(gentle music) My work is kind of between death and life, between art and science, between magic and realism.

I don't think I could make my work in other places than Alabama.

My name is Douglas Pierre Baulos.

I use they-them pronouns.

I am a professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham and an artist that has lived here for about 45 years.

(gentle music continues) People wonder, "Why did you stay in Birmingham this whole time?"

(laughs) And I think they think it's just my professor gig, but like I chose to be here.

And it is mostly because of the biodiversity of Alabama, but also because I have this amazing community of friends and other artists that really uplift my practice.

There are so many amazing artists in Alabama.

It's like mind-boggling.

I've been a collaborative person my entire life.

But the reason I'm so interested in now is that I think we need it now more than ever.

I collaborate with like artists that show nationally and internationally, but I also collaborate with homeless people.

I collaborate with all kinds of communities.

I have a general rule that I don't like to show artwork that's over five years old.

So like I have to stay in production.

I remember a moment in my studio about 20 years ago, and I was thinking about how a caterpillar becomes a moth and totally changes, right?

Even chemically, and I was so interested.

I was like, "Doug, if you really want to push your work, and you want it to be not just people saying like, 'Oh, you can really draw, you can really do this,' if you want to have them like a huge feeling in your installations, you're going to have to be a caterpillar, and you're gonna have to melt everything you thought, burn it to the ground and start over."

And I did.

I make like very elaborate sketchbooks, but I destroy them every time I'm done with one.

But what I do is I go back, and I pull out the pages or the things that I think are still applicable.

If there's something that I feel still has a real strong sustain, I'll move it forward in my practice.

If not, then I either sell it or literally break it down like the moth, you know, in a chrysalis.

(singer gently vocalizing) I really honor what came before me.

For thousands and thousands of years, the human evolution of trying things, which is so powerful.

I've had to develop like skills with like natural dyes and get into actual pigment-making instead of using like chemicals or the way other people do it.

Not all art venues are safe spaces, you know?

And so like me being immersive in that and kind of using like found objects or things that aren't typical of Western art history, it allows me to create like a unique dialogue with the viewer that's also very founded in Alabama.

I'm much more interested in the viewer than I am in myself making the work.

Sometimes the people will be like, "Can we rearrange it so it doesn't have that part?"

And I know artists would usually freak out, but that doesn't bother me at all.

It is like the viewer's way of negotiating it.

(singer gently vocalizing continues) But I don't like to silo myself, because like my life has always been complicated for various reasons.

And I want my work to have different, a lot of different materials and a lot of processes that are really aligned with my biographical chronology, even though I don't want my work to be autobiographical.

As a queer person in Alabama, like I want to uplift all the marginalized communities.

But I also want to acknowledge that melancholy.

I'm really interested in mortality.

I always have been, not in like a grave or a negative way, but just as a cycle of life.

Like I think it's amazing, and it's one of the great mysteries.

Everybody has had like string that got really knotted up, and I have a lot of knotted up feelings about Alabama, but through my research I start to unknot that, and then I pull the thread, and as I pull the thread, I'm reaching out to people to kind of show them, like if I pulled this thread and unraveled it, you can too.

(gentle music continues) This idea that I can have like an alchemical complicated practice with very grounded materials because of Alabama being what it is, that's like a real gravity for me, and it keeps me moving forward.

I feel like I have enough inspiration in Alabama to last me a lifetime.

(gently fading music)