiancee and seeking to push himself as an artist possibly more than ever. His unpretentiousness and interest in working with accessible materials such as broken skateboards, acrylic gel and xeroxed imagery-- is a testament to his desire to keep art-making and art-viewing accessible and organic. There's a sentimentality in the air as Paul shows me xerox copies from nearly ten years ago.

My name is Paul Fujita and lately I have been doing mixed-media paintings using recycled old skateboards and acrylic gel medium transfers. I feel like what drives a lot of my work is obsession. My obsessions are skateboarding, war, the end of the world, and acrylic gel medium transfers, in no particular order. I feel both comforted and confronted. I feel like everything has changed and nothing has changed. Things are infinitely more cool and also more scary. This is why when you are driving down the street you see me happily skateboarding down the street. I used to be mocked and beaten for being a skateboarder.

In 1976, I won the Lippman's Cinnamon Bear coloring contest, and my path to art fortune and glory seemed clear. Instead, I became a skateboarder and skateboard salesman. Somewhere along the way I began organizing art shows. I'm no curator, it just seemed that all of my friends were artists, and that a lot of people want to show and see art. Back in the day, it seemed impossible to have a show. I remember aspiring to someday have a show in a cafe or bar (actually I still do these kinds of shows).