Interview with Ralph Rumpelton

 Originally published in Digital Ramble Quarterly, Spring 2025 (Issue No. 12 – “Lo-Fi Futures”)

Interviewer: Ralph, thank you for sitting down with us. Let’s start with the question everyone asks: why MS Paint?

Rumpelton: Because it’s there. Like Everest. Only it crashes more. I tried Photoshop once — too many buttons, too much power. MS Paint says, “Here’s a pencil and three colors. Try not to break anything.” That’s my kind of challenge.

Interviewer: Your reinterpretations of album covers have been called “gloriously mangled” and “spiritually smudged.” Do you consider that praise?

Rumpelton: Totally. I aim for “joyfully wrong.” I’m not copying album covers, I’m dreaming about them with a mouse. It’s like memory—blurry, crooked, half-true. That’s what makes it real.

Interviewer: Some say there's real reverence in your work, even when it's chaotic. Do you agree?

Rumpelton: I love the music. I’d never parody these albums. What I do is more like biting into a cassette tape and hoping it plays. I ruin things on purpose so people look at them differently.

Interviewer: You once said, “Imperfection needs no improvement.” That’s become a kind of motto. Can you expand on it?

Rumpelton: Sure. Everything today is smooth and corrected. You can’t even sneeze on the internet without someone auto-tuning it. But a messed-up line, a smudge — that’s where the soul is. Art should be like an accident you keep instead of cleaning up.

Interviewer: Do you ever work outside MS Paint? Other media?

Rumpelton: I made a sculpture out of toast once. The birds thought it was my best work. They gave it five beaks.

Interviewer: What are you working on now?

Rumpelton: I might do the Louvre in Paint. Just flatten the whole thing into pixel soup. Or maybe Captain Beefheart’s Doc At The Radar Station. Depends if my mouse survives the week.

Interviewer: Do you think of yourself as an outsider artist?

Rumpelton: Only if the gallery door’s locked. Honestly, I just draw till my hand cramps. Then I look at clouds. Clouds are the best artists. They don’t even sign their work.