Aaron Trotter-Voronoff told me on the phone, when we set up our appointment, “You’ll know me when you see me.”



It’s about noon, and a herd of university students is thinning out into small numbers of individuals hurrying to class. In general, they look student-like, with chins tucked deeply into scarves and North Face jackets; in their hands, some clutch books, though most have the ubiquitous backpack slung carelessly over one drooping shoulder.



One dude sticks out.



He wears a newspaper-decoupaged fedora, paint-spattered clothing and similarly spattered white mask, and he pushes a wheelbarrow around the center courtyard of the University.



I ask the girl sitting with a paintbrush at a TV that matches wheelbarrow-dude’s hat, “is that Aaron?”



She stands up and shakes my hand.



“I’m Aaron,” she says.



I suspect this is part of the interactive art experience Trotter-Voronoff calls “Abztrakt synergy.”

Trotter-Voronoff throws out words, ideas, all at 100 miles-per-hour. He talks about Dada; he talks about artists, trash, the utility of art, and trash.



“My art could upset somebody,” he suggests, “I’m painting a piece of trash and putting more thrash on it.”



He calls himself a “21st century stylistic schizophrenic kind of guy,” an artist/writer, “scavenging scoundrel,” and “ruthless recycler” who studied world religion and culture as he earned his BA at The Evergreen State College, and as he traveled around the world.



Most recently, he says, “I went to Canada with an empty cup and said ‘Fill me up!’ I spent a lot of time in the wilderness living with friends.” He recalls, “I was living in a dream, it was like Utopia; people don’t realize they can be happy…”



He remembers a friend saying of his travels, “Aaron, you’re always seeking.” And he remembers his response, “I find it everywhere I go!”



Eventually, he suspects, “I’m gonna get restless.” His “chronic wanderlust” will claim him and he says, “I’m gonna pack my bags and go to Mexico,” but for now, he talks of Tacoma as being his resting spot at least through the summer.



“I can travel right here through my art,” he claims. And he’ll do that artistic traveling with others.

“A lot of the people I knew the last time I was here (2004) are better: the artists have improved, the musicians are tighter, the poets are better. I just want to bring them all together,” he muses.



He says, “it’s really fun when there’s at least four or five painters and musicians and poets and video projection and slides, dancers on a stage in a huge warehouse with a huge crowd watching or creating alongside.”



You can get a sense of Trotter-Voronoff for yourself through his blog site, www.abztraktsynergy.blogspot.com.