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#Interview I first ran into the work of Rebecca Reeves at her collaborative show with Danielle Schlunegger-Warner at the Convent in Philly. The Duo’s work blended together extremely well as both artists focus so much on the minute detail, the things that suck viewers deep into every last bit of the work. Reeves’s work stuck with me because as well as the fascinating detail, her work also features a lot of alluring and somewhat macabre antique imagery. There’s something so pleasingly haunting about antique images, objects, and framing; this paired with Reeves’s elegant composition and thread work makes from some breathtaking pieces. Pulling her imagery and object inspiration from family heirlooms, her work has this unique ability to spark nostalgia or some sort of connection. It’s that funny how our brains start to form some sort of connection when looking at old or familiar things, and Reeves is a master of taking that feeling and pushing it one step further with all of the intricacies in her work. There’s so much that goes on in Rebecca Reeves’s work that I don’t think I could ever do a sufficient job in explaining it, but I was thrilled to get to chat with her about the origins of her work, her style, and so on. There’s a whole lot of interesting inspiration that goes into her work and it really made each element seem a little bit more special. She gave a great interview that really shed a new light on her work and will make you think about her work a little differently. Enjoy! 1. To begin, I always like to ask about the artist's background, so what got you into art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist you are today? Since childhood, I knew I wanted to be an artist. Whether it be drawing or redesigning my room, I was always creating. Throughout my childhood, I was surrounded by inspirational family members who consisted of ​p​ainters, ​mu​sicians, ​p​otters, ​fiber ​a​rtists and ​poets. My earliest art memory was in kindergarten. I was given a large piece of construction paper with an outline of a sailboat drawn on it. The class was instructed to take buttons and glue them onto the outline. Everyone finished, but I was picking out just the tiniest buttons for my piece. The teacher allowed me to finish while the other students started on their next assignment. I was grateful for an art​-​nurturing teacher. As I began ​h​igh ​s​chool, I was ​accepted into the Honors ​A​rt program. This gave me the space to expand my artistic skills as well as an introduction to the world of ​A​rt ​C​ollege. During my senior year I attended summer classes at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia. It was then that I formed my educational goals. My college career spanned three institutions and two majors. I attended Bucks County Community College to get some of the foundation classes completed first and then transferred to Tyler School of Art/Temple University to pursue my BFA. Tyler was the one school I wanted to attend and the only school where I submitted my application. Luckily, my portfolio was accepted. I double​-​majored at the request of my grandfather and received my ​T​eaching ​Certification as a backup plan. When it came time to declare a major​ the Fiber Department seemed like a perfect fit. The women in my family inspired my love for anything with beads, stitching, weaving and crocheting. During these years, I was introduced to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I knew instantly that I needed to attend this school for my Masters Degree. Once again, I applied to one school. ​I​ put all of my chips on the table and rolled the dice. I was accepted into the Fibers Master of Arts program at SAIC. I packed my bags and supplies and moved to Chicago for the next two years. I had an amazing college experience and wouldn’t have changed it for the world. I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about art school, but it was something I needed for my artistic and personal growth. 2. What got you started in sourced material work? How has your use of sourced material grown or developed over the years? Do you have specific places where you get or search for your materials or are you constantly keeping an eye out for things? Further, how does a piece begin for you? Do you find something and then work off of what you have or do you get an idea and then source necessary materials? Do you rigorously lay out what you're going to do or do you allow the process to reveal itself based on what you're working with and how the piece develops? Or does that vary? My system for developing art has always been consistent. I wouldn’t say it’s a style that I worked to develop, it’s simply how my brain creates art and problem​ solves. An idea can pop into my head, typically when I’m driving or right before I fall asleep. I mentally construct all the parts​ creating the entire piece from start to finish. Once I have successfully created a piece in my mind, I become excited about physically creating the work. The piece begins and ends as a complete idea before I even pick up a tool. Oftentimes, I take that idea and plan it out as an entire series ​even envisioning how the piece will be displayed in a gallery/museum. My brain goes from the point of conception to the exhibition platform. The materials I use throughout my work are derived from the influence of my family. Whether ​it be the materials they used in their own work, collections or heirlooms handed down from generations find their way into my work organically. If the piece calls for an antique object, it’s rare I can part with the actual personal heirloom. Normally, I will source similar objects from antique stores or online. I love the thrill of the hunt. Similar to how I plan a piece/series, I already have my final grand museum exhibition created in my mind. I would incorporate my family’s actual heirlooms into my work. My thought process is that the objects would be forever loved and cherished ​not only as antiques that have survived generations, but also as works of art. It sounds silly, but I always need a plan for everything I love dearly. I hope to always be the collector, protector and keeper of my family’s heirlooms. Giving them a life after death is my ultimate goal to honor and keep their memory alive. 3. Thread and beads seem to be of crucial importance in your work, how do you decide how heavily they'll be implemented in a piece? How do you decide when you're going to use them as singular or covering elements as opposed to decorative, sculptural elements (i.e. the flowers you often use)? My choice of material really comes down to what I want the piece to express. The cocooning of the thread represents the overwhelming heaviness and suffocating feeling of grief. Exposing the one eye on the antique porcelain doll heads represent the mourning eye which is inspired by the Victorian’s ‘Lovers Eye’ brooches. When incorporating beadwork into a piece, I want to also express the weight of loss through the density of the beads and the visual weight of the piece. Beadwork can also take on another representation as the spirits or energy flowing. ​Example of this is in ‘The Calling’ and ‘Séance’ where the hands are calling to the beyond, connecting to the spirit world. The beadwork was influenced by my great grandmother. She was a potter, painter and fiber artist. Her home was full of wonder. The staircase had one step that opened to reveal a secret space. The second floor sat on an odd slant almost like a funhouse. Her sewing room had a beautiful floor with pink flowers and a slate-blue background. I would pour baby powder on it and slide around like a skating rink. The house had cast iron floor grates that opened to the first floor. I would make tissue ghosts and hang them through the slots scaring the people below. Her family room was where she beaded and crocheted. Her beads were neatly organized on TV trays covered in fishing tackle boxes. In the kitchen, she had a large windowsill that was covered in the tiniest square tiles. On those tiles she displayed many things, but her vase of beaded flowers embedded into my soul. I never forgot about those tiny flowers and wanted to incorporate them into my art. In my work, they represent the spirit and energy of the deceased, the forever flowers that are left at the graves by visitors and the forever flowers carved out of stone on the grave markers. 4. Is scale an important element of your work or just a byproduct of the materials that you use? Is it ever a challenge to work small? How does your process differ when making vs. sourcing miniature elements? Miniatures are something that I’ve always been drawn to since childhood. I had a dollhouse, but it wasn’t a Victorian home it was a modular home that stacked level by level. I don’t recall really playing “house” with the dollhouse​ it was more about designing the spaces. What I truly associate my love for miniatures were the toys that opened to reveal tiny homes hidden inside a tree, under a doll’s dress or an ice cream sundae. I began working in the miniature during my graduate program. I felt that it was the ultimate way to control an environment. Once pieces were complete, I would create protective storage covers for them. I then realized those protective covers got dusty and needed protectors – protectors for protectors. My need to control through organizing and protecting was my need to control the uncontrollable events in my personal life. The preservation of family’s memories has always been my inspiration for my art. My early work was about the loss of my grandfather and my grandmother’s loss of memory from Alzheimer’s Disease and inevitably her death. I incorporated screen printing, crochet and beadwork to create that body of work. The next stage in my work began the introduction to miniature dollhouse furniture in order to preserve my family’s memory through their heirlooms which were represented in miniature form. The miniatures I use are rarely created by me. 5.​ Framing and mounting bear quite a significant role in your work. Are these elements planned at the beginning of a piece or do they reveal themselves through the process? Are frames or stands sourced as well or are they made specifically for each piece? Framing my work is as essential to the piece as a whole. The frame is never an afterthought. It is selected during the creative process. My frames are sourced mainly from antique markets or online. My dad would find them for me as well as he was a huge antique collector​. I​ learned from the best. Due to the need for extended frame depth for the beaded flower series, I have frames custom-made. 6. Across your body of work you have a pretty consistent color palette. A lot of black, white, gold, deep red, and some earth tones. Was your color palette built off of interaction with the porcelain figures or sepia tone photos? Or does it bear a narrative significance? How do you decide what colors you're going to add to each piece? Do you ever find materials that you really like but you have to alter them in some way to fit your color palette? I’m a long-time home/décor magazine lover and find inspiration for colors and composition within those pages. My color palette is echoed throughout my home with grounding brown tones with hints of antiqued colors. My home is filled with my family’s heirlooms and I think that environment flows into my work organically. The red series was a rare addition to my regular palette. The red is ​reference to blood and the recurring ​images from my father’s illness. My color choices rarely are determined by the objects. The color palette is already determined prior to obtaining the found objects. The porcelain dolls incorporated in my work are not altered other than removing the clothes, removing the limbs and cutting off the neck when needed. The beaded flowers in my work take on a couple of forms. I either create the beaded flowers from scratch or disassemble antique flowers and then reassemble into a new flower and/or recolor based on the piece. Disassembling the flowers ​taught me so much about creating them. Some of the antique flowers that were intended for pieces never made it out of my personal collection as I ​become ​too attached. That being said, I justify keeping them as reference for my own beaded flower creations. 7. You've got a couple of series or consistent themes throughout your body of work, for example the threaded up doll arms or the bead beards. Do you create series in one shot or do you have things that you do consistently that you always find yourself venturing back to? Or both? Although my work can take on different forms, whether it be cocooning (obsessively stitching in thread), beadwork or beaded flowers, the consistent theme throughout is to preserve my family’s memory and my love and gratitude for them. A series typically will maintain a specific style or use a particular object, as seen in the new series with the broken doll heads. As I work through bodies of work, the idea is complete prior to me physically creating. While I work on one series, another is building in the back of my mind. I don’t tend to jump around from one series to another without completing that energy. I have to get it completely out to move on to the next. My focus is usually on one or two pieces at a time or my anxieties will get the best ​of​ me. Chaos doesn’t work well for me. Including the space where I work. I love and admire studios that are full of experiments and stages of work, but my obsessive brain doesn’t function at its best in those situations. 8. ​Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything and everything you'd like to share, fire away! I recently debuted the first piece in a new series, ‘Broken Beyond Words, Damaged Beyond Repair’ at Arch Enemy Arts Gallery in Philadelphia. Currently, I am in the beginning stages of creating a large collection of work based on this new series for a two-woman show withwatercolor artist, Michelle Avery Konczyk. The show is titled, ‘From Within Ourselves We See’ and will open in December. I’ll be in a group show at Gristle Gallery in September and December. I hope to participate in the vending Salem Dark Arts Market in October in Salem, Massachusetts, which is all teetering on the state of the virus. Follow me on Instagram under @timberchouse and on FB as Rebecca Reeves Artist.

#Interview Recently when chatting with a friend about artists who we're most interested in, I was shown the work of Jason Seiler. Seiler is an incredibly talented painter, both on the canvas and digitally, whose ability to not only capture the form but cartoonishly manipulate it is mind blowing. I think we've all come across caricatures at some point or another but they tend to be quick and simple, which is still cool, but Seiler does things differently. He takes all the tools that you would use in creating a realistic portrait and brings them into his caricatures. His talent in displaying the human form, most notably the face, allows him to brilliantly manipulate it in ways that most others can't. One of the things that fascinates me most about Seiler's work is that while he does a lot of digital painting, he doesn't use a whole lot of fancy digital techniques to create them, it's almost as if he's doing an oil painting but on a screen. In the many videos where he's shared his process, you really get to see how he uses his digital brush as if it's a totally normal brush. This is extremely beneficial to the final works because while they're still very realistic, they feel like a painting or drawing. That painterly quality is really beautiful when properly displayed and Seiler has a perfect balance of realism and stroke... something that I personally have never seen digitally. You've no doubt run into Seiler's work at one point or another as his art has been featured in several publications! But there's so much more to this incredible artist as he also hosts a really interesting podcast where he interviews artists, musicians, and comedians. He also does comedy himself! Seiler is a fascinating character at face value, so I was extremely excited to get to dig a little bit deeper and hear more about his art, the processes behind it, and the man behind the art! It's a great interview with a lot of really cool insight, ENJOY! 1. I always begin by asking about background, so what got you into art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist that you are today? I grew up surrounded by art.  My father is an artist and musician.  For me it was just what you did.  I was pretty serious about it as a young age.  Started filling sketchbooks by the age of 4 or 5, I would draw for hours and hours and was even grounded from drawing at one point.  I began drawing caricatures around the age of 10 and became obsessed with it.  I didn’t realize that I could make a living doing that until I was in my early twenties and began noticing caricature illustration being featured in publications.  I began to work on illustrations, submitted them to publications and eventually began getting work. I am self taught but did attend the American Academy of Art in Chicago for nearly two years when I was 26.  I was already working professionally but thought school might be able to teach me how to be quicker because the pressure of tight deadlines were stressing me out.  Eventually I realized I was doing ok on my own so I quit and focused full time on my career and I’ve been busy ever since. Early on my inspirations were my dad, and MAD magazine artists, like Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Norman Mingo, and Richard Williams.  Then I became influenced by artists like Sebastian Kruger, and Jan Op De Beeck, and as my work developed I became influenced by illustrators, like Norman Rockwell, Ismael Roldan, Fred Harper, C.F. Payne, Roberto Parada, Thomas Fluharty, James Bennette, Steve Brodner, and Philip Burke. As I developed as a painter, I began to be influenced by artists like John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn, and more of a modern influence, Jenny Saville. 2. You do work in both traditional and digital means but what began your shift into the digital painting/illustration world? Did you gradually fall into this over a period of years or did you instantly fall in love with what you could do digitally? Good question.  I am first and foremost a traditional artist.  I love painting in oils and watercolor.  These days I only work traditionally for private commissions or for paintings that I do for myself.  Early on in my illustration career I was doing most my work with acrylics, and it was really difficult and stressful to finish paintings on time with the quality that I was aiming for.  For results that I would be pleased with required much more time.  A friend of mine suggested that I try painting digitally so I reluctantly gave it a try.  At the time I felt that digital painting wasn’t real painting and was like cheating.  But once I started messing around with it, I realized that I could in fact paint with it and still keep my style and feel, and I was able to work much faster, meet my deadlines, and feel good about the quality of my work. 3. While you do create a lot of your work through digital means you still employ a lot of the traditional painting methods through it, is it important to you to keep traditional painting styles/techniques alive in your digital work? What made you want to keep using these techniques and avoid some of the more technical digital things that you can do when painting? Yes, I believe that it is really important to paint traditionally as much as possible.  I learn so much about aesthetics, brush work, color techniques, soft edges and so on.  Under painting techniques as well, and I try to use all of what I learn traditionally within my digital paintings.  It works both ways.  Because I can work much faster digitally, I learn a lot of new things about color, and so on, that I can also try out within my traditional paintings. I prefer to be painterly these days when painting digitally.  I want it to feel and look real but keep that painted feel.  It is important to me that it looks painted and equally important that whether I’m painting traditionally or digitally that my work has the same voice! 4. In your bio on your site you reference getting in trouble for drawing cartoons of one of your teachers as a beginning of your art career. Were things like this your beginning in caricature? What drew you towards skewing the human form in a comical way? How has it developed over the years? When I fist started to draw caricatures, I didn’t realize that it was a known art form, in a way I thought I had made it up.  I started to draw my family members in a more exaggerated way, and then eventually my friends in my Youth Group at church.  It got to a point for me that wherever I went I couldn’t turn it off, everyone I saw looked crazy to me.  In school I would draw my teachers on my paper, and eventually my History teacher, Mr. Wentz had enough and brought me to the principles office.  She told him he could leave, that she would deal with me, and when he left she began to laugh and laugh and laugh!  It was amazing and quite a relief.  I thought I was in big trouble, but instead of a discipline, she hired me to draw 9 teachers that were retiring that year.  So I had my first commission.  As for what drew me to draw people that way?  I think at fist it was just experimenting, but early on I noticed that people’s faces were unique and there were major differences from one person compared to another and those differences I believe now are how we unconsciously recognize each other or remember each other.  Some eyes closer together, some farther apart, some large or small, or skewed etc..... The way it’s developed over the years is mostly that I focus on character and capturing the feeling of my subject, trying to capture if I can, the ultimate likeness. 5. In one of your youtube videos I noticed you were using an image of yourself in a suit jacket for the body shape, so what goes into compiling references for caricature work? Do you really have to build up a bunch for full body/scene images? Do you ever work from life in either your digital or traditional painting? Yes, for references, I use myself and my wife quite a bit.  Sometimes my kids and friends of mine as well.  It depends on what the job is.  Sometimes I need a specific expression for a person that I need to paint but that expression is no where to be found, so I will take pictures of myself and try to draw that person making the type of expression I need based off of my face.  Not easy, but it can be very helpful.  I will pose myself or others in whatever type of clothing I might need as well, and that is to get accurate reference of anatomy as well as folds in clothing, lighting reference, perspective and so on.  I don’t work from life for illustration work, but I have painted for live for studies and so on. 6. You're really big on promoting the importance of thumbnails and developmental sketches, have you always used these sketches as a way to build and develop your idea before diving into the final piece? What freedom do you think this gives you in developing your work? Another good question.  I don’t always have the luxury of time to do many sketches.  A lot of my deadlines for covers or spot illustrations are 1 to 2 days, so I have to work very fast.  I do believe that doing a few quick thumbnails of a person is good practice though.  Give yourself more options to choose from rather than settling for the first thing that comes out.  I find if you do this, you allow yourself to be more creative with your decisions.  It’s just good practice. 7. Further on the topic of sketching, you have a large collection of black and grey digital drawings that you've done. How does this approach differ from your full color digital paintings? Is it similar to the difference between drawing and painting or is it the same techniques as digital paintings just with a lesser color palette? How do you approach tone differently in black and grey as opposed to color? I do a lot of black and white value sketches or studies and the reason I do them is for personal practice.  I believe that values are the most important thing to understand when it comes to drawing and painting.  There are of course other things that are important as in soft edges and a solid drawing, but values are by far the most important.  It’s like going to the gym and working out.  The more I practice my values, the better my paintings in color are.  Color isn’t all that different, the only real difference is that I think a lot about color temperature, harmony, and saturation. 8. You've done a ton of work for a whole list of magazines and one thing that I found really interesting in one of your videos was the turn around speed that you need for some of these illustrations. Are a majority of your magazine works done in a small time frame? How do you approach a work differently when you've got 1-3 days to do it as opposed to, say, 1-3 months? Another great question!  Well, first, I never have deadlines that are 1-3 months, well rarely anyways.  There have been a few larger projects that took a few weeks or so, but most deadlines are wanted yesterday.  The only real difference is that with quicker deadlines, I have to get the sketch drawn and approved as quick as possible so that I can get going on the painting which takes the most time.  Usually on projects that I have more time, I spend more time on the sketch or idea and there’s also a back and forth between the art director and I, then the editors, and sometimes there are several art directors.  That can be a frustrating phase, as there are many opinions and ideas thrown around and sometimes it can take a bit to get it just right.  That’s just part of the deal though, and I’m used to it.  For me it’s always about delivering the highest quality work that I can no matter how much time I have. 9. You're active in the arts community be it through teaching or your podcast Face the Truth, what drew you towards teaching and sharing your skills? What inspired you to go deeper into the artist community with something like a podcast? How have either of these outlets helped develop your personal artistic practice? I gotta say, I have done many interviews and these are by far some of the best questions I have gotten.  Thank you for that. What drew me to teaching was Bobby Chiu who started Schoolism.com. He started the school around 2005 or 2006 and I was one of the first artists he asked to teach for the school.  I never thought I would teach or be able to, but Bobby saw something in me and knew I could do it, so I went for it.  I have been teaching for Schoolism for 13 or 14 years I think?  Crazy how time flies.  I love teaching and find that I learn a lot about myself and my work as well.  But I really love to push and challenge my students and help them grow and challenge themselves.  I’m not a person who feels threatened by other artists or worried that someone will pass me or steal from me, my techniques or whatever, I feel that whatever I can do to contribute or help others artistically, that it’s the least I can do.  I appreciate when artists have done that for me in the past. My podcast was inspired mostly because I love listening to podcasts while I am working in my studio and I thought, hey, I could do that.  I know a lot of artists and musicians and so on, and I thought people might enjoy hearing genuine conversations between artists.  I don’t really prep questions for my guests, I want it to feel like two people hanging out.  I feel I get a lot more interesting results this way and it helps the listener to feel as if they know us a little more, more approachable. Both teaching and the podcast have helped develop my personal artistic practice in many different ways.  As mentioned before, teaching helps me hone in on my own skills and makes me think about what I am doing a bit more, and it also helps push me to be the best that I can be, so that I can be the best teacher that I can be.  The podcast is cool because I get to talk with artists that I respect and that I am inspired by and I learn and pick up cool things from them, whether it be techniques or types of materials and so on.  It has opened up many doors for me, gotten me illustration work which is great, and also connected me with so many more artists that I can proudly say are now my friends if they weren’t already.  And we as artists can always use amazing artist friends!  It has also connected me with Stand Up comedians that I love who have in return inspired and challenged me to do stand up as well, which is something I have always wanted to do, and now absolutely love doing!  I can’t wait to be able to get out there and start doing comedy again! 10. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows, covers, or events coming up? Anything and everything that you'd like to share, fire away! OK cool.  Well you can follow my work and podcast etc on my Instagram, @seilerpaints. I also have a fan page on FaceBook, Jason Seiler Illustration.  I have a twitter but I don’t really use it that much.  Please like and subscribe to my YouTube Channel to follow my podcast, Face the Truth.  I do an episode every week, sometimes I do two depending on my deadlines.  My podcast is also available on iTunes and most other audio apps, but unfortunately not all episodes are available in audio as I only have a certain amount of space available for each month, so I am playing catch up with the audio versions. My website is www.jasonseiler.com. As mentioned earlier, I teach for the online art school, Schoolism, a course on Caricature Illustration, and a course on Drawing and painting realistic portraits.  I also have videos available on www.gumroad.com/jasonseiler I just recently finished a huge ad campaign for Cotton, called Rosie Reborn which honors hard working women, I also recently painted two covers for TIME magazine, and a portrait of a Sergeant for a campaign that Adobe is doing to help honor heroes during this pandemic.  As for things coming out, I did some poster work recently for a few different T.V. Shows on Pop T.V. But not sure when they will be available?

#Feature I have a large collection of prints on my wall and there's a couple that make me smile every day. Baby Yoda and the Maitland's from Beetlejuice always catch my eye and it's in large part because of the fun illustration styles and techniques of the Ghost Girl Greetings team. I discovered Ghost Girl Greetings at one of the Darksome Markets, I think by now you can tell that I love these events, and I instantly fell in love with their work. Cute, fun representations of our favorite horror and pop culture icons alongside little quips and quotes are the foundation of Ghost Girl Greetings. Their illustrations are just easy on the eye, which is funny because they're often depicting the characters who are the least easy on the eye! I was extremely excited to hear more about the collaborative experience behind Ghost Girl Greetings and they did not disappoint. I think the collaborative experience compared to the general art making experience is just a totally different animal and it's neat to hear about that side. There's a whole lot of spooky goodness and relatable art making experiences here. Enjoy! 1. I always like to begin by asking about background, so how did the two of you get into art? Any schooling? Big Inspirations? What helped shape you into the artists you are today? So we're super lucky in that our artist Laurie was born with colored pencil in her hand and we haven't been able to pry it out since. She started art school back in her HS years and continued on through college. We're both very inspired by horror and pop culture fandom so it has definitely shaped us as artists and as people. Although Toni doesn't do art for Ghost Girls she does diptoe into horror and spooky inspired paintings (shameless plug) 2. Further, how did your collaborations begin? What was the foundation of Ghost Girl Greetings and how has it grown? Where did the name come from? It began over a cupcake at a crashed first birthday party. The cupcakes were delicious, the ideas were even better. The company idea stemmed from Toni wishing for a Die Hard Christmas card to send to friends. We got to talking about it and with Laurie's art skill and Toni's gift for puns it seemed like the perfect collaboration for longtime friends. Our name... oh boy this was a toughie. We probably have a very long reject list somewhere that would make you laugh. We're spooky gals, so ghosts made it ways into the title. 3. Speaking of collaborations, what is the actual collaboration process like between the two of you? Are certain things driven totally by one of you or do you tend to work equally on each piece? I'm curious about the back and forth in making, is it the same every time or do your roles change piece to piece? We're the nightmare to each others Elm Street during this process. Laurie may have a hankering to work on a specific inspiration or Toni may be making herself laugh quoting movies and it all comes together pretty naturally. We would say 95% of our pieces equally represent both of us. Of course, there have been occasions where one of us gets this amazing full concept for a card and as long as it makes us both laugh then it hits the site. 4. Pop culture obviously plays a big role in your work, was this something that's always played a role in Ghost Girl Greetings, or did it develop over time? Do you only use imagery from things that you like or do you sometimes have to capitalize on what's popular? We only work on things we really are fans of. We just really want to make products that we would have bought for our own friends. We have very similar tastes in films, tv, and music so it helps us creatively. 5. Illustration aside you also have to be pretty witty in the text that's placed on these illustrations or cards. So at what point does that start to play a role, do you go into a piece knowing what it's going to say? Or do you sometimes have to figure it out at the mid-way or end point? Are there ever challenges in figuring out what to say? Like you have the perfect illustration but can't figure out words for it. Oh boy do we ever! So Toni's strong suite with us is being a real movie trivia champ and she loves to make jokes. Many times it is super organic if we talk about an idea that makes the other laugh we know its a home run, Same with an image that sparks a feeling with us. It's a fun part of the process because we can really see what makes us laugh and smile when we're piecing it together. Nothing makes us happier than being at a show and having someone pick up a card and not only "oooo" over the art but "ha-ha" over the words. 6. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything and everything you'd like to share, fire away! Yay! The fun stuff. We'd love to tell the next shows but currently, everything has been moved around due to the COVID situation. You'll def be able to catch us at local NJ shows when they are able to happen such as Monstermania, New Jersey Horror Con, Trenton punk rock flea market and JC Oddities to name a few. We'll be posting about events on our social media pages. We sell our cards online at https://ghostgirlgreetings.com/ and on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GhostGirlGreetings You can keep the fun going on social media by checking out IG/FB: @ghostgirlgreetings Twitter: @ghostgirlgrtngs To check out our solo work (and pictures of our cats and lunches) Laurie's Page: IG @zombies8laurie Toni's Page: IG @pumpkin923

Over the last year, I’ve referenced my illustrative, cartoonish work from college and how around graduation I got really sick of it. These illustrations used to be really fun for me but they became something that I had to force. There was a time where I could sit there and let my mind wander and tons of unique characters would effortlessly spill from my pen, but that dried up as my passion for doing these characters did. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, it was just that I felt I’d pushed them as far as they could go and they weren’t going to get much better or get me anywhere. When I left school I had to rediscover my passion for art in a lot of ways and one of the ways that I did that was figure drawing. Figure drawing and the human form was always something I’d been interested in, especially in highschool, but I’d gotten really far away from it. So after a 3-4 month period of not making anything, I busted out some anatomy books, figure drawing references and just drew things in a way that I hadn’t before. I got just about as far away from the cartoonish stuff I was doing in school as I could. Though what I don’t often mention is that I found my way back. Right around when I came on board at Plebeian, I’d started making these large illustrations where I’d splash paint on a page and pull something from the blobs and drips created. They were a lot of fun and I could create them quickly and easily. I was cranking these things out, one after another yet as time went on they became more challenging. Again, not because I didn’t like them or couldn’t do them, they just felt forced. I’d pushed them about as far as they could go, as I had when I was in school. So I had to find the next step in my creative journey, but with Plebeian getting off of the ground, working a job, and life itself becoming more busy I didn’t have a lot of time, I couldn’t put forth the effort to do an entire painting or drawing or anything. Yet for the first time in my life, I was ok with it, I was ok with not creating anything. Those 3-4 months post-college were brutal because I was constantly kicking myself because I had all of this time, I just couldn’t find what I wanted to create. This time, however, all of my energy was focused positively on other things. I’d gotten far away from my art, sure, but it wasn’t in a bad way and I knew I’d find my way back. The story of me picking it back up isn’t all that exciting and can probably be summed up as me saying, “fuck it. I want to paint again.” Being the adventurer I am, I tried to do something different. I had two things in my head, I knew I wanted to try to represent life and I knew I wanted to push the boundaries and capabilities of line. So, I sat down and gave it a shot. It was a struggle at first, but over the last several months I’ve found all sorts of different things that really drive me to be better. I’m constantly pushing my abilities and the abilities of line, the surface, the media, and whatever I can. This body of work, or style that I’m currently working on seems to me to be the culmination of years of working strictly representationally and years of working in cartoonish illustrations. I’m a huge fan of this body of work, but the difference is I can’t pump them out like I did my past illustration work. While I still think that I work relatively fast, these projects take some time and I often need a mental cooldown after making one of them. So, while it seems like I’ve gotten lightyears from the title I haven’t, I promise. With all that’s going on with the quarantine and being stuck at home all the time I end up with quite a bit of downtime. I’ve still been making work, a shitload of it in fact, but I’m a person who always wants to be drawing, or painting, or just making something, so I was trying to find ways to fill the gaps between paintings. In a conversation with my dad he was telling me he liked my new paintings then asked, “whatever happened to the Freaks?” (the name I’d given to the illustrated characters I’d spent years making) I was caught off guard by the question because truthfully I hadn’t thought about them in a while. Occasionally I’d cross paths with one of the previous illustrations I’d done, or I’ll throw down a doodle as I do something mindless, but I hadn’t strived to make a finished illustrative piece in a long ass time. My dad said I should bring them back and I was fully behind it… well until I tried to do it at least. I sat down a couple of times to try and do some cartoony illustrations but they just weren’t coming to me like they had in the past. They used to be automatic, almost subconscious as every element would just sprout from the last without me really thinking. Yet, when I sat down to try and do a finished piece this time it felt like a chore and I hated the result. I chalked it up to being rusty and gave it another shot. I failed again. Ok, one more. Garbage. It just wasn’t happening and I wasn’t sure why. Doing these goofy little illustrations was harder to me than the last 10 large paintings I’d done. I didn’t know what was going on so I really sat back and pondered what was going on. Was I not good at this anymore? No, I was just forcing it. The whole foundation of my cartoonish work was its spontaneity, it came to me and I made it. And at the time where I was making the most work like that it was coming to me very easy. It’s not now, and that’s ok. As artists we’re always going to develop and change in our styles, mediums, thought processes, everything really. So many times when I’ve interviewed artists they’ve said they used to do this, or that their old body of worked progressed into what they do now, and for some reason it took me a while to realize that’s what was happening to me. I guess what I’m trying to say in this is that it’s ok to move on from what you’re doing or have done. You might find your way back to that old body of work some day, you might not, and either way it’s fine. Our creative processes are always going to be developing and changing in ways that we can’t predict or plan. I have fond memories of making cartoonish, illustrative work but that’s not where my head is at right now, so why force it? I’m making a body of work that I’m really invested in and I believe that a lot of what’s happening in this work is learned from my days of cartooning. Maybe I’ll find my way back to that style again, maybe I won’t. For now I’ll just keep making what I feel right making, and you should too! Don’t force your creative process, do what you like, what you want, how you want to do it. At the end of the day that’s what matters.

#Interviews Lola Gil’s paintings are the perfect blend of fun, confusing, exciting, and calming. There is so much going on in her work both visually and narratively that our eyes begin to dash around trying to figure out what it is that we’re looking at. Sometimes the answer presents itself, sometimes we’re left just as confused as when we began looking at the work, but perhaps that’s the wonder of it. Described by Gil as narrative escapism, her work compiles objects and scenes that are representational, surreal/whimsical, or some combination of the two. These images, characters, and objects all serve to fracture our understanding of what’s real and present the world in a different way. She toys with our perception and leaves us questioning everything, but unable to look away. Yet, while extremely exciting with all that’s going on, Gil’s work calms us with its soft, muted color palette. While a lot of times this raises even more questions, it makes the work easy on the eye and allows us to deeply analyze every bit of the work without feeling like we’re melting our minds right out of our skulls. I’m a relatively new fan of Gil’s work, but I was hooked instantly. This new age surrealism that is narrative escapism is something that’s built for the classic and abstract painting fans alike. Gil’s talent of representing and distorting creates a body of work that has something for all levels of art fans and I was thrilled to get to hear more about this constantly developing portfolio. Gil gave some excellent insight and relatable experiences that have helped shape and develop her work. Enjoy! 1. I always like to begin by asking about background, so what got you started in art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist that you are today? Initially I started painting as an outlet for depression I had as a kid. I had a fairly isolated childhood, and even when I was in a mix of people I always felt alone. We changed schools often, so I never had that sense of comradery or belonging. And even before that there were small guilts instilled in me by my mother, which told me I wasn't the child she'd expected. My siblings were perfectly well behaved, smart, and stayed in line. But I was different, wild, and curious. I wanted to go left when told to go right. Eventually it dampened me down and by the time I was 13 or so I needed an outlet to express myself. This early battle with my self value hindered me from making smart decisions. I clung to negative friendships, remained in mentally abusive relationships. And even when I left a bad marriage, I found my rebound relationship had similar harmful mental qualities. Fortunately painting aided me through all of this, and now some 30 years later I'm finally on top of the hill. Mental abuse is a long twisted road. School didn't allure me the way I wish it had. I did take a few art classes, but I went to a community college and my teacher was seriously UNinterested!! And she hated my work. It gave me an anti school complex, so I've been determined to self learn since then. It will always be a long learning curve. I never stop learning. It's exciting. And It's weird to say my early life experiences are what guided me, but I'm at a place now where I can see that it was needed to shape me. 2. You've got a very interesting style that's a little bit illustrative, realist/representational, and surrealist. How did you begin to work in and develop this style? How has it changed or grown over the years? I've had many transitions. When I was little my dad was an illustrator and cartoonist. I idolized him. My roots are from the sweet memories of the cartoon and toy world. I learned how to escape here in my mind and turn everything else off. My imagination emerged from this point. In my early 20's I worked at a tattoo shop under Fabian Iezzi, and he shared with me Surrealist art books. This had a massive impact on my work. I saw a visual language like no other. Grown and intelectual. It stirred in me and influenced my own way to speak harmoniously or fluidly as best I could. I hadn't walked into a museum until my early 30's. That still seems crazy to me. In 2010 I had my first travel overseas to attend a museum exhibition in Bristol England. And this is where my last transition was woken. Up until then I didn't really understand the power of art. My first moment in London was spent with Sir Anthony Van Dyck. The sheer size of Charles the first on that horse! And then I turned the corner and the detail and technicalities of Gerard David. And Van Eyck, and Vermeer, and with every new corner new discovery. I was like a grown child in a candy shop! My intuition was to take every single thought that popped into my brain with this new sense of inspiration, and throw it on the canvas, But attempt it all in oils! Up until then I used Acylics. It was often a hot mess. I've had to learn how to work with my overactive imagination and finess the paintings into a more satisfying and fulfilling narrative. All the while trying to execute my techniques and satisfy my obsessive compulsion to learn, and produce more visually intriguing imagery. 3. How does a piece begin for you? Do you start with one element and build out from there, or do you compile references and build an overall interaction from that? How much of your work is referenced from life? How much from image or just off the top of your head? I'll say all of the above! I'm not in control consciously, most of the time. I have images which float up to the surface. Some times they are clearer than others. I'm sure they begin with exposure, little images get tucked away in my subconscious. And those exposures mix with experiences or feelings that i'm having at the time and start to fit like pairs or companions, representative of each other. I will take many of those ideas and source out imagery. Up until March, I've had a lifetime of being able to go "shopping " at my grandma's house for reference objects. Her and my grandfather were toy collectors and I had the luxury of finding some amazing and rare items which have always been my models. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I go to the ole trusty computer and google images. 4. How does working in oil benefit your work/style? What's your painting process like? Do you go from sketching straight into fine paint detail or do you build up the canvas gradually? Or somewhere in between? Oil has opened up possibilities for me. I'm able to push and pull degrees of clarity. Have a longer period to work things out. For a while I've been working with perspective and focus becoming part of the narrative. I have greater confidence with Oils. I start almost all my ideas with a tiny thumbnail sketch. I'll work out different ideas as they come and try to see what works best together. Some paintings show themselves entirely and i'll have to quickly jot it down. Then I'll do a gathering of reference. I try to do photoshoots for most of the complicated subject matter. I mix in sprinkles of things from my head. And then I build slowly. Sometimes incredibly slowly. I always have a big rotation of paintings so that when one gets stuck, I can change my train of thought to what is calling out. It's highly productive. 5. You selectively but seemingly deliberately depict skin tone in this soft, washed out gray in some of your work, does this bear any narrative significance? Or is this a strictly visual element that's built in to fit another aspect of your work? I started thinking of washed out tones, how they feel timely. It can tell us we're witnessing time pass. Or measuring a distance from where we started. Hopefully another way to insinuate movement. 6. Speaking more broadly on that, you work in a color palette that's pretty consistently soft and muted with a lot of raw, earthy tones. Is this something that you do to imply a certain mood? Do you only use references/imagery that fits this color palette or do you manipulate imagery to fit when you have to? Haha! Well when I took a short 6 months of begging oil class back in college, I had a teacher who's name escapes me! I tried looking him up but to no avail.!! .. Anyhow he gave us a simple palette to mix in as many millions of combinations as we could, and that has been my palette ever since. I add a few new colors to expand and experiment every now and then. I feel like it suits me, what I'm creating, and I see it as one of the most important parts of the painting. Psychologically it should naturally put you in some type of mood. I do source out references which fit the tone of the painting. Those things naturally stand out to me and want to be painted. But it doesn't always fit the palette, so I do have to use my best sense when changing the color of something I'm physically looking at and reinterpreting on canvas. 7. Faces seem to be pretty important to your work but in your newer work you've been eliminating a lot of faces and implying them through the elements in your pieces (i.e. eyes, hair pieces with no head, etc.). How did this change in style come about? What narrative differences do these works contain compared to your other work? Back in 2015 I started playing around with the idea of becoming our surroundings. It may have been more subtle and soft and romantic. It encompassed gratefulness through introspection. As I continue to experiment with that imagery, I'm forced to be aware that openness also exposes the dark corners. The ones I've been groomed to ignore and accept. This is where human connection comes into question for me. I'm trying to work out how I feel vs. what I see. There are layers to people, and I haven't found many who run deep enough that if I jumped into them, I could stay afloat forever. Autobiographically I was using some of the figures as symbols of what I was seeing in people who's true colors began to show. Putting it down in this manner helped to aid me during this experience, and find an ease in the transition, and even find humor in it. 8. How important is the interaction between multiple characters and elements in your work? Does this allow for a certain narrative ambiguity that allows each viewer to perceive the piece in their own way? It does, because the small details are just as responsible to hold weight in the movement of the painting as the figurative characters. Every element has a role, my job is just to instigate an open door to get the viewer somewhere. In a weird way I see it like this.. The paintings begin by showing themselves to me, and unveiling a series of figures and objects which want to be part of a bigger story. It uses feelings and experiences through me along the way, to breathe soul and meaning and life. Which personally and thankfully I can grow from. But then it's ready for its second part of the journey. And that's to offer some kind of movement for the viewer. 9. This is something interesting that I noticed, the gaze of characters in your work seems crucial to the interactions in it. In your older work characters would sometimes gaze directly at the viewer but that's something that's almost completely faded out of your work; even characters who do stare in the direction of the viewer seem to gaze right past us or they have their vision blocked in some way. Is this something done deliberately? What does the gaze mean to you in your work? In the past I concentrated on being in the moment. The work had an element of stillness, maybe capturing a moment. These new works focus on observations, and eventual awareness. With that comes movement and scanning of surroundings. There are more nods to concentration and thinking going on in the painting. The gaze has the important job of creating wonder for the viewer here. 10. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything and everything you'd like to share, fire away! I currently have a show hanging now in Los Angeles with KP Projects Gallery. Due to covid-19 lockdowns it's available to view online https://bit.ly/viewing-room

#FeatureFriday That clean, poppy comic book style color has always been something that’s stood out to me in illustration. So naturally when I came across the work of Mario Zucca I immediately became a fan. Whether it’s in his clean illustrative portraiture or in his comical bending and proportioning of sports icons, Zucca has a style that has a fresh yet vintage feel. Fresh in that its heavy lines and bright colors jump right off of the page and leave a lasting impression, and vintage in that it’s keeping that dotted grid style shading from classic comic books alive. Zucca’s illustrations are just a whole lot of fun as he portrays everything in a bright, enjoyable way. He keeps things fresh, and is constantly trying out new things and presenting new imagery in all sorts of cool ways. There’s definitely something for everyone in Zucca’s illustrations so I was very excited to get to hear more about what he does and all that goes into it. He gave a great look into his process, inspirations, and all that goes into his illustrations! Enjoy! 1. I always like to open by asking about background, so what got you into art? Any schooling? Big inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist that you are today? Marvel comics were probably my earliest inspiration. In high school I saw the documentary Crumb, about underground comic artist Robert Crumb, and that was a big influence as well. But it wasn't until college when I was exposed to a lot of the big illustrators at the time– Gary Baseman, the Clayton brothers, Mark Ryden, Joel Nakamura, to name a few– that I started to think seriously about illustration as a career. 2. You've got quite a distinct illustration style that, while it is applied differently in some ways, is highlighted by bold, graphic lines and similarly graphic dot based shading. How did you begin and develop this style? Did it begin as something you did by hand or is this a totally digital process? I think I have a few different styles/techniques that vary depending on the assignment/client. The thick distressed lines and halftones is a pretty recent stylistic direction that started as a series of square athlete portraits with the specific intention of being very Instagram-friendly. They've been a bit of a leap for me, not only because it's my first time working 100% digitally, but also because it's an interesting challenge to create stylized figures that work within very rigid square dimensions. 3. Going off of that, you have sprinklings of hand done illustration on your feeds. Does your digital process have a hand done element or are you all digital when digital and all by hand when drawing? Does the hand done element bear any significance to your work? Traditionally I've worked pretty much 50/50 traditional and digital, with the line work being all hand-inked and the color being all digital. The coloring is still almost exclusively digital, however in recent years I've gravitated much more heavily to the computer/drawing tablet for much of the "hand-drawn" stuff as well. 4. A good chunk of your illustrations feature prominent sports or pop-culture figures, the goalies being my personal favorite. What significance or passions do these characters represent in your work? I know that a lot of these are commission based so did this start as a passion project that clients began to seek out or did it start as a commission and you really enjoyed the idea? I've always been a big sports fan, so athletes seemed like logical subject matter for a portrait series, especially one where the subjects are so simplified yet need to be immediately recognizable. This specific series has been a passion project and not commissioned, although I've pitched the style for some commissioned assignments and it's begun to make its way into some of my client work. 5. One of the things I love about your sports character illustrations like the goalies is how they're posed and positioned to neatly fit inside of a square. How do you approach these illustrations differently than ones where you're not confined to fit inside of a shape? I always start by breaking the character down into basic shapes and resizing/reshaping things in order to make everything work within the square format while trying to maintain a pose that makes sense for the athlete/sport. It's certainly a challenge, and it's becoming more so the more of them I do (there's only so many ways you can show someone running or throwing a ball), but that's also part of the fun! 6. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything and everything you'd like to share, fire away! My portfolio site is mariozucca.com and you can find me on Insta/Twitter at @mario_zucca. You can buy prints of the previously mentioned athlete portraits, stickers, and my large-format map illustrations at my Etsy shop etsy.com/shop/mariozucca.

This will without a doubt be the hardest thing I’ve ever written, but I’m ready to share this work to some degree. A little while ago now I shared an article about my grandmother’s passing and how painting was my therapy during the month long period that I spent sitting in hospital rooms. It was one of the most challenging times of my life but from it I produced four paintings that, in my opinion, are some of the best I’ve ever made. They’re very raw, they’re driven very much by the process that made them, and while I think some of what inspired them comes through, I wanted to add some more context to them. .OXYGEN. This whole venture started with a series of three and all three were inspired by a singular event. My grandmother was in the hospital for just under a month before she passed, two weeks at a hospital in Delaware and two weeks at a hospital in Philadelphia. It was a real roller coaster as she’d get better for a few days, get a whole lot worse a few days later, but then start to recover again. Hell, a week before she died they were training her on the breathing pump and oxygen tester she’d need to use consistently when she went home. The fact that she couldn’t retain oxygen was her big issue and it was the result of a series of different ailments. This would eventually lead to the event that inspired these paintings. I think it was a Tuesday, the days had really begun to blend together at that point, and it was one of the longest days of ups and downs thus far. She’d been on a ventilator for a few days and that was doing a majority of the breathing for her. Her oxygen levels were low and doctors were trying to figure out the best cocktail of medications to keep her oxygen and blood pressure up while still fighting the other ailments. Things were still super unclear when I went in for my routine visit. Since so much was going on in her body there were multiple teams of doctors working on different things, so throughout the day I’d see anywhere from 2-10 doctors and they could all tell me different things. I’m by no means a doctor so things were getting confusing for sure, but everyone seemed to remain hopeful. I was there for a few hours before my Poppop got there and after he’d been there for a little while things started to go south. So, as a precaution, I began letting my family know that they may want to get here in case she doesn’t make it. It wasn’t for sure that she was going to pass but things didn’t look good. Her condition was so severe that we were only allowed in in groups of two and we had to wear gloves and gowns while we were in there. It was an all day event, I think I spent 10 hours in the hospital that day and at one point her oxygen really started to plummet. I remember talking to the nurse and she was the first to really tell me that it wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when at that point. Once I heard that I sat down next to my grandmother in that brutal plastic chair that I’d spent 20+ hours in at that point and I watched her fade. She turned blue, and if you’re like me you’ve heard that people turn blue when they don’t get oxygen but you never imagine it to be like this. The color of her skin was haunting. I had to step back from holding her hand as the skin tone we’re used to just faded out of her right in front of my eyes. I was there for another few hours, my family filed in and out, most of them giving up on staying as it got late and they didn’t live close to the hospital like I did. Through all of it though she hung on and didn’t pass that night. I finally gave up and headed home, but sleep wasn’t really an option as I nervously awaited the call that she’d passed. So, I started painting and it’s nothing new if you know my work that I like drawing/painting hands but that image of the color just leaving her hand was drilled into my mind. So I drew a loose sketch of a hand and just drenched the canvas in blue. I usually try to be somewhat clean when I spray paint but I just let it rip. The shade of blue that she turned shocked me and it was stuck in my mind, I didn’t think I’d ever replicate it so I just kept spraying. Once it dried, I had to lay in lines and this was tremendously therapeutic for me as I was able to just turn my mind off and lay in lines. I don’t think I’d really turned my mind off in a couple of days so it was nice to just relax and draw. That was one of the nicest things about this painting, and the two that would come, when I laid down the color I was able to be raw and emotional without boundaries and then when I went in with the lines I could relax and turn my brain off. Shockingly, my grandmother held on through the night. I remember waking up to a call from my Poppop asking if she’d died. I had no idea, in fact I was expecting him to tell me that she’d died when I saw his call, so I rushed over there. To my total surprise, not only was she alive but she was awake. She’d gotten some color back, she was responding to my questions (with nods and squeezes, she couldn’t talk with the ventilator) and things seemed optimistic. The roller coaster would continue for the next few days but every night when I got home that image of her blue hands was just seared into my mind. It still is to some extent, but I think that if it weren’t for these paintings it would still really haunt me. I’m already a night owl and with all that was going on it was just such a challenge for me to sleep so I just kept making these paintings. The first two are really straight forward as the hands I drew were just hanging hands, they didn’t have much to represent other than being hands. That blue was what I was after, but in the third one I had some time to think and the hand became a little bit more deliberate. The first two hands are just sort of hanging hands but in the third one I really wanted to represent the lifelessness I saw as I released my grasp of her hand. That’s why there’s more of an emphasis on the arm in this one and it goes a little bit wider. I don’t know, I’m not one to really sit back and analyze my paintings once they’re done and these weren’t really meant to be much more than therapy through all of this trauma. But every time I look back at these three, I notice all sorts of little developments that subtly happened as I made them. .DEATH. The next few days were full of so many ups and downs that we really couldn’t make a guess about what was going to happen. Every doctor told me different things, they’d either tell me things were looking better but still bad or just try to phrase, “she’s going to die,” in the nicest way possible. Which I understand you want to remain optimistic, but I was just so tired of hearing the runaround. Finally, on a Saturday I stopped by with my girlfriend and things seemed really good. She was awake, the most awake I’d seen her in probably a week, she was responding (still no talking), and it really seemed like something to be excited about. But when I did my usual check in with the nurse as I left she told me that the ventilator was cranked, doing almost all of her breathing and while she was conscious all of her levels were dangerously low. I was understandably confused, but things just looked so good compared to what I’d seen in the days prior that I couldn’t help but to be optimistic. I went to bed feeling pretty good that night, something that hadn't happened in a good two weeks. But the next morning I woke up to a voicemail from my Poppop saying things really didn’t look good. I was exhausted from being in and out of the hospital and I kind of just wanted to lay in bed for a while before I went over there. Things looked so good last night so how much worse could it have gotten? But my girlfriend said I should really get up and as I did I saw that I had a missed Facebook call from my second cousin who’d also been at the hospital with me pretty frequently. I have no idea how Facebook calls work so I messaged him my number and he called me immediately basically saying, “get over here.” So I rushed over, fortunately it was only about 10 minutes, and I entered the room to the doctor pretty much telling us that this was the end. I remember walking up to the bed, squeezing her hand for a moment, and then a loud beep rang out from the machine behind me and my Poppop who was across the bed from me said, “I think she died.” It’s a brutal scene to see someone die but when the person is hooked up to a ventilator, the machine just keeps going. So even though she’d died, the machine just kept breathing for her for what felt like ages. Finally, the dust settled a bit and they asked us all to leave as they took out all of the equipment. It was then that I had to pull myself together and let my family members who weren’t there know that she was gone. My poor dad was just a few minutes away when she went, my uncle was about half way there from his house, they’d missed it and that was it. Just a few minutes later they let us back in the room to be with her now that she was unhooked and it was an image that I’ll never forget. She just looked so tired, the physical toll that everything had put on her body was immense and it just felt apparent that she couldn’t take it anymore. Her skin was a pale shade of yellow, something I’d never really seen or heard of before, and it was littered with bruises. She had up to 20 IV’s in her at certain points and it just looked like the end of a battle, an absolute battle. She’d fought as hard as she could, and she put up a damn good fight, but she just couldn’t do it anymore. After the .OXYGEN. paintings the way that her hands looked was just so fresh in my mind and it really struck me how different she looked when they told me she was near death the first time compared to when she actually died. That’s what inspired this painting, .DEATH. . I was just so frustrated, and sad, and I was experiencing so many feelings and struggles that I’d never felt before so I really just started hurling paint at the canvas. Again, just a loose sketch of a hanging hand and I laid in that sad, pale yellow as I was freshly processing the events of her passing. I let single splashes of purple and red illustrate her battered skin. I remember being shocked and oddly proud of myself as I watched the first layer of paint dry because I felt I really represented what I was feeling and how it looked accurately. In all of these paintings that was the peak of my emotions, when I’d aggressively laid in that paint and stepped back to see what I’d done, how I’d represented what I was feeling. That was an emotional peak I’d never felt before and honestly hope I don’t have to experience again for a while. Once again it was time to shut down and do those lines. However, this one was a little different because of the purple. In most of my paintings I try to let the pours be light or thin enough that the lines can really pop and exist on their own, but this purple came out darker than usual and it created a really interesting interaction with the lines. Because the purple is so dark, it’s loose curvy flows really dance between the lines they intersect, I think it’s really beautiful. Hands were the best way that I felt that I could represent what I was feeling and seeing. Hands are an underrated storytelling element. We all have them and they’re all unique in a way that’s different from any other body part. Something like a face can be easily distinguished from one to another, but hands exist so similarly that you really have to dig deep to see what makes them unique. Our hands tell a story and that story is always growing and developing. When my grandmother was unconscious or awake and unable to show emotion because of all that she was hooked up to, I really looked to her hands to tell me how she was doing. Whether it was using squeezes as a response or judging the swelling and color to see where she was at, her hands told me the story when she was no longer able to. So to illustrate that and to pay respect to her, I used hands to tell the story as well. Thank you so much for looking at these paintings and reading this rather long essay. This is really the proudest I’ve been of paintings in a long time, they mean so much to me. I’d trade them in an instant to have my grandmother back but I find solace in the fact that at least something positive came out of the events. I’m glad that I was able to find therapy in art and process my feelings in a way that I never had before. It’s been a really hard couple of months but I know that she’s with me in some way. I love and miss you so much, Memom. These are for you. I'll be sharing more of these paintings, with detail shots, on my instagram throughout the day if you'd like to check them out more and follow me. @forresthinesart

As goofy as it may sound, a beam of light is what initially brought my attention to the work of Grace Lang. I’d just entered a show at the Convent here in Philadelphia that I didn’t know much about, and as I began circling I was hit by a glare that was caused by two lights covering just next to a painting. Me being me, I saw something shiny so I followed it and that’s when I was brought face to face with the electrifying characters of Grace Lang’s paintings. Instantly I was hooked on her work as her bold, illustrative style created an immersive atmosphere and narrative. Her characters are warriors and their battles a representative of the battles we all face in life so the imagery becomes relatable on top of just being fun to look at. Heavy line work is the driving force behind her illustrative style and her pieces without color are often scenes of immense detail with complex character hierarchies, narrative, and atmospheric elements. Her brightly colored paintings are often simpler overall, but the single or small groups of characters are all deliberately detailed to give them a story. Lang’s illustrations and paintings have incredible pop both visually and narratively. Another element of Lang’s work that really stood out to me was her ability to translate her characters to sculpture. Artists with such heavily illustrative styles don’t tend to transition into sculpture and if they do their styles don’t often translate smoothly. But Lang’s sculptures tell just as much and feature all of the same details of her illustrations which adds another exciting layer to her body of work. It’s interesting to see the similarities and differences in a character when it goes from a boldly outlined illustration to a sculpture. Since that show I’ve become a huge fan of Lang’s and I was psyched to get to talk to her about her work, her process, and how her unique style developed. She gave a lot of awesome answers and insight into her work. She provides a lot of context to the personal reflection that goes into her work and makes it all the more relatable. Enjoy! 1. I always open with background, so what got you started in art? Schooling? Big Inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist that you are today? “Being an artist” has been part of my identity for as long as I can remember and it is something that the people around me have always nourished. In the beginning, I made art just to entertain myself. As I got older, I started using it as a way to make sense of thoughts and feelings that didn’t make any sense to me. It gave me a place to put all the weird bits of myself. In terms of schooling, I took art classes throughout my childhood and then studied illustration at Parsons. Reading has always been a massive part of my life too, so I also have a degree in literary studies from Lang College at the New School. Stories are very important to me. Reading has probably informed the expansion of my imagination more than anything. I think the biggest force that has shaped me into the artist that I am today is the unwavering support of my family and friends. I have never been made to feel that I should be spending my time any differently, so that’s given me confidence and space to develop. 2. You've got a very distinct imagery that you've described as tales of triumph built from reflections of personal demons and struggles. How did you start to transition this personal reflection into image? You've been open about your musical inspirations and if you'd like to expand on that we'd love to hear, but were there any image specific inspirations in developing your style? For most of my life, I enjoyed doodling and brainstorming immensely. I rarely loved any polished “final” piece more than the sketches that lead to its creation. I eventually realized that what I was reacting to was the forced nature of the polished work versus the authentic brain-spill that lived within my sketchbooks. When I was studying literature and the concept of close reading in college, I decided to start close reading my sketchbooks and highlighting important themes. I made notes of the repeating icons and words and then began using them to create a real visual language. I realized that if an image was coming up repeatedly in my offhand sketching, it must be important. Anything my brain felt preoccupied with became part of the language’s foundation. Much of this had to do with altered bodies, scars, the expulsion of goo and various demons. Over time, I’ve interpreted what all these things mean to me and why, at certain periods of my life, I need to manifest certain ones over and over again. It’s like getting a demon out. You just need to draw it until it stops plaguing your mind. Regarding inspiration, I don’t think my musical inspirations are super unique… I like metal, grunge and early 2o00’s emo jams. I alternate between listening to music that makes me feel tough and music that makes me feel vulnerable. Image-wise, I think the illustrated fantasy books I grew up reading made the biggest impact. I still struggle to draw a babe that does not have pointed ears and that is certainly due to the amount of faerie material I consumed as a child. 90’s cartoons too. The continual desire to retreat into my imagination is definitely a product of television and books. I was never particularly interested in drawing from life. I prefer to try and visualize things that have not been visualized before. It can feel sort of like an adventure. 3. Keeping on the subject of your style, how did you build and develop the hard-lined illustrative style that you use in your work? With such varied line weights are things meticulously refined as you go? Are your lines done in pen or a brush? Does the medium you prefer for your line work aid your ability to vary line weight as much as you do? The hard-lined style is absolutely a product of ballpoint doodling during classes for my entire life. Even classes I enjoyed involved doodling. I was always able to absorb the lesson better if my hand was occupied with shading and outlining. Even though it’s a super cheap medium, you can achieve a lot of different effects with a ballpoint pen. Obsessively experimenting while I was doodling showed me the visual importance of line variation and now, no matter what material I am using, it is an integral part of my style. The tightness of the lines definitely depends on the medium though. My lines tend to be cleaner when I am painting or using brush pens. Super clean lines do not come entirely naturally to me though, so there is plenty of refining as I go. Sometimes, the line weight variation is actually due to me making a line super messy and then thickening it up in order to make it appear cleaner. I don’t know why I have it in my head to make my lines appear clean though when it doesn’t always feel natural. My sketches are often quite messy. I want to bring some messiness into my final pieces, but it can be tough to change things up when you have become so comfortable working a certain way. 4. Your work also features an incredibly bold color palette, heavy contrast and a lot of pop! What insights to color in your work? Are your colors planned out before you start a piece or are they a reflection of the process? What do you think the colors you use add to the narrative of your works? I honestly feel like I don’t have a great comprehension of color. I know that I like using it and experiencing it, but in contrast to how I see my use of certain imagery, it isn’t a part of my visual universe that I can explain to my own satisfaction. I do try to plan colors out beforehand. It is something I am doing more and more these days, now that I have an ipad and can so easily take a photo of a work in progress and mess around with it digitally. In terms of how my palette adds to the narrative, I think it helps distinguish the work as a representation of fantasy rather than real life. Also, even though much of my subject matter is “dark,” I do not want my work to be upsetting. The world is upsetting enough. Color tends to make people feel good, myself included, so I think I use it for the simple reason that I genuinely enjoy mixing up a pleasing shade and using it to bring one of my babes to life. 5. Speaking more to your process, how do your works (specifically paintings and illustrations) develop? Are things planned out to a T or do you organically build out the pieces as you go? Does the drawing or design process differ when you're creating an entire scene as opposed to just a standalone character or characters? The form and medium both dictate how much planning goes into any given piece. With a simple character drawing, I don’t need to plan much at all, unless I’m trying to capture a new pose. For the maximalist style scenes, I sometimes make Photoshop collage references. I often sketch out the general shapes I want to create the entire composition, but then improvise as I fill in those shapes with figures. I do really like to leave space for improvisation because that keeps the process exciting for me. That said, there are certainly times when I want to know exactly what I am doing every single step of the way. That is when I plan things out very strategically. This kind of approach is especially helpful if I am feeling anxious and need to exert some control over my world. 6. It's rare that someone with such a heavily illustrative style transitions that style into sculpture as effectively as you do. So what inspired you to want to sculpt in your style? Is your sculpture an expansion of your illustration process or is it something totally different? What do you think the sculptural element adds to the narrative of your work? I think I began experimenting with sculpture because of my love for little objects. I like things that you can hold and turn over in your hand. The experience of sculpture is so incredibly different from working with any two-dimensional media. It’s tactile and messy. I am always looking for ways to expand my visual universe, so sculpture just felt like a natural evolution. It helped me see my figures differently. Before I began making three-dimensional work, I had only really depicted my babes from the front. I didn’t know how they looked in profile. Then I sculpted one and by looking at her from the side, I was able to better understand how I might draw or paint my babes from new angles. My 3-d work is absolutely an expansion of my illustration process. Sometimes it is planned and sometimes it isn’t. Since I don’t have access to a kiln, I use air-dry clay, but I’d really like to learn how to work with porcelain at some point. As far as adding to the narratives in my work goes, I think sculptures provide a way to see my creatures out of their native habitats and within yours. 7. We've hinted at narrative a couple of times, and I'm very interested in hearing a little more detail on it. You've said before that you don't necessarily have recurring characters but recurring styles of characters, so what are some of these styles? What do these characters represent? Are all of your works in some way a reflection of yourself or an overarching theme of badass ladies conquering and interacting with demons? All of my babes are, in some form or another, a reflection of myself. Sometimes they represent idealized versions of me exhibiting power and strength. Other times, they might be representing more vulnerable sides of my personality. Human beings are warriors and we all have battles to fight. So, my figures are explicit representations of the unseen struggles within all of us. Everything I make is a physical manifestation of my deepest feelings, which are both frightening and empowering. I don’t have totally defined distinctions between what each type of character represents, but I do have some guidelines. The floating head represents a being that has evolved past the need for a body. The mind is enough. This was born out of my experience with chronic spine pain and the occasional desire to leave my body behind. There are also the beings whose heads appear severed, but still float just above the body. These are earthly warriors who have also evolved past needing their full forms, but choose to remain close to their bodies in case they are needed. This is sort of a reference to all the people out there that could easily isolate themselves from the world, but make the conscious choice to remain and be useful to others. Some figures have pupils and some don’t because there are different types of sight necessary for different situations. Some are more human-like than others because that’s just how humans are. The open wound is many things- sometimes a portal of sorts—both ingesting and expelling lifelines between beings. Other times it’s physical proof of lived pain. Some wounds are left open, maybe as an invitation for communication, while others are stapled shut, intended to heal, but never disappear entirely. The glyph symbols are also a response to this. They represent everything that goes beyond words…everything we want desperately to communicate, but simply cannot say. 8. What is your process like when transitioning your work into print or products? Are works done specifically to be altered in print or made into a pin/patch or do you take works that you've already done and transition them? If works are made specifically for a product, does the design process change at all? I alternate approaches to creating products. For prints and zines, I use work that I have already created. For pins and patches, I usually draw something specific for that purpose. I make sure to keep in mind how small the actual product will be. There’s no sense trying to have a crazy level of detail in something that will take up an inch of space. But it’s hard. I love lines, so it is tough for me to be satisfied with simplified images. For the apparel in my threadless shop, I adapt images I have already created, usually removing the background or maybe adding a bit of color. These days, I am really into print-on-demand products, like from threadless, as it eliminates the need for artists to know how many of any given size to create. Plus, you aren’t sitting on a bunch of products! 9. You've made several zines and also collaborated with Simon Lazarus Vasta to create a book. What do the collections of images in your zines represent that single images can't or don't portray as strongly? What were the image and narrative differences between your zines and your book? How did the collaborative process of making the book alter these aspects? My few zines are just collections of disconnected paintings, drawings and pages from my sketchbooks. They are sort of just representations of certain periods in my life and art. Babelon, the book I created with my friend Simon, was more deliberately planned. Each page was created specifically for the book and done in the same medium. Ballpoint pen! The experience was lovely because of the way we decided to collaborate on its creation, with some images preceding their titles and some titles preceding their images. I love words so much and think Simon did an excellent job creating figure titles that give some context, but also invite independent interpretation. That was sort of the whole point of the book. There is no explicit narrative, just glimpses into a much larger surrealist tale of rebellion and triumph that the viewer is free to flesh out however they like. I think that the way we chose to work together and the final product fit in really nicely with the nebulous narrative of my entire body of work. The feelings are clear and there is evidence of a story, but the specific details are open to interpretation. Depending on what is going on inside the person looking, the battles within my universe can symbolize pretty much anything. 10. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anywhere people can find your work and anything you'd like to share, fire away! My website is www.grooseling.com and my instagram is @grooseling! Due to Covid-19, all my upcoming shows have been postponed, but I am staying positive. Follow me for updates! I am very excited to be releasing my first children’s book though, which I created with my sister, Lucy Lang. The book, March On!, celebrates the 1915 Women’s Suffrage March and the importance of voting rights. To learn more and see some of the artwork, check out www.marchonny.com - there is an Amazon pre-order link up there too.

I’m a huge horror junkie, so when I was perusing the aisles at the Mutter Museum’s holiday art fair and saw an illustration of Art the Clown from Terrifier I got really excited. That’s when I found the work of Esther Coonfield, a rad illustrator who not only highlights horror but the badass ladies of horror! Her cleanly lined illustrations are amplified by the contrast of her dark and bold colors. Sparks of deep red or purple seem to constantly pop from the grungy colors that build her atmospheres. Her imagery has a pop that either sparks nostalgia through classic horror characters or drills a haunting original images into your mind. However you recognize her work, it’s bound to stick with you! I was stoked to get to add a few of Coonfield’s illustrations to my collection, of course I picked up an Art the Clown, and I was even more stoked to get to talk to her about the origins of her work and style. She gave an awesome interview that goes deep into her horror and illustration roots and gives us details on how this super cool work has developed. It’s a fun read that gives a little extra context to the work and the artist behind it! Enjoy! 1. First things first is background! So, what got you started in art? Any Schooling? What helped to shape you into the artist that you are today? I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, and I’ve pretty much always known that I wanted to be an artist. I’m really fortunate to have a supportive family that has always encouraged my interest in art, and my highschool had an amazing art program that provided me with a lot of the essential art skills. As a kid and teen I spent most of my free time watching movies and reading books, so I frequently made artwork inspired by the things I watched and read. It wasn’t until I started applying to colleges that I discovered illustration as a career path, which completely blew my mind. People actually get paid to draw pictures for books? Hell yes, sign me up! I went on to study illustration at Syracuse University, where I was truly able to explore my passion for visual storytelling. 2. You've got a very bold illustrative style both in color and imagery. How did you develop your style? What were the developmental differences between your line work and color use? It took a lot of trial and error to find my style. I’ve never considered myself a painter; my brain is simply not wired to handle acrylics or oils, and I’m okay with that. As a teen I discovered the enchanting pen-and-ink illustrations of Edward Gorey; I was captivated by his ability to create so much texture and expression with ink alone. I began experimenting with ballpoint pens, fineliners, and dip pens, and in college I learned various printmaking techniques (intaglio, relief, screenprinting) which I absolutely fell in love with. At the same time, I was experimenting with adding color to my black-and-white work with watercolors. The contemporary artist Caitlin Hackett was, and still is, a huge inspiration to me in this regard, because of her ability to combine ballpoint pen and watercolor. I still enjoy working strictly in black-and-white, but over the years I’ve fallen in love with the textures available to me through watercolor, and the drips and stains and splatters have become an essential part of my work. 3. Your work is heavily inspired by horror, most notably the ladies of horror. What inspired not only the use of horror imagery but the empowerment of the bad-ass ladies of horror in your work? I’ve always been drawn to darker subject matter, even as a kid. I used to scare the shit out of my parents because I was always drawing things like dead bodies hanging from nooses and women crying blood - pretty dark stuff for an eleven-year old! Not to place the blame on anyone in particular, but my dad is definitely the one who got me hooked on horror movies. When I was growing up, both of my parents were in school and working full-time. My dad studied and taught at Michigan Tech, a school way up north in Houghton, MI. He taught a film class which he frequently needed to test 16mm reels for, and he would do this on the weekends, usually bringing me and my sister along. That’s how I was first introduced to horror classics like “Nosferatu” and “Frankenstein”; I was forever changed to say the least! But my dad wasn’t the only one to blame; my mom was always an avid reader, and she introduced me to great horror writers like Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Dean Koontz. Suffice to say I grew up to be a pretty serious horror nerd, and as an artist I enjoy paying homage to my favorite films and books, as well as creating my own dark and twisted visions. Back in 2017, I stumbled upon #WomenInHorrorMonth on Instagram, a daily challenge for the month of February that encourages horror fans to promote the work of women in the horror industry, whether it be actors, directors, writers, or artists. I knew that this was the perfect opportunity to make art that not only showcased my love of the horror genre, but my feminist ideals as well. I don’t think many people realize how empowering the horror genre can be for women; it’s chock-full of bad-ass ladies taking down masked psychos and slaying the patriarchy… literally. For me, horror is an escape. If I’m feeling sad, stressed, anxious, angry, or all of the above, the first thing I want to do is throw on a horror movie. The horror genre can provide the perfect escape from real-life stressors, whether it be something as superficial as a bad day at work, to something more major like trauma or mental illness. That’s what horror has always been for me. 4. In terms of process, how do your works begin and develop? Does the process vary depending on the image or the style that you're trying to achieve? My work always starts with a sketch. I keep a bunch of different sketchbooks that I scribble all my ideas into, and when I’m ready to take a small idea to the next level, I’ll start working up a larger, more detailed drawing. I’ll draw something over and over again until I get it just right, because the last thing I want is to get to the final stages and realize that my drawing is super weak! Once I’m satisfied with the final drawing, I’ll transfer it onto hot-press watercolor paper and work up a full, detailed ink drawing. The level of detail depends on whether I’ll be adding color to it or not, because the addition of watercolor to a heavily textured/detailed area can make the piece muddy. So I try to choose specific areas where I allow the linework to shine, and others where the color and texture of the paint can stand strong. Once I’m satisfied with the quality of the drawing, I’ll start adding very thin layers of watercolor, slowly building up values and textures. I like to work in a very limited color palette, again, to avoid any muddiness, and to create a more surreal atmosphere. Also, like I mentioned earlier, I’m no painter, and I like to let my drawing shine through. 5. You have a series of various prints and stickers, so your work at some extent goes digital but your IG feed shows that you're heavily hand done, so at what point does your work go digital? Is the hand done aspect an important part of your work? Does anything change if you're making a sticker or pin as opposed to just a print? I definitely consider myself a traditional artist. I just love the process, I love staining my hands with ink and getting paint under my fingernails, and I love the amount of control I have with a pen in my hand as opposed to a stylus. Not to say I’m anti-digital art by any means! I rely on Photoshop for editing my work and formatting it for prints and stickers, and I recently began using Procreate for the early stages of my process. I’m still getting the hang of it, but I really enjoy sketching and building up a solid drawing in Procreate; it saves me a great deal of time (and paper) because I can make changes and adjustments so easily. Lately I’ve been working up my final drawing in Procreate, printing it out, transferring it onto my watercolor color paper, and then inking away. It’s truly been a time-saver for the early stages of my work, but I’m still not a fan of going 100% digital. 6. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything and everything you'd like to share and anywhere people can find you, fire away! Instagram is my go-to for posting updates, works-in-progress, and so on! Find me at @esthercoonfieldart I also have an Etsy shop where I sell originals, prints, and stickers: www.etsy.com/shop/EstherCoonfieldArt And lastly, you can check out my full portfolio at www.esthercoonfield.com #Features

I guess it’s fair to say some in any profession are bitter… but I’ve had some horrific experiences with random people on Facebook seemingly just looking for trouble. This story all started on Facebook, the home of people just looking for trouble, where I posted in some “Art Jobs, Opportunities, etc.” group about how we’re looking for new writers. The initial response was pretty good as I was introduced to some very cool artists who I’ve had great preliminary conversations with. But then it all came crashing down as someone commented saying, “can you post your pay rates so people know this isn’t a waste of time before clicking,” or something like that. First off, the basis of this is a valid question to ask in a job group but why fire out of the gate so aggressive and belittling? I can think of 20 different ways to ask that question without being a dick in no time at all, so it’s clear that all questions aside this dude just wants to be a dick. But me, trying to be nice as I usually do, let him know that there are no set parameters for writers so we’d prefer to discuss the terms upon inquiry. I felt like this was an extremely reasonable response since the post literally says, “you can post 1 time, you can post 100 times.” Then this dude fires back by saying, “keep it shady,” and something like, “it doesn’t look good but I’m not surprised.” Holy shit, has this dude been robbed by writing gigs in the past? This is now the second time that myself and other members of the Plebeian team have been berated by a member of a group that’s supposed to be “opportunities for artists,” before the people even understood what we were offering. I deleted the post and left the group because it seemed like every time I tried to say, “hey we help promote or give opportunities to artists,” someone gets offended by that and feels the need to try and shit all over our company for no reason. But hey, I guess I’m the asshole who offered them an opportunity… in an opportunities group. Look, I think as artists we need to admit that at most levels our craft isn’t the most lucrative, especially right now. So why on Earth are people looking for “opportunity” with this jaded bitterness and taking their anger out on people trying to offer them things? When I started with Plebeian and wanted to pursue interviews and things like that, I was terrified that the bigger artists would never have the time of day for me but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Some of my favorite artists are literally the nicest people I’ve ever spoken to and that reigns true through most of the arts community. Very rarely do I have a bad conversation with an artist, our community is generally amazing to interact with. But for some reason the people who are the shittiest to me, and seemingly to all people who are trying to offer a chance or do something different, are the ones I’ve never fucking heard of or will hear of again after. It’s just so strange, we always hear about people arguing over Facebook and at least under the long winded political statuses it makes sense. Person A disagrees with Person B, they feel as though Facebook is their space to let every opinion they’ve ever had be heard, so naturally an argument ensues. But the bitterness and aggression from these people in spaces that are meant for sharing and opportunity just blows my mind. As artists should we not be open to all opportunity and collaboration to some extent? Or am I just crazy? I guess I am since I went on a long winded rant about how people are mean on Facebook… But don’t @ me. Just don’t be greedy, don’t just hunt for trouble, we’re all one community of makers at the end of the day so look at all collaboration as an opportunity and if it’s not one for you… then don’t take it ya schmuck. That being said, we are looking for new writers! As I said, this all started with a post about us looking for writers so why not end with it! If you’re bored, stuck inside with limited creative outlets, or are just looking for a new platform to share your work or writing then hit us up! We’d love to talk about the prospect of bringing you on as a contributor, yes YOU! I hope that my rant wasn’t too long winded, but it’s all in good fun and I have a platform to complain… so fuck Facebook groups.

It’s always striking or jarring when we see familiar objects, like human or animal bodies, broken or altered by outside forms. This moving quality is what drew me to the large scale sculpture work of Paolo Grassino. His large scale sculptural and installation works break, fragment, and alter recognizable forms in a way that makes us question our understanding of both figure and space. One of the most thrilling aspects of Grassino’s work, in my opinion, is his use of broken glass. He takes shattered glass and inserts it into the human form in a way that’s painful but impossible to look away from. It’s like the thrill of a roller coaster, we all equate broken glass with its sharp edge and it’s thrilling to see it inserted into a relatable form in such a way. This is taken one step further with the calm, stoic nature of the figures. While these works are exciting, they’re only one facet of the long and successful career of Paolo Grassino. One of my favorite things about large scale sculpture, beyond the work itself, is the arrangement and the experience of seeing the sculpture(s) in a specific setting. Grassino is well thought all the way through as his work often goes beyond just sculpture and creates a deep experience for the viewer. The ability to walk up close and around his work, to fully experience all of it is something that brings it to another level. It’s almost as if he sculpts the object, and then sculpts the experience. It’s really fascinating and something that can’t truly be replicated in image, but the unfortunate circumstances of the time mean that we have to do our best! I was thrilled to get to talk to Grassino about his amazing work and his answers did not disappoint. There’s a whole lot to digest here and he gives us things to think about that might not have even come into our head when initially looking at his sculptures. Enjoy! 1. I always start off my interviews by asking about background, so what got you into art? Any Schooling? Big inspirations? What helped shape you into the artist that you are? I was born in Turin from a creative family. My father played the violin and painted, in fact he made me fall in love with art since i was a child. Attending the Artistic High School I was lucky to have as art’s professors Luigi Mainolfi, Gilberto Zorio, Marco Gastini e Sergio Ragalzi and during that period I started attending them as an assistant. At the “Accademia Albertina '' of Turin I met some mates with my same passion for art and together we shared the first studies. I don’t think I had chosen to be an artist , i think i never imagined that i could do anything else . 2. There seems to be an ongoing interaction between life (be it human or animal) and object, how do you construct these interactions conceptually? Is it some sort of commentary, do some items just excite you, or does it vary from piece to piece? My works want to be narratives that investigate eternal topics, themes that belong to the human being since he exists. That’s a gesture, this is enclosed in a meeting, something between what is alive and what is mutable, the artifact that comes back and returns to those Who created it in order to tell a story, to become both something else. Dramaturgy changes based on the variant of the elements that meet each other. 3. How does your approach differ when working on a modular or mobile piece compared to a site specific installation? Do you prefer to work larger and create an experience between that specific work and space or do you prefer to have a piece that can be displayed in a variety of ways to create a series of experiences? Many of my works, certainly the large format ones, are not closed and concluded. They change themselves over the years, multiply or modify; other parts are Made, added or removed. The work is finished when it finds a permanent location. I really like working on specific works for a site, for example, but I think this approach goes beyond sculpture in the creative process. The artist becomes more like a director, he has to rely on external skills and a small creative part is shared with other subjects. When you collaborate with other people, the work is not only more than the person who conceived it, every little thought, sigh or movement changes the original artistics gesture. I like this and I enjoy it but I believe that having total control of every gesture is The most satisfying and creative thing. In this case, we can find those absolute moments of concentration that belong to childhood, more specifically to the act of playing. 4. What first drew me towards your work was your use of the human form and the merging or disrupting that you create within those forms via outside materials. One of the interesting aspects of these works is what details of the human form are shown or omitted, so what goes into deciding how a figure is shown (i.e. clothed, partially clothed, or just implied)? Are these decisions related to what objects or forms the figures are interacting with? Of course, everything is connected with what you want to emphasize in that moment. For example, I never create works with completely naked bodies, nudity belongs to an erroneous classicism and modified by the culture’s history. My figures are contemporary, they live in actuality, they live in our time, they are my clones. My figures are all made through casts on real bodies , it's me or my assistants or people close to me. If I realize a figure dressed only with a hoodie it’s because in that context I need that garment as a container . The hood becomes an upside-down vase which contains branches. 5. Speaking more specifically to your process, how much planning goes into your work? Are you rigorously laying out every element or do you just dive in sometimes? Further, since a lot of your work relies on casts are you casting and making molds for each piece or series? Or do you have a collection that you can refer back to and/or alter if need be? I have been working for thirty years and I think that plunge into something or extemporize is now behind me. Experience is a baggage that you build up and draw on. It’s not a job. It is not handicraft. It draws on experience to be faster and free from technical problems already faced. I know that if I put that element close to that Form I will have a given result, I can see it and I don’t need to make big plans. Projects are necessary when you have to make others understand what you are thinking up and sometimes, unfortunately, they are not enough. I have a big storehouse on The outskirts of Turin, it is my warehouse of works and casts for meltings. I Carry out new casts and I don’t modify them for other sculptures: the mergers that I make are always unique pieces. 6. Are you always casting in the same material, or does material choice vary from piece to piece? Does that material rely on the message of the piece? And once a piece is cast, how much refinement are you going in and doing? For years I used only aluminum for castings. Aluminum is the metal of Icarus, light and versatile, smooth and easy to melt, its appearance is lunar and cold, if sandblasted it becomes similar to concrete. It’s aluminum that lets me create many concrete works. The figures I make are always static in their positions, they become dynamic with the foreign elements that pass through them. They are rough and opaque and the light is absorbed. They are slightly chiseled, left in part as they come out of the casting process. Aluminum is a metal that is used by industry and this is what interests me. The figures are like elements of organic mechanics, copies of industrialized bodies. For some years I have also been using bronze but only if it is then coated with black. 7. The color palette across your body of work is extremely limited, is this a deliberate measure made by you? Is it driven more by a material fascination or what the lack of color adds to the narrative? Yes, I have a limited color palette because I like to maintain the natural colors of the materials I use. I want that the material with which a work is made is visible. There isn't any scenography. Glass is glass. Cement is cement. There aren’t shortcuts. The material is a narration of our world. I use the black a lot, black is a mood, black is the unknown, the hole. The hole is the sculpture that makes you look beyond the surface. The black is the skin of the exploration. 8. You've used it in the past quite a bit, but a lot of the recent work you've been posting features broken glass. What is the meaning behind broken glass and what it interacts with? Does the color of the glass bear any significance? Also, is it a challenge to accumulate and collect good pieces of glass for these works? I don’t look for pieces of glass. I look for bottles in the streets or I buy them. The shards of bottles are used by masons to insert them on the upper edges of the walls. This becomes a deterrent for those who want to climb over the wall that separates the property from the streets . I use the shards of bottles with this intent, I put them on some parts of the body or on figures made of cement. That works speak about geographical and physical boundaries, mens become like walls that for defend themselves from each other they injure themselves with the same tools they use to protect themselves. These works don’t want to refer to landings of people arriving from countries where there is war, because this is a current political problem, I’m more interested in the defensive attitude that starts from history and reaches the present day. This was always present in all populations and is still present today. In times of extreme difficulty brotherhood is replaced by interest policy. This is a limit of all men, a primitive incapacity. 9. Staying on the topic of your recent work, I noticed that this is much more driven by single body parts (notably the head). How is the approach to these works different than working with a full figure or a larger scale piece? Yes it’s true, the latest works are only scraps of our body: heads or arms. The arm is what allows us to do, to produce, it is our tool to create, but also our weapon. The head, instead, is The essence of our being, the perfect container of our thinking, what allows us to know while we are looking for something else. I’ve always been taken by it. The head is an element that has always been used in all cultures. We can think of African masks, people with psychic problems or children: when they draw, they often reproduce The face, their face, in order to see themselves inside. The body, on The other hand, is a component that occupies an area, which relates to the landscape, the body is architecture, a unit of measurement for space. 10. Finally, PLUGS! Where can people find your work? Any shows/events coming up? Anything and everything that you'd like to share, fire away! While I am writing, the world is experiencing a very hard health Emergency. Now our transfers are restricted, exactly as our activities. In April I should have left for China for two exhibitions in Beijing, in public and private museums but, unfortunately, everything is postponed to a date to be defined. Also in April, a personal exhibition should have been inaugurated  in a gallery in Milan, but even there, as we know, everything is postponed to better periods. For the moment I’m at home, I write to my students, I work and I spend time with my children, waiting for the end of this emergency. If anyone wants to know more about my job, I have a website www.paolograssino.com, an Instagram profile @paolograssino and you can contact me on paolograssino@gmail.com . A few months ago, there were a lot of controversies about how social media and the network in general have moved people away from each other. In this period, we can be closer only in a virtual way.

*New* project seeking artists for a digital drawing exchange whose exhibition has been put “on hold” i.e. the exhibition you were supposed to install has been pushed out, you installed your work and the opening has been cancelled/pushed out, your work has been exhibited for… a lot longer than planned and you are unable to deinstall. Does any of this sound familiar? Then you’re qualified to be a part of this project. ———— Message @unanonymous.project, @baileychick, @abbydalekiart OR email unanonymous.project@gmail.com with: “Yes! I’m in!” Your preferred email address A quick description of the pickle you’re in (delays in your exhibition, etc.) Once we get all of that info, we will get back to you in a few days!