Jaimie Warren takes crazy photos. It's that simple. She takes photos of her friends, herself, animals, food... whatever it is, somehow the photos always come out looking really bizarre.

Chief Magazine:  Are you originally from Kansas City? There seems to be a really thriving art community there. Has that always been the case? Was that available to you when you were growing up?

Jaimie Warren:  I’m from Waukesha, Wisconsin! My family there owns a sports bar. My sister is the head bartender and manager. My mom, dad and sister all ride Harleys now. (My mom just quit 30 years of teaching for her new *lifestyle*). I came to Kansas City at 18 for college. Believe it or not, there really is a thriving art community here. It’s small for sure, but everyone is insanely hard-working, which I guess is what happens when you have a community trying to get a name for itself. The struggle here is for the community to be recognized, therefore you really have a lot of hard-working young people trying to help one another with all of their projects. That in itself is actually pretty profound, and at the same time really inspiring. I’ve been a part of a collective running a gallery space here, where our focus was to bring in people who would normally not visit Kansas City. We brought in tons of people like Black Dice, Neil Burke of Men’s Recovery Project, Wolf Eyes, Paper Rad and tons of others. The great part about being here is that you can run a space and have people call you and ask if you need to borrow a P.A. or if you need help sweeping your floors when the show is over. Quite awesome.

A lot of young photographers end up in New York because they think there's more here to work with. It doesn't seem like its the case with you. Is there anything in your head that says move to New York or move out of Kansas City?

Yeah, I think I've asked myself why I’m not in New York maybe every other day or so for the past six years. I guess I would really want to be there mostly because I would really love to have the opportunity to do freelance photography work, like to actually be paid for a job you are enjoying and you're happy with the outcome. Oh, to be creative and do the work you love to do and be paid for it! It’s my dream. But I guess I stay because I don’t think I’d have all this positive energy always pumping through my veins, plus my totally weirdo friends who will do pretty much anything you ask them to, always on the level of a five-year-old. But it’s really fun, and it makes for great pictures. Plus, with the amazing power of the Internet, I'm able to get my work out all over the place, I mean, I can even be in a show in New York or Berlin--or wherever for that matter--and never even see the space. I guess that’s kind of gross or weird or whatever, but at the same time its very handy in a ton of ways.

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I have lived in New York briefly and have visited since at least two or three times a year, but I could never get myself into the energy there. Though there is so much culturally to experience and be a part of, it still never seemed as vibrant and colorful as my town, as incorrect as I’m sure that sounds.

Kansas City is weird in a different way, like since it’s a smaller town, you have the craziest parties that are totally nonsensical. You walk in and you're surrounded by all these groups of people that make no sense together, which is I guess what happens when you are in a smaller city where everyone wants to party, no matter what the circumstances are.  Like for instance there's a Jewish Hanukkah Dynasty theme party with a bunch of drag queens and everyone dressed in Dynasty (the TV show) attire, and they had a real Rabbi there to host someone’s birthday. Among the mix were people in tennis uniforms, a group of Mexican bikers and three zombies. Or this other party a few days later, which was an all-pink 50’s beach theme. All the parties make no sense and it’s amazing. It’s sort of surreal and every time I have a friend come in from out of town they’re pretty surprised, for sure. There are plenty of bad things about the scene here, of course, but I think the weirdness and awkwardness that’s so present here is totally where my aesthetic comes from.

Who were photographers or artists that really impressed you as a kid? Or do you remember a time when you saw a photo or a painting and said "Oh, well, that's what I want to do?" Did you like being photographed as a kid?

As a kid? Hmm. I’m sure I didn’t like art as a kid, or if I did, maybe I didn’t realize it was art because I would have been all, “eeew, gross,” or something. Maybe a sign that I’m actually not a really good artist is that I started taking pictures in high school, and they were the absolute most stereotypical high school art photos I anyone could ever take. Seriously. Like, semi-nude awkward poses of my friends in a studio with a black backdrop. I even sort of remember doing a lot of sandwiched negative stuff and really “messing around” in the darkroom. Yikes. Wait, is that true? If your early work is the same as the recreations of bad art school movies, does that mean you can never really be a good artist? Like, maybe I can only be good if I was first creating sculpture of embryos out of Silly Putty in Nepal and added the extra coloring with my own blood, and then went directly to photography last year or something? I don’t know, I think I was more into torturing my little sister and brother than anything else, and my mom told me I would always make goat noises everywhere I went for like three years straight. My sister went through a phase where she was no longer Lindsay, but instead she was Eric, and she wore only my brother’s clothes and she cut her hair and we had to call her Eric for eight months straight.