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In 100 words, tell us everything about who you are as an artist and where you’re from without using the phrase “my work.”
I was raised in California, on the Central Coast, between small no-name farm towns.  My parents were the archivists of our family, never  throwing anything away.  I was surrounded by old books, turn-of-the-century photos, and Swiss folklore. I spent 10 years writing graffiti, a great deal of which was commentary on my personal struggles with having my son Cody at 16.  I studied illustration and printmaking at the  Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and then fled to Portland,  where my son, my fella, and I are currently planning a hostile world takeover.

What are the challenges of only using found objects as your canvases? What made you decide to take this approach, and what is the weirdest thing you’ve incorporated into your art?
Making art on and with recycled materials at first came out of need for me.  I  couldn’t afford to go to the art supply store for years.  Being a dirty  little punk rock girl, dumpster diving has always been comfortable for  me, and I have never had a problem finding great stuff to paint on.  Taking a note from my folks, I hate throwing away something I think I can use.  I have found countless illustration/typography books, paint,  fine hard woods, plywood, inks, some of which are really high end.  To  be honest, the biggest challenge to working this way is keeping my  diving spots secret.  I like to share, and that has gotten several spots blown up before.  The weirdest thing that I have ever used is asbestos paneling.  I didn’t know what it was, but it was smooth and square, so I brought it home.  The only remaining piece from that series is the  original artwork for the band Southerly’s record, “The Storyteller and the Gossip Columnist.”

Describe your process.
I start my pieces with wood soaked in coffee and ink, and let the  background set over night.  Then I do illustrations on paper, in ink and coffee, and cut them out and adhere them to the wood.  Often times I will just paint on the wood, but I am really getting into doing more  work on paper, and adding that extra layer to the pieces.

Why do you think your subject matter seemingly gravitates toward a mix of dark childhood imagery and typography?
My work tends to lean toward a lot of childhood imagery due to my heavy  influence of old illustration, and its focus on innocence, the loss of  it, and the hope to regain it. When my son was born, I was and still am  greatly focused by this. I also use a lot of typography and words in my  pieces.  Even though I am retired, I love graffiti, letters, and old sign painting.  The only things I write on now are mine, and I can’t get in trouble for that.

Who are your artistic influences?
I am heavily influenced by  Frieda Kahlo, John Tenniel, Donald McKay,  Fritz Krendal, and Tyler Stout.

Do you tend to listen to music when you create and, if so, what do you typically choose?
Currently am listening to Neurosis,  Gardening, Not Archetecture, Southerly, Jared Mees and the Grown  Children, David Cross, Slayer, Ramona Falls, Menomena, and Minor Threat  while working.

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Ever have the dream of writing a letter to one of your favorite musicians and having them write back to you? How about writing them a letter, asking them if they’d like for you to make them posters? And then step it up a notch — ever dream of them getting back in touch and offering you a full time job? Probably not, because it sounds awfully far fetched. And certainly not if you’re talking about a band as big as Pearl Jam. But in 1999, a young Brad Klausen — fresh out of school for graphic design — offered his services as an artist, and they offered him a job.

Since then, Brad Klausen has solidified his reputation as one of the most consistently creative poster designers in the music world. His work (and the thoughts behind it) is chronicled in his new book, From a Basement in Seattle: The Poster Art of Brad Klausen. Klausen was kind enough to take some time to talk about his dream coming true, his evolution as an artist, and what you do after you quit working for one of the biggest bands in the world.

It sounds like an interesting path you took to becoming an artist –did you really have the intention of it becoming a full time job? Or was that more of a hope?
Looking back on it, I don’t think I’d ever intended to be able to make a living doing what I’m doing now. It’s actually surprising to me that I’m able to do that. I’ve always liked art and I’ve always liked to draw. Originally, though, I thought wholeheartedly I’d be a pro hockey player…pretty delusional. Through my teenage years I just figured I’d do this, and then I got a wake-up call that I’d never do this. When I went to school, I studied graphic design because I’d always loved art. I had no intention of a career in it or making money with it. Even when I started working for Pearl Jam, I didn’t make posters for the first five years. When I started making the posters I realized this was a way to make money, and it was more interesting.

So what did you do for the first five years?
I was the in-house designer for [Pearl Jam]. Anything that they needed artwork for, I did: t-shirts, newsletters, mailers, single artwork, album artwork — it grew over time. It started kind of slow, and then they realized that they had this guy in the warehouse they were paying to create art. I was doing all this and then I was making people’s birthday invitations. Jeff Ament’s brother Barry started a company called the Ames Brothers, [and] they were doing all the design work prior to me. They started to make a name for themselves and started charging what a regular design firm would charge for jobs. The band and organization decided they didn’t want to pay that much, so they’d just get someone right out of college. When I first got the job, I was really excited and figured I’d be pretty free to do freelance stuff, but they kept me busy.

Tell me about your new book.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while. And it’s missing about 30 pictures — I intended it to be a collection of everything I’ve done, but the publisher said that would be too expensive.

I had talked to a fellow poster artist, Jay Ryan, and asked him how to get a book made. He said you just cold call publishers. I sent out a letter to two publishers, but unbeknownst to me, after I talked to Jay about that, he called his publisher and told them about me. The next day, his publisher got in touch and said, “We wanna do that.” Without Jay’s recommendation, without him being so kind, it wouldn’t have happened.

You reminisce a lot in the short vignettes [that accompany] your art in your new book — does every piece of art you create have a story of its own?
Yeah. When it came time — when I was thinking of putting this book together — I knew that if I looked at every single poster I’ve made, I would remember what I was thinking about. Sometimes the story is not that interesting; I wanted to draw a bird, and that’s the story. Then, most of the time — at least for me — half of the fun of doing this stuff is coming up with the concepts. How is it going to relate to the band, and how am I going to figure this out? Sometimes it’s obvious; you hear a band, and you know this exactly what you’re going to do. And sometimes it’s like, “I don’t know what I’m doing or if this is any good.” [Regarding] each [piece of art] you remember the story totally. Even though it’s five or six years ago, I can see it and remember exactly. It’s like looking at a photo from your past. It’s cool to remember where you were in your head and in your personal life; it’s sort of like a scrapbook.

How long do you spend on each piece?
It varies for each one. Sometimes it’ll take a week, sometimes three weeks. If the concept is strong and I know what I want to do, that’ll cut down time. The other part is just the time consuming part — once you can see an image in your head and it is locked in, can you technically draw it? If you have an image in your head, can you recreate it? That can take some time; you screw up and it doesn’t look right, and you cant get what’s in your head on the paper. Sometimes it’s a struggle and sometimes it’s a breeze. It is dependent on me and where I’m at — if I’m confident in my abilities or stressing out about what I do. On average, [it takes] between a week to three weeks. Three weeks is a long time, though.

If someone asks me to do a job, I’ll say, “Give me at least 10 days.” That’ll give me a good amount of time to get the concept, get it on paper, get it on the computer. In the book, I wanted to have a symbol or asterisk on each piece which was finished at the last minute, but [I] quickly realized that was almost every piece. I’ll be working on a piece for at least a week. It is based on what’s going on in your life at that point.

Judging by what everyone wrote in the book, it’s difficult to tell what your relationship with Pearl Jam is like. [The book hints of] friends who have kind of gotten tired of each other, yet still love each other — is that the case?
Between myself and the band, we still have a very good working relationship. I would say — and I can’t speak for the guys in the band — I think they were surprised when I decided I wanted to quit and leave. I think they’d have been content with me to stay, [but] I was ready to move on and go do other stuff. I was ready to go; I had been wanting to quit for a few years. I quit in the summer of 2008 — it was when the financial stuff was all bubbling to the surface, and I’m quitting a job that most people would die to have. I knew I had to quit and it was time to go, but it was certainly scary. I’m sure my family was thinking, Why are you quitting? You’ve got a good job and health insurance.

Did you consider trying to publish the book with Pearl Jam as backers?
The Ames Brothers put out a book of all their posters. They contacted Pearl Jam and [asked the band] to help them out. Pearl Jam said they would do that, but they didn’t want it to just be Ames Brothers — but who has worked with Pearl Jam? That’s a short list. So they [agreed], and a couple of my posters are in that book as well. When it came time for me to put out my own book, I didn’t want to keep being attached to them — I wanted to do this on my own, and not be beholden to somebody. It would just make the waters a bit more murky — people in there who might be controlling or make decisions. I wanted to have control of the reins. I think they might have gone for it, but I don’t know.

I wouldn’t be doing any of this if it wasn’t for working for Pearl Jam. I’m beyond grateful for that opportunity — the fact that they have a poster collecting cult has helped me tremendously. I’ve always been super honored and grateful; at some point it felt like riding someone else’s coattails, though. At what point am I going to step out on my own without them, knowing full well that the only reason I can step out on my own is because of them? It’s an interesting situation, to work for a band like that that’s had that sort of history and that much success over the globe.

Who have you always wanted to work with?
In this day and age of email it’s unbelievably easy to contact people. [You can] contact the band’s manager or [the band directly] from their webpage. That’s how I got the jobs with Pearl Jam and Queens of the Stone Age. As far as bands I want to work with but haven’t, [there are] two I’d kill to work for — but they both seem to have different approaches to their art: one is Radiohead, and the other is Tool. Thom Yorke has an artist friend from college that they use; anytime you see a Radiohead poster, though, it is done by the promoter, not the band. I’d love to do something for Tool, but their guitar player, Adam Jones, does all theirs, and he just recently got into designing block posters. Those are the two bands that I’m hoping to work for. I’ve kind of stopped holding my breath, though.

Do you have any advice for artists who’d like to do their art full time?
That’s a tough question. I would say…it’s so hard because music is auditory, right? And visual art is visual. If you listen to music, you listen to it, but what does music look like? Everyone sees something different in their head when they hear music. It’d be like crossing any of the senses. If you were to feel something with your hand and have that tactile sensation, well, describe what that tastes like. You just have to really be open-minded, and just sit down and try to figure out what sort of emotion comes into your mind when you hear this stuff, and how you would translate it. How do you draw something to represent sound? That’s a really difficult task. The more you expose yourself to new art and music, the better you get at it. It’s tricky.

As far as getting started in this field, I would say that you have to be unique and have your own style — be somewhat different. I think some of the best artwork for music — and art in general — is strange. It’s something different and something you haven’t seen before. If everyone is going to paint a bowl of fruit in art class, how is yours going to be different than everyone else’s? You are going to have to put yourself in it and make yours stand out.

Also, it’s like the old saying, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” You’ve just got to keep getting better.

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Shooting from unconventional angles and using long exposures (up to 30 seconds), photographer Mike Lindwasser creates vibrant, almost un-earthy color tones in his images.

“Ordinary objects and structures come alive and share their extraordinary beauty during this slow and deliberate process,” states Lindwasser. “I strive to share the beauty of the ordinary with my audience.”

The extensive time of the exposures and the variety of brilliant, unique colors produced by his process underlies another hallmark aspect of Lindwasser’s technique: his minimalist approach in the use of light, and the fact that he most often shoots at night, focusing on using available light sources such as a street lamp, a sign, or a window. Using such available sources is what guides his art.

“I enjoy a challenge, so therefore I have minimized my equipment and limit myself to two lenses and a digital SLR,” says Lindwasser. “I strongly believe this approach allows me to master the images depicted in my mind and fully bring them to life. Observing the man-made structures and nature around me is what keeps my passion growing.”

The combined use of creative angles, long exposures, and the occasional multiple exposure has allowed Lindwasser to exist within his own genre of photography. Mike Lindwasser’s photographers will be on display and for sale at Art Bar in New York City until January of 2011. There will be an opening reception on November 3, 2010 from 6 to 9 PM, curated by LG-Reps. For more info, email info@lg-reps.com.

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Don’t let that Volkswagen parked in front of the Christopher Henry gallery in New York City fool you. Yes, it’s covered in colorful crochet from hood to bumper. Yes, it’s meant to entice you to check out the rest of the exhibit by Olek, a Polish artist with a penchant for yarn bombing just about anything that’s stationary. But this is not your granny’s crochet.

The exhibition is called “Knitting is for Pussies.” To any DIY maven, this should be fairly self-explanatory. Crochet involves keeping one live stitch at a time on a single hook, whereas knitting relies on two needles to keep an entire row of stitches live at a time. Knitting is easy to screw up; crochet is hardier. If one stitch breaks, it really only affects the stitches on either side of it. It won’t ruin the entire goddamn blanket.

Crochet produces thicker fabric with more yarn more quickly than knitting and allows for easy joining of different pieces of fabric. (A good thing when you don’t have hours to stand on the street and crochet an entire bicycle in one go.) The final KO in the crochet vs. knitting match: unlike knitting, many crochet stitches can’t be crafted by machines. It’s handiwork or bust.

Olek says that she uses crochet as an alternative to other mediums. The fabrics she weaves are a metaphor for the interconnectedness of the human body and all of humanity. When worn as clothing, her crocheted work is a second skin that can stretch to fit various bodies.

The first thing one sees in the gallery is a miniature studio apartment — nay, an average-sized studio by New York standards — covered in garishly colored crochet that looks more Beetlejuice than “home sweet home.” The entire structure is covered in crocheted yarn or plastic bags. Before entering, shoes must be removed or hospital booties donned to protect the crocheted floor. A crocheted pedestal tub is occupied by a model in a face-obscuring crocheted body stocking. The bathroom sink and toilet are crocheted. A television and phone are crocheted. There’s a clothing rack (crocheted, even as skinny as it is) hung with crocheted clothing that looks like something the Dr. Seuss characters Thing 1 and Thing 2 might wear.

Knitting may be for pussies, but crochet is all about the pussy. The apartment walls and doors are covered in framed photographs of models nude but for some crocheted clothing and crocheted timestamped text messages Olek has received: “Ur pussy is my soul mate,” “I just wanna turn u on as much as I can,” and the profound, if debatable, “Soul is the part of you that sees a lap dance every time you close your eyes.” Is this crocheted art or a steamy Prince song?

More framed photographs and videos of Olek’s work await upstairs, including fast-forwarded videos of stitches coming together to make brain-like fabric shapes. Visitors can also leave the gallery with a city map that shows where else Olek has struck downtown Manhattan. This is the madness and fluorescent labor of Olek’s art. She adds miles of yarn to everyday objects and repackages life into something more worthy of sight and touch. See for yourself until October 17 at the Christopher Henry Gallery (127 Elizabeth Street) in Soho. Olek has more work on display until November 6 in the “Bite: Street Inspired Art and Fashion” exhibition at 3rd Streaming (10 Greene Street) nearby. Be on the lookout for crocheted bikes in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, too.

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Skinny Gaviar is a talented graphic artist. That much is clear. But first and foremost, Skinny considers killing to be his art, and to that end he has murdered hordes of homeless, often using their dismembered bodies as models for his twisted Photoshop creations. This adds a real sense of urgency to his growing body of work, as with each completed piece, the viewer desperately hopes that Skinny’s homicidal urges will be discovered and tamed before he is forced to kill again.

Or so he would have you believe.

In truth, Skinny has lent his uniquely Russian perspective to various pieces of fiction, articles, posters, album covers, and features as a freelancer and a frequent contributor to Verbicide. Cheerfully dark, his sensibilities have always found a way to tickle my funny bone. It’s a nearly impossible feat. And for that alone he deserves attention.

You’ve contributed to Verbicide for a long while. How and why did you first decide to get involved?
I guess it was about three years ago when I decided to try my luck as a freelance illustrator. I came across your website, read some articles and liked the whole thing. I sent you an email and, boom, you responded and asked me to illustrate a story by Hunter S. Thompson. That’s how it started.

I know you have a particular passion for creating art that references music. Do you tend to listen to music when you create? What type of music do you prefer?
I love music. I listen to it all the time whether I’m drawing or not. It helps a lot. I love silence too, but it makes me feel paranoid. As a matter of fact, I have certain favorites to accompany the creative process. They include Frank Zappa, Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett, Rush, Faith No More and Meshuggah. It might sound odd, but a fair amount of my artwork was created while listening to Richard Pryor.

Deciding to be an artist isn’t easy since it’s not a very practical way to make a living. How did you get started as an artist? Who started you on the artistic path and what drives you to keep going?
I was bored. I had an office job that was staring at a monitor for eight hours a day pretending you’re doing something. Instead of pretending I began doing artwork. The very first pieces looked horrible, but eventually it all got better. Then I quit the office job (which only taught me how to use a fax machine) and became a full-time artist (if it makes any sense).

I have two main art influences — Andy Ewen, who is an amazing ink artist and a good friend of mine, and (a cliche) Salvador Dali. I also like Ian Stevenson and Bob London a lot. Oh, and Richard Kern. He’s a photographer but his approach is very artistic. There were three early 90s computer quest games that taught me a lot, especially about the use of colors — Sam and Max Hit The Road, Day Of The Tentacle and Simon The Sorcerer. Those were great. But then the filthy 3D technology eclipsed the charm of pixels.

Nothing drives me to keep going. It’s not that I do it for the sake of something. I have an itch and I scratch, metaphorically speaking.

Tell me about your artistic process. How do you create most of your work? Why do you seem to gravitate toward such dark themes?
Most of the works are based on photos. Photoshop gets a bad name these days. People think of it as a tool for making hilarious pet pictures with witty comments and stuff like that. Each time I say “Photoshop” to somebody, I can feel some sort of disapproval floating in the air. But Photoshop is almighty and mysterious. I’m still unaware of most of its powers. I print my stuff on canvas and paper too.

Anyway when I first started doing my art, it looked like some sort of extreme retouching. It still does now but with much more hand drawing involved. And initially the colors were the primary, but now it’s about shapes as well.

I never know what the result is going to be like and that’s my favorite part. Stream of consciousness or whatever they call it. And that’s why I prefer doing my own stuff as opposed to magazine illustrations that have contextual boundaries.

Dark themes are bold. They come out naturally. Cut-off limbs, blood, ugly faces — they look beautiful with the right colors. Especially blood. You can improve any image by adding blood. It just works. Try it.

But it’s not all creepy. I have nice ones too.

Have you ever considered creating something more narrative, like a comic or an illustrated book?
You know, each image is a story itself. To be honest, I never understood the appeal of comic books. They’re neither books that make you use imagination and create images of your own nor animated films that are easily absorbed yet visually and sonically expressive. For instance, I really like your Abstract Fantasy cartoons. They’re sick but in a very attractive way. I think they’d work perfectly as standalone images. But it’s just me. Plus, I’m from Russia. Comic books were never big here.

Every piece of mine has its beginning and its end if you know what I mean. So I can’t possibly think of series of frames following one plot. Yet, I fancy the idea of making a book. Plot and theme free. Just a bunch of unrelated images. A compilation of visual stories, if you will.

You are somewhat ambitious with your projects. What is an artistic goal that you’d like to accomplish? What projects do you have coming up?
I don’t think there’s anything ambitious. I mean, just like any other artist I want to do art and make a living by that for as long as necessary. I’m not sure if I have any goals at all. I just let it come out of me.

Project-wise, the book is actually a good idea. Maybe even a collaboration with a writer or a bunch of them. That’d be cool. I don’t like obvious concepts. It’s like when you look at something and realize it is so ballless and soulless that most people will dig it. Like Lost, or Banksy, or iPad. I just do what I do and I hope it’s not that obvious.

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An event within an event — the Flatstock poster show series is hosted by the American Poster Institute. Happening annually at SXSW, but also independently at various times during the year, this is the show’s 24th gathering.

Flatstock features concert posters and art print of the veritable who’s who of the rock poster community. Veteran artists like Jay Ryan from Chicago exhibit next to newcomers like Kevin Tong, who hails from Los Angeles. While most posters are screen printed there is also a small selection of letterpress works, in addition to one vendor showing posters created with spray paint and stencil. Dirk Fowler, of F2 Design in Lubbock, Texas, even set up a small printing demonstration where visitors to his booth could print their own Flatstock 24 commemorative print.

Most posters exhibited advertised shows by bands known and loved throughout recent musical history, including many of the acts performing at SXSW. For many poster collectors Flatstock can be just as exciting, if not more than SXSW itself. Several attendees even brought prints purchased prior to the event with them for the artists to sign. Visit the American Poster Institute for information on the exhibit, as well as information on the release of the book Rock Paper Show, a book that chronicles the first 20 Flatstocks.

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Comic books and music often come together in strange, blind date sort of situations that feel forced and unwholesome. It’s hard to believe that your favorite arena rock star (ala Gene Simmons or Ozzy Osbourne) will suddenly save the world using the power of ROCK.

One Model Nation, by C. Allbritton Taylor and Donovan Leitch, is an entirely different animal. The graphic novel is a work of historical fiction that follows a group of musicians living in one of the most intriguing hotbeds of musical innovation in the past century: late 1970s Germany. One Model Nation were a band that rubbed elbows with the likes of Kraftwerk and Bowie, and they vanished suddenly and completely under mysterious circumstances. Fascinated by their story, C. Allbritton Taylor (Dandy Warhols) and Donovan Leitch (Camp Freddy) embarked on a creative process that lasted nearly a decade. They delved into the turbulent political climate of post-World War II Germany, and found a story that was ripe for the telling — one about music, politics, and the power a band can have over the youth of a nation without even trying.

Donovan Leitch explains, “Much of the story is pieced together through various actual events that took place — stories about the Baader Meinhof Gang, as well as many bands that were around. Kraftwerk were the most well known, but there were certainly many other bands like One Model Nation.”

In the novel, One Model Nation is erroneously associated with the infamous Baader Meinhof Gang as the result of some terrible press. The band’s fanbase contained young people that sympathized with the Red Army Faction and their anti-government stance, but OMN seemed indifferent, like they couldn’t care less about the politics that surrounded them.

“They were musicians who just wanted to make music,” Leitch says. “They thought the Baader Meinhof Gang were disgusting cretins and the government were not much better.”

The German government had created a climate of fear that the youth of the nation were fed up with. After the rise of the Baader Meinhof Gang, young people were singled out as enemies of the state, reminiscent of the situation many Muslims face in America today.

“There were wanted posters that were everywhere — every city and town in Germany, with about 20 faces of young adults. This created an air of hysteria, and anyone under the age of 25 were automatically assumed to be terrorists,” Leitch explains.

“The country was not unified. After World War II, Germany was prevented from becoming a superpower, so there was no federal authority. If you were a terrorist, you could blow up a bank in Hamburg, then drive to Frankfurt and change your identity without anyone ever catching on. Then it was the Secret Police, the Stazi, who were formed to root out the terrorists with shoot to kill orders handed down from a very nebulous leadership.”

Dealing with political turmoil is only made more difficult when there’s sensationalist press running about, pushing all the wrong buttons. One Model Nation was demonized by the press as RAF supporters — these false reports brought violence to their door, and to their shows, getting them in trouble with the law. I asked C. Allbritton Taylor how he would compare the mainstream American media with that of post-World War II Germany. Did he think things had gotten better, worse, or were they the same?

“Funny enough, while editing for graphic novel form I removed some dialogue in the beginning about just that.  The Olaf Arte character says that the media are just the same now — and I truly believe it,” Taylor explains. “Reading the Greeks, the Russians, Dickens, and Burroughs should make it pretty clear that people as a whole don’t change. People can change, but ‘people’ can’t.   There are still people trying to do noble things through media and there are sad little people chasing power through the media at a terrible cost to good and decent people. A person can change from one to the other, but there will always be both. We can’t change as a whole — only individuals can do that.”

Taylor can sympathize with the band — he’s had some less than pleasant encounters with the press himself.

“It became clear that when people not only write, but even just talk about other people, they are actually talking about themselves. This is where the mean writers come from — they are working out their own problems publicly but substituting other people’s names. I once had a very nice lunch with a journalist who then wrote that I seemed like ‘the kind of guy who would be nice to your face, but talk bad about you behind your back.’ Ironic?”

Taylor considers One Model Nation his life’s work — he’s been working on the project for almost 10 years. Far from a whimsical endeavor, Taylor took his time, shaping the story into a solid, substantial tale that is as vital and valid now as it was at the time that it originally happened.

“It took about two years to write, and then another eight to make it good. Being a good writer, apparently, is rather difficult. One must write from the heart, but then edit with the head, with long gaps in between — long enough to forget what you’ve written so that one feels like the editor of someone else’s book. People are such accurate critics for the work of others, you know.”

When the time came to work with an artist on the novel, Leitch and Taylor managed to lure in Jim Rugg, famous for his work on Street Angel and Afrodisiac. The look of the comic is dark and slightly pale, with sharp lines contrasting the murky hues of crimson, grey, and black that permeate the illustrations. Taylor collaborated with Rugg to get the look he was going for.

“I used words like, stoic, formidable, dark, inky, grey, rainy, etc. He did a couple different line styles and he found this cross between maybe David Choe, and I guess Afrodisiac. I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like, so once we got that down pat he just started going to town,” Taylor recalls.

There were exceptional, stand-out cells on many of the pages of the band performing, of landscapes, and of the youth of the nation. One gorgeous cell spans two pages, displaying the swirling winds of government helicopters as they hover over a concert.

“Keeping [Rugg] confined to traditional layout made his acrobatics, like the helicopter scene, more pronounced and explosive. He’s such an experienced storyteller and an amazing cinematographer, that once we got to page breakdowns it was really just details of the different locales (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc.) that I needed to watch for. The rest was just ‘wind him up and let him go.’”

The sweeping, cinematic quality of the novel is no coincidence. Plans are in the works to make a moving picture leap from the pages. Leitch and Taylor planned on releasing One Model Nation as a fictional film, and still intend to do so. Perhaps David Bowie will make a cameo in the film, like he did in the graphic novel? Maybe actual archival material from One Model Nation will appear on the soundtrack? I don’t know about you — but I can’t wait.

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Bonnie Wood is a rogue taxidermist from Norwich, England. Traditional taxidermy focuses on making deceased animals appear as lifelike and realistic as possible. Rogue taxidermists tend to take artistic license in the reassembly and posing of the stuffed animals. Bonnie explains, “Commonly, [rogue taxidermy] is understood as the creation of animals that do not exist in reality — for example a Fiji mermaid or jackalope.”

Like a painting of a skull on a desk with a piece of rotting fruit beside it, Wood’s creations are vanitas in art. They remind us of the state of entropy in which we exist, and how close each one of us is to death at any given moment. In her line of fashion accessories, Amore de Mori, Wood uses animal skulls and dead insects, swirling them with sensual accents of pearls, feathers, and lace.

“To me, bones, skulls especially, are like jewels. The pearls and lace aren’t meant to contrast but to fit in with their beauty…I’m trying to present ‘fashion’ items in all their frivolity and arrogance (vanity) with the reminder that ultimately appearance is a futile goal as everything is going to end up the same way — dead.”

More than just a creator of fashion accessories, Wood has a line of work she refers to as “Sleep” — her personal taxidermy art. This work is visionary in the most literal sense of the term. During a severe bout of insomnia, Wood experienced a vision that inspired her to create her first piece of taxidermy art.

“Lying in bed one night I had a vision of the Virgin Mary casting a sleepy amber beacon of light to all dead and dying animals. That light was the salvation of eternal sleep. I knew after that that I wanted to preserve animals in this eternal ‘sleep.’” Two compelling pieces from her “Sleep” collection are visible in the gallery above — the squirrel with a flower emerging from its midsection, titled “Flora and Fauna,” and the rabbit holding an ornate silver cross, titled “Virgin Bunny.”

Two particular art movements inspire Wood — the movement best known as Babyart and modern vanitas: “I have a massive passion for art work. Work-wise, artists like Vania Zouravliov, Joel Peter Witkin, and Jan Svankmajer [are inspirational]. On a personal level, [I gravitate towards Babyart] artists like Trevor Brown, Gotfried Helnwein, and Hans Bellmer.” Wood explains, “Babyart moves me because I had a couple of events in my childhood that made me believe that children are far from innocents — one was that I was sexually bullied by older children when I was five, the other was witnessing a brother and sister of around the ages four and six have sex whilst on a camping holiday — I was about 10. I feel very strange around children; I believe books like Lord of the Flies could quite easily have been fact. I don’t plan on having any of my own. At the same time, I’m very nostalgic for the way things were as a child, so Babyart panders to this bitter sweet feeling.”

Wood adheres to a set of personal ethics when it comes to selecting art materials: “I basically will only do what I’m comfortable with, and only use animals that didn’t meet their end for my art.” She often makes use of rabbits and pigeons that are routinely killed as pests — she has an exterminator contact, and the animals would otherwise be incinerated. Wood also utilizes road kill, frozen rats that are to be used as reptile food, and she occasionally makes purchases on eBay, after questioning the sellers to make sure they’re not trappers. Despite the controversial nature of her medium, she’s had very few negative encounters with animal rights activists.

“When [I receive criticism] from vegans I understand it, and believe part of their argument to be valid. When it’s from people that use animal products I have little time for their point of view. I believe that making animal remains into something beautiful is far more respectful than buying a [meal at] McDonald’s…I think people like that need to look more internally before they judge.

“When I was at art school I was told the work I was creating wasn’t ‘art’ at all,” Wood recalls. “My teachers tried to sculpt me into the right artist for them, and not for myself…I was basically told that what I did would ultimately wind up as nothing. My greatest achievement is proving them all wrong. The best revenge is to live well.”

Originally published in Verbicide issue #24

It started as a project to document the abandoned symbols of our failed American infrastructure; steel mills and power plants that were left behind as technology shifted to adapt to the modern age. But as photographer Shawn May discovered more and more deteriorating state hospitals in 2006, he shifted his focus. Since then, he has traveled the east coast and Midwest trying to document this dying breed of buildings. Ignoring danger and working in secret, he is careful not to exploit or expose these areas, as he strongly believes that to reveal their locations would leave the buildings vulnerable to vandalism and copper scrapping. His overarching goal is to bring light to a slightly darker part of America’s history, and show the beauty in the architectural decay of these buildings. Also, through turning a discerning eye to these relics of the past, Shawn awakens the ghosts of these mental institutions, bringing their stories to the public while writing his own story along the way.

Originally published in Verbicide issue #22

Kevin O’Rourke is part of a new generation of Motor City artists. This low-key powerhouse fuses elements of graphic design and advertising verve into frenetic rock art that’s cool as liquid nitrogen. He recently produced both the movie poster and onscreen credits for It Came From Detroit, a film about the reincarnation of Detroit’s garage scene by bands like The Detroit Cobras, Bantam Rooster, and The Dirtbombs. Being a rock artist, graphic designer, and illustrator makes Kevin one of the hardest working artists in the Motor City, and his ball-busting work ethic means that he always has multiple projects going. However, despite the long hours, he admits, “I like getting feedback from other artists and music fans. Fine art keeps me sane.”

During his short but prolific career, Kevin has produced concert posters for everybody from Lucinda Williams and Flogging Molly to Sonic Youth and Ween. His scrappy Irish countenance reveals a tendency to forgo artistic arrogance and move between the realm of fine art and more commercially accessible graphic design. Despite his ascending stature in the world of pop art, you’ll never see Kevin wearing a paint-splattered smock or resale store beret. Instead, Kevin looks more like an extra from Martin Scorcese’s The Departed.

Before moving to Detroit, Kevin cut his artistic teeth doing graphic design in Chicago. These days, he’s trying his hand at tattooing and has produced more poster art for the nationally ranked Detroit Roller Derby League than any other artist. But Kevin’s love for Detroit doesn’t stop there — his block art prints of classic Detroit buildings embody his passion for the city.

“I like character, and Detroit has a lot of it. Its buildings are graphically vibrant. Detroit’s one of the coolest cities I’ve ever lived in. Other leagues ask me to do art for them, but I don’t have the time. [The Detroit Derby league] are my girls, and I love ‘em.”

Kevin brings art into every facet of his life, including living in a building designed by the great Dutch Modernist Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. The complex, called Lafayette Plaza, “is like an Oasis,” states O’Rourke. “There’s nothing like it in the rest of Detroit. It’s a self-contained community. It has a lot of character overall, but each unit is identical. Everything is minimal. Miles van der Rohe even coined the phrase less is more.” However, O’Rourke’s style — if he can be said to have a single style — uses elements of commercial advertising to create a current of bold colors, explosive shapes, and clearly defined messages. Much like a club DJ, Kevin samples influences from disparate sources to create something new, a reconfiguration in which the base elements are powerfully redefined in proximity to one another. Kevin’s art can be seen at www.crownvicproductions.com.