We met Barron at the Alternative Press Expo when he graciously visited our humble booth. This interview was conducted after that introduction, on May 6, 2007, via email.
1.) Do you still get that sense of a sense of, “wow, I made that!” (joy or amazement) in the creation of certain of your works?
I’ve just made my first radical musical instruments. I look at them and say: “Wow! I made that!” But do I get that rush when I see my illustrations? Not quite. It’s more like: Whew…that one came out alright… I can’t imagine Barry Bonds saying to himself, Wow! I hit another homer! A long career has not jaded my enthusiasm; it’s just a different story at this point. A friend once categorized the arc of illustration assignments in 4 stages. The first, and sweetest, is when you get the job. “Wow! They want me!” This is followed by stage 2, doing the work, stage 3, suddenly realizing it may not turn out as wonderful as you imagined and stage 4, recognizing that you must do your best anyway, no matter what. In my journals, the feeling is almost physical. A completed page is followed by a release—an unburdening, if you wish—sort of an ‘okay. Got that off my chest. Now, I can think about (and do) other things’. As for “wow!”…every journal seems of less quality than the previous one to me for a period. When I get into the next one, I laugh at myself when, all too predictably, I hear myself thinking: oh no! This one isn’t as good as the last one! Impressing myself turns out to be a rather shallow barometer of the endeavor. I often repeat the refrain I learned from a poem by e.e. cummings: proceed. The poem has this chorus: I am a man. I am an artist. I am a FAILURE…and I MUST PROCEED.
2.) In his book, “Painting the Digital River”, James Faure Walker, poses the question: “Does digital have to look digital or be about digital things?” What is your opinion of using digital tools in the art-making process?
I got into digital because I saw it being used exquisitely by Dave McKean…primarily on covers for Sandman Comics. As I explored it, I saw the process as quite similar to printmaking, with which I had some experience. I produced some really terrible pieces before I learned to check my enthusiasm and leaven the results of my efforts with a strong reliance on my non digital skills. In a recent illustration class I blasted a group of surpassingly gifted students for turning to digital prints for their finals. I had inadvertently set them up for this by sharing a batch of my own digital files and I had to apologize. One of the students told me not to regret my rant. He found some value in two of my negative points: 1) All the work looked alike—and that was never true of their hand created work and 2) Humans are as distanced from the achievements of other humans with super human tools as they are from record performances of professional athletes boosted by drugs. The point is: It is natural to admire what human beings can do. It is another matter to be fooled. A lip synching performer on stage, a person sitting before a player piano (or modern equivalent), pretending to play or an artist ripping off the work of another…all these may impress momentarily only to fade as the dependence on these technical advantages becomes boring and one’s attention shifts to honest work, realized by means that are available to all.
3.) Okay here’s the scene. Luis, “Richie” Falero is on the right with the business end of a broken beer bottle. William, “Don’t call me Billy” Bouguereau is on the left with a small length of rusty chain. Did we mention it’s a cage match? It is. Who are you betting on and why?
I don’t believe in this kind of stuff and have no answer for this question.
4.) Are there particular artists you find fascinating or otherwise notable for their approach, technical or thematic?
Oh, yes. Always. I applaud Joe Sacco for using comics to tell the story of our “contractors” in Iraq trying to “train” Iraqi volunteers and Harpers Magazine for getting past prevailing assumptions and realizing that comics can tell this story as well or perhaps better than bare text and photography. I was thrilled when Darren Aronofsky tapped Kent Williams to tell the “Fountain” story in a graphic novel even before the film came out and then knocked out again when I saw the movie. I was awed by “Pan’s Labyrinth”—absolutely incredible work. …Stunned by Anselm Kiefer’s recent show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, amazed at Steve Mumford’s “Baghdad Journal” and profoundly moved by the songs of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen in albums coming many, many years after their early successes. I laugh hard at Dave Chappell and have my mind blown by a performance by Evelyn Glennie, in which the utter amazement of her ability to move me to tears in a piece for solo snare drum is only surpassed by my later discovery that she is deaf, feeling the music through her body. Add to this the fact that I am always thrilled by the work of my students and my yes to this question gets loud enough for Ms. Glennie to hear:
YES!!!
5.) What do you find to be the most encouraging or, conversely, discouraging trend in illustration today?
Encouraging trend: Sacco in Harpers (and his graphic novels) = comics is growing up. Today at Green Apple bookstore I noticed some new sequential work promoting itself without using “comics” or “graphic novel” in its headings. Good!
Depressing trend: Your question about fictional nastiness reminds me of last week’s experience in Alameda. Petra and I found a great laundromat near the hospital where we were going to visit her very ill brother. My first time not needing a bag full of quarters—the machines were sensibly operated by cards—pay for a card, bingo no quarters. This advance didn’t prevent me from noticing that the place had it’s own arcade style video games. I watched a kid playing the games—it was clearly a convenient way to practice killing people. This, right after the Virginia Tech massacre was an obscene irony to the efficient cleanliness of the place. A curse on the profiteers of this kind of substitute for thrills! Gaming is corrupt clear through, in my crabby old dude opinion and I shudder to think I might have trained some of the “illustrators” who help produce this kind of stuff.
6.) Not many people know this but, at one time you were in a punk band. Did the rest of the guys make you draw all the fliers?
Punk flyers? Oh, yes…you haven’t lived until you’ve pasted up your band’s promos on telephone poles and walls. To this day I admire public posting…of art, ala graffiti and stencil and yes, band flyers. Saw one today that I liked on Haight Street where I once wielded my stapler and tape…
7.) How motivated by political events is your work? Would you say it is more so now than in the past?
Political motivation? You betcha. Ever increasing as political events become more and more dazzlingly stupid. Call it generational, but I think apathy is idiotic. My new book has a picture of me on a street in Belgium, drawing away under a Banksy stencil: “Society gets the kind of propaganda it deserves”. Hey, artists and illustrators, (pleading voice ala Al Pacino): Don’tcha’ care? Don’tcha even CARE????
8.) How would you like to be remembered in 100 years?
I’ve spent most of a lifetime dealing with people who will outlive me. I’d like to think that I’ve imparted something that will not necessarily be referenced to me, but will be helped to live on and remain in memory because I’ve passed it to them. It is immodest to compare anything I’ve done to the legacies of the past that have served me well-and I have no naivete about the alterations of history in any case. 100 years from now, you know, no one with direct memory of me will be alive and the work I have done will have regrettably fallen short of history making. It’s OK. I remember a brilliant student asking me: What’s more important? Immortality or mortality? Mortality was my answer.
9.) “Ology” refers to “the study of”. What is your Ology?
I’ll go with lifeology. The study of life.
Thank you Barron and Petra!