Jennifer Steinkamp is an installation artist who works with video and new media. She is also a professor of art at UCLA. Before participating in a Zócalo panel at the Getty about the importance of trees in life and art, she answered questions in our Green Room.

Q. How often do you Google yourself?
A. Because I’m a professor I need to keep my dossier up to date, so maybe four times a year, I guess. If I’m doing an exhibition I might Google myself for press at that point.

Q. Do you have a favorite word?
A. I guess my nicknames for my cats are something. There’s a bunch. Mitten, kitten… that’s not the one I was thinking of. They have to be there for me to say it.

Q. If you could move somewhere tomorrow, where would you move?
A. I wouldn’t.

Q. What would we find you doing at 10 am on a typical Saturday?
A. Working.

Q. What was your first job?
A. I was a paper boy.

Q. What’s the last thing that made you laugh really hard?
A. Probably my friend Linda.

Q. What music have you listened to recently?
A. I generally don’t listen to music because it distracts me while I’m working. The song Jennifer Juniper. Or Johnny Cash, intentionally.

Q. What is your greatest simple pleasure?
A. Looking.

Q. What is your favorite type of weather?
A. 70 degrees.

Q. What is the best piece of advice you ever received?
A. Do what you want.

To read more about the panel in which Steinkamp participated, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.