Archive for category art
Anna Trodglen on Radial Cafe Art Opening
Tea Party: This is a tea party depicting the fictional meeting of Beatrix Potter (rabbit), Tasha Tudor (corgi dog), and Louis Wain (cat). Beatrix Potter is of course the beloved creator of Peter Rabbit. Tasha Tudor was an American children's illustrator who loved to paint her corgi dogs. Louis Wain was a famous cat artist of the Victorian era and painted from an asylum for forty years. I wanted them so much to meet and share animal stories. This is a very special painting for me.
Anna Trodglen (or her musical pseudonym Grace Braun) is a name you likely recognize from the Atlanta music scene, given that she has fronted the band DQE since the mid-1980s as its singer/songwriter. In addition to her musical pursuits, Trodglen is a painter who is in the final stages of prepping for her January 8 Art Show at the Radial Cafe (1530 DeKalb Ave NE Atlanta GA 30307), where Trodglen’s paintings and prints will be on display. In addition, as detailed at a recent Facebook announcement: “Anna and her DQE bandmates Dugan and John will be performing a short acoustic set at 9pm. There will also be a raffle for a free custom painting. Food and wine will be served. Anna’s paintings will be hanging at Radial Cafe through the month of January.” We also got a chance to discuss the children’s book she is currently working on, City Mouse, Country Mouse. My thanks to Trodglen for her time and to my friend, Dugan Trodglen (Anna’s bandmate and husband) for helping make this interview feasible. Each art piece in this interview is accompanied by a description by Anna. The art opening is this Friday, January 8, 2010, from 8:00 to 10:00 pm at at Radial Cafe.
Tim O’Shea: How did the Radial show come about?
Anna Trodglen: Susan Archie, the talented and well known graphic artist and designer, introduced me to the idea and gave me the contact information.
O’Shea: The show will feature your paintings and prints–how long have you been painting pieces in this style? How many pieces will be in the show–and was it hard for you to pick which pieces of yours would appear?
Trodglen: I have been painting exclusively animals (mostly cats and dogs) since July of 2008 when I began working with dogs at a doggie day care, boarding and grooming facility called Paws Playhouse. I initially painted the dogs of Paws Playhouse to decorate the facility and amuse the workers and clients. Gradually with support and encouragement I began to paint in this style more and more frequently until it became a life calling. There will be between fifteen and twenty paintings in the show of various sizes, depending on what will fit. The paintings chosen will be based on the smile factor- what I think will make me happiest and hopefully the viewer as well. It is never too hard to pick. I generally keep the best ones of my dog Jack for myself, Like Dorian Grey, Jack has a painting in the attic and…
Art: Brendan O’Connell Launches New Website
Posted by admin in Literature, art on December 19, 2009
A former high school classmate of mine and accomplished artist and writer, Brendan O’Connell, has launched his new website. As O’Connell describes himself, he “divides his time between writing and painting, between figuration and abstraction.” I consider myself fortunate to know Brendan and hopefully one of these days I’ll be able to run an interview with him, as our respective schedules permit. In the meantime, please visit his website, it’s a visual and intellectually intriguing delight on many levels. Here’s just one of his pieces:
Snacks by Brendan O'Connell
Design: Considering Logos
Posted by admin in art, commerce, media industries on December 17, 2009
Before today, I’ll be honest and admit I had never read the critical analysis of Philip Bump. But after reading his brief consideration of the past decade in logos, I will be sure to read him increasingly more going forward. One of Bump’s valid points in evaluating logos of the past is:
“The web, in essence, is the photo album brought out to show what a logo looked like in its awkward phase – and for that, it should be praised.”
I also greatly appreciate this post by Bump, because it introduced me to Logo RIP, a virtual graveyard for discarded commercial logos.
Eric Nolen-Weathington on Lee Weeks (Part II) & Nick Cardy
Posted by admin in Film, art, comics, pop culture, sequential art on March 26, 2009
Yesterday I featured the first part of an interview regarding the Lee Weeks installment of TwoMorrows’ Modern Masters series. The first part was with Tom Field. This second part focuses on Eric Nolen-Weathington, the co-author of the Weeks book, as well as the designer and editor behind the entire Modern Masters’ series. It’s always a pleasure to interview Nolen-Weathington, so I was game to also discuss another book that Nolen-Weathington co-authored: Nick Cardy: Behind The Art, a work that goes beyond Cardy’s comics work and into his commercial illustration career.
Tim O’Shea: Do you think you could have been able to do the Weeks book without Tom Field’s involvement? Were you afraid that because Weeks and Field were such old and close friends it might make it harder for Field to ask tough questions in the process? Or due to the nature of these books (which intend to honor modern masters) is there ever a need to ask tough questions, per se? (feel free to tweek this question if need be).
Eric Nolen-Weathington: Yes, I do think I could have gotten Lee without Tom’s involvement, as I know several artists who are friends with Lee. And Lee was already on my list of guys I wanted to cover at some point. What Tom’ pitch really did was move Lee off the “sooner or later” list and onto the actual schedule.
Tom had already done a book for TwoMorrows on Gene Colan, Secrets in the Shadows: The Art and Life of Gene Colan, which I feel is one of the best books TwoMorrows has published. That was all I needed to know that he would do a good job with the interview. And having known Lee since childhood, I think Tom knew exactly where that line was of what he could ask and what he shouldn’t. The result is one of the most honest, open interviews of the series thus far.
Ivan Brunetti on An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories: Volume 2
Posted by admin in art, comics, sequential art on December 23, 2008
This week, I am trying to give a Christmas present to my readers by posting more interviews than the average of one a week. Today’s interview is with Ivan Brunetti, editor of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories: Volume 2. As detailed at Yale University Press: “Comic art is a vital, highly personal art form in which change—rapid and unpredictable—is the norm. In this exciting new anthology, comic artist Ivan Brunetti focuses on very recent works by contemporary artists engaged in this world of change. These outstanding cartoonists, selected by Brunetti for their graphic sophistication and literary style, are both expanding and transforming the vocabulary of their genre.” In addition to being an extremely talented artist in his own right, Brunetti is also very busy. But he was recently kind enough to grant me a brief (yet in-depth) email interview. My thanks to Brunetti for his time, as well as to Yale University Press’ Robert Pranzatelli for his assistance.
Tim O’Shea: What is the greatest advantage to working with an academic press, as opposed to another type of publisher?
Ivan Brunetti: Well, I’ve never edited an anthology for another publisher, so I can’t really compare it to anything. My own comics are published by Fantagraphics Books, but my dealings with them are in the capacity of “just another cartoonist” in their stable, one with middling sales at best. They pretty much let me do whatever I want, as long as it’s within budget. I was very nervous about working for Yale, since, well… it’s Yale! Obviously they have a high reputation, and I didn’t want to sully it. But the people at Yale Press have been extraordinarily great to work with, and they also gave me a lot of leeway and freedom to make the book I wanted, again as long as I stayed within the budget. So I guess I’ve been pretty lucky in both instances, working with publishers who have trusted me. In both cases, I was able to create very personal books. And I should mention that, in the case of the Anthology, I wouldn’t have been able to make the books I wanted without the generosity of all the cartoonists involved, who have been exceedingly supportive and kind. I got the chance to correspond with my cartooning heroes. Who’d have thunk it? A nothing sort of person like me….
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival: Eisner Documentary
Posted by admin in Literature, art, comics, sequential art on December 22, 2008
The 2009/Ninth Annual Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to run from January 14-25, 2009. In fact, tickets went on sale earlier this month on December 9. And just to give folks a little taste of what’s on the horizon, festival organizers were kind enough to let me watch a few of the films to be featured at this year’s festival. In the next few weeks leading up to the festival, I will be providing my reaction to watching a few of the festival’s featured films.
In this first round, I was able to view director Andrew D. Cooke’s 2007 documentary, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist. While Eisner died in 2005, the documentary had well been under way for a few years prior to his death with his involvement (and extensive interviews). Cooke did the film in cooperation with his brother, Jon B. Cooke (who is also the editor of Comic Book Artist). Eisner is a name you have likely increasingly heard in recent weeks, as he is the creator of The Spirit (a character who stars in the new Frank Miller film opening this week). In comic book circles, Eisner is far more than just the creator of one character, as this documentary (and Eisner’s career) effectively proves.
Timothy Callahan on Morrison, Legion
Posted by admin in Literature, art, comics, pop culture, sequential art on November 19, 2008
Timothy Callahan was just one of the many folks I met at Baltimore Comic-Con back in September. Coming out of that meeting we decided to do an email interview regarding his two books and criticism in general. Callahan is a savvy critic who clearly knows pop culture and the comic book genre better than many (as shown frequently at his blog, GeniusboyFiremelon) and is firm in his convictions. Before launching into the interview, here’s the core info on the man himself: “Callahan is an educator, husband, father of two, writer of Grant Morrison: The Early Years, and editor of the recently-released Teenagers from the Future. He writes for Back Issue magazine and Comic Book Resources, and he’s much busier than he used to be.”
Tim O’Shea: Zack Smith recently did a series of interviews with Morrison in which he thanked you for your help. How did you assist him?
Timothy Callahan: Zack had e-mailed me over the summer about the “Superman 2000″ pitch that I’d blogged about — the one where Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, and Tom Peyer proposed to revamp the Superman franchise for the new millennium — and he actually did an interview with me for Newsarama shortly after that. So we’d been in contact, and when he was sending his big ‘ole batch of questions to Morrison for the All-Star interview, he asked me to take a look at his proposed questions and to add a few of my own, which I did. I would say I added about three questions total, but Zack was probably influenced by a lot of the stuff I’d been writing about on my blog over the past year, so he very courteously thanked me in each of the installments that ended up running. Zack’s interview is shockingly comprehensive, and I’m glad to have been even a tiny part of it.
David Tischman on Greatest Hits
Posted by admin in Music, art, comics, pop culture, sequential art on November 17, 2008
When I first heard about David Tischman and Glenn Fabry’s Greatest Hits, a six-issue Vertigo miniseries that offers a mixture of pop culture and superheroes, I was intrigued by the concept: “Meet the Mates! They’re the greatest super team of all time, straight out of England and into our hearts: Crusader, The Solicitor, Vizier and Zipper. But who are the heroes behind the mania? How did they meet? And what’s next for The Mates?” After reading the first two issues, I was hooked and more than pleased when Vertigo’s Pamela Mullin arranged an email interview with Tischman about the project. I caught up with the writer of the series a few weeks ago. This week marks the release of the miniseries’ third issue in which: “Private lives and public expectations are tearing the Mates apart. Crusader reveals a hip, ’70s-style island HQ in hopes of keeping the heroes together. But it’s a call from space that rallies the team. Back in the present day, Nick and Ethel discover a 35-year-old secret hidden among the lunch boxes and action figures of the world’s biggest collection of Mates memorabilia.” My thanks to Mullin for her assistance and Tischman for his time.
Tim O’Shea: While the Beatles serve as an inspiration, did you fear using the most popular band ever as a springboard for the larger tale?
David Tischman: The Mates aren’t the Beatles. The Mates are the world’s greatest and best-loved super-team of all time. The Mates do occupy the same space in our pop-culture Hall of Fame that the Beatles have, but there was never any concern the two groups would be compared.
Enrico Casarosa on Venice Chronicles
Posted by admin in Animation, Literature, art, comics, sequential art on November 10, 2008
Enrico Casarosa and his new book, Venice Chronicles (“A love story/travelogue/graphic novel”), was just one of the great books I found out about at the Baltimore Comic-Con in September. Casarosa was not at the con, but AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer was telling folks about the book in advance of its release (given that AdHouse is serving as the book’s distributor). I have trusted Pitzer’s instincts on books for years, so while I was still at the con, I emailed Casarosa to line up an email interview.
Before jumping into the interview, here’s the official bio on the storyteller:
“Enrico Casarosa has been in the animation industry for more than ten years, drawing storyboards that fit into large animated feature films. Currently a story artist at Pixar Animation Studios Enrico continues his quest to create more hours in the day by drawing alternate realities. Sooner or later his experiments will break through and we’ll all have to buy new watches. Meantime he just published an art book “3 trees make a forest” with partners in crime Ronnie del Carmen and Tadahiro Uesugi. Other times he pursues his muse by traveling with his watercolors and sketchbooks. Enrico is the founder of ‘SketchCrawl’, a worldwide drawing marathon event that gathers artists from all around the globe.”
Once you finish reading the interview, be sure to go here to buy the book directly from Casarosa.
Tim O’Shea: In addition to this new book, the Venice Chronicles, you work at Pixar. I was struck by something you recently wrote in your blog: “It’s become tradition for us selfpublishing friends here at Pixar to take photos of the opening of the first box of books.” How many selfpublishing friends are at Pixar and can you name some of them (and their projects)?
Enrico Casarosa: Oh yes there’s quite a few of us. I’ve had the luck of sharing tables at more than a couple of conventions (and co-publish a book) with uber talented friend Ronnie del Carmen. Another long time friend here at Pixar is Bill Presing, artist of “Rex Steele Nazismasher”. We met a long time ago back in NewYork and both did stories for the anthology Monkeysuit. And the list of talented pixarian friends/co-workers goes on: Scott Morse (Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!, Magic Pickle), Ted Mathot (Rose and Isabel, Cora), Derek Thompson , Dice Tsutsumi (Out of Picture) and many more. There’s also been a couple of anthologies called Afterworks that gather comics for some of the folks here and they even a new volume in the making.
Dang II: John Leonard, RIP
Posted by admin in Film, Literature, art, comedy, pop culture on November 8, 2008
Last week I lamented the passing of Studs Terkel. I had no idea that I’d be paying tribute to critic John Leonard upon his passing this past Wednesday.
I lost track of Leonard in recent years, around the time of my divorce and returning to the Catholic Church. I was first introduced to Leonard in the 1990s, when I stopped attending church and started watching CBS’ Sunday Morning. His TV criticism and passion was like no one else I had ever seen. His scant moments on the show were sheer enlightenment. In the late 1990s, I read his book, Smoke and Mirrors: Violence, Television, and Other American Cultures.
I did not read the New York Times Book Review when it was edited by Leonard in the 1970s (well I was in grade school). I would periodically read his book reviews in Harper’s, but I did not realize he continued to do TV reviews for New York magazine up almost to the point of his death. I regret not appreciating Leonard more in general–at the point I found out he had written for the Nation in recent years, the degree of how much great analysis I denied myself became apparent.
Leonard was a liberal who got his start at the National Review (another reason to respect the William F. Buckley era of that magazine) . He was able to vote for Obama–despite being gravely ill and literally a day away from death–on Tuesday.
Writers are lining up to sing his praise, but I leave you with A.O. Scott’s thoughts on Leonard:
“He demonstrated in every sentence what a critic could be — what a critic must be. Not a cop, a saint, a celebrity, a judge, a bureaucrat or a priest. A citizen. A teacher. A friend.”