Cuyahoga Plains | 48” x 72” 2008 | acrylic and spray paint on wood

There’s something kind of futuristic and Sci-Fi within Mark Keffer’s paintings. Like “2001: A Space Odyssey” Sci-Fi…deep and strange. Otherworldly landscapes filled with blips and bleeps – remnants of the digital age. A neon moon-like terrain dotted with organic forms rendered one-dimensionally…of almost-plants and other sponge-like forms popping out from a mostly cracked and vague background layer. And the juxtaposition of these finely detailed levels of the composition somehow adds to a looser overall look to the paintings. Maybe this is through their seemingly errant placement within the composition, but despite the fact that the lines are extremely clean (sometimes masked) – the feeling is still organic.

Surprisingly, Mr. Keffer considers himself a landscape painter. At first look, most viewers (including myself) will not make the connection. The saturated patches of color and contrasted, optic art elements lend his work to be more identifiable with the abstract movements in art history, than the classical schools of landscape painting. But his work does succeed in forming a perspective based three-dimensionality (with layers and levels creating depth) – only not in any traditional sense of perspective. And that’s kind of the point – it’s a statement on the capacity of human knowledge through our limited, subjective experience.

Like most artists concerned with reality and the interpretations of meanings within (David Lynch comes to mind), Mr. Keffer didn’t really want to reveal too much on that end of things. However, the symbols do stand for “things”, but deciphering their actual meanings in any concrete, understandable way, is to overlook how concrete and understandable these “things” actually are.

It’s a real pleasure to cover the work of artists like Mark Keffer – those who have matured artistically over the years and through their complete understanding of art, where’s it’s been and where they’re at within the scope of it all…have struck out on their own, and put a completely new footprint onto the lexicon of art as we know it. The following conversation was recorded at Mark’s studio…again, over in the Mid-town/Asian district.

Some of Mark Keffer’s new works will be on display as part of a two gallery show which opens on Oct. 9 at Front Room Gallery (E. 36th and Superior) and Legation (in the W. 78th St. Studios Building) dealing with “contemporary takes on landscape painting”. You can see more of Mark’s work at myspace.com/mkeffer.

Half-thought w/ Reverb | 28” x 44” 2008 | acrylic on wood

I RECOGNIZE SOME OF THESE FROM A SHOW YOU HAD AT EXIT GALLERY LAST YEAR…
Yeah, the show was called “Heads” – which the forms started naturally taking on these head-like shapes. Then I started thinking about the distant future and them merging with landscapes, which is to say that we’re generally about as important as a landscape.

SOUNDS A BIT NIHILISTIC…
Maybe existentialist…but those are both funny words.

YEAH THEY’RE BIG WORDS THAT EVERYONE HAS A DIFFERENT IDEA AND PERSONAL DEFINITION OF.
Although, I really connect with a definition of existentialism that I heard which is – “a philosophy of no philosophy”. And that relates to my painting. I’m not so interested in paintings being about something…sometimes it’s done brilliantly, but it also takes art down to a tangible area, and I want my work to really be pushing the fringes of reason and logic. My work is very specifically not logically based, and I think some people really hate that.

I THINK IT’S INGRAINED IN US…THE NEED TO FIGURE OUT THE WORLD AND MAKE SENSE OF IT.
However, there are many aspects that are unknowable and I always connect that with my work. I think of the distant future, where there are things that we are completely unable to perceive. If you think about the most brilliant minds of 500 years ago, there is no way they could perceive, much less understand, something such as satellite communications – information sent through the air from one side of the world to the other. So I dabble in stuff that I can’t get a handle on, as a metaphor of the unknowable.

Landscape/Portrait (unknowable source) | 20” x 16” 2009 | acrylic on wood

WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE UNKNOWABLE, I ALWAYS RELATE THE IDEA OF ETERNITY AS SOMETHING THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FULLY COMPREHEND THROUGH OUR FINITE EXPERIENCE.
Or the limitless expanse of the universe – because it does seem like it is expanding, but that’s from a perspective that there are boundaries. Concrete reality is separate from our understanding of it. We’re bound by our own subjectivity…we can’t really get past it. This may sound silly, but for me, it comes down to what the meaning of the word – “meaning” is. I feel kind of like a landscape painter. When you’re in a landscape, you understand it through your senses. For example, something simple – like taking a walk in the woods at night, in the rain…it can be a really powerful experience. It can be meaningful. A sunset can be meaningful – but not in any literal sense which can be articulated verbally. That’s what I think about. For instance – a giant Jackson Pollock painting may represent the experience of a landscape better than someone making a more literal landscape painting. The experience is what I care about. I don’t care about direct representation or illustrating an idea per se. I think of it as meaningful, but in a different sense – pushing the idea of “what is meaning”.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON THE CURRENT THEME?
My brother has a painting of mine from 2001, when I was in New York, which seems like the start of it. They were organic abstractions that I was taking from medical manuals…representing something in a way that’s completely different than the source. They were basically guts – brains, organs, tissue, capillaries…then I started getting to the idea of the macro and micro of the body – you have this overview that is represented by the macro and then you have some element involved that represents the micro version of it. I started moving away from the source…and that’s how the imagery came about.

IS THERE SIGNIFICANCE IN THE REALLY CLEAN DOTS AND STRIPES WITHIN YOUR WORK?
Part of that is to sort of reconcile the artistic impulses that I have. At a certain point, I was making these things that were finely detailed with a really small brush, and I got to the point where I no longer enjoyed the process. I have these different impulses, some are more hands on – like using an electric sander on the ground. But then I like to be extremely precise at times, so I try to reconcile all the impulses and have the painting naturally exist with those elements. I try to not read anything more specific into that, because it would start to get corny…and I’d rather not go there.

Half-thought w/ Reverb | 36” x 72” 2008 | acrylic and spray paint on wood

YOUR STYLE IS VERY INDIVIDUAL. I LOVE WHEN ARTISTS DEVELOP THEIR OWN UNIQUE STYLE…
Whether I succeed as a painter or fail miserably, I just want to make sure that I’m not painting someone else’s painting. And to some extent, you get yourself in trouble doing that – because a lot of times people like a gallery director or a critic – they have a whole file of work in their heads that they connect to yours. If you are doing your own version of another artist’s work, then it will be understood more easily. And I just can’t do that – I’m stubborn about it! I want to make difficult paintings, and I’m not saying that I’m necessarily original, but at least there’s something of myself in there that I’m adding to the mix. I think that’s all you can do.

Landscape | 28” x 22” 2006 | acrylic on wood

Last of the Meteors | 22” x 28” 2009

Jake Kelly churns out a ton of work – fliers, comics, murals, gallery works and even smoke drawings. They’re almost always black and white illustrations…and typically “strange” in their subject matter. From snake-girls to alien fish-men…tough women, awkward geeks, hippie zombies, space robots and mutations of every sort – oddities and curiosities abound. It’s basically a collection of fringe icons from a trash culture of cast-offs and runaways. It’s the type of material that speaks to the “others” out there (not unconscious sheep primarily concerned with material possessions) – they are fantasies, regrets, hopes and nightmares, but almost always done with a hilarious sense of absurdity (and melodrama) throughout.

As a self-described comic book junkie growing up, Jake’s influences are clear (he’s also put out some comics himself over the years, namely – the “Crosston” series). Plotlines run in and out of his work, some start where other comics have left off, pushing the original idea beyond the edge of reason…other subjects rely on his personal re-imaginations of past experiences, which he may or may not have remembered. And he does cite drugs and alcohol as a major influence on his art:

“That point before you need to be wheel-barreled home is kind of the point that I try to capture – getting messed-up to the point of insanity, remembering that, and transferring it. I’ve been known to “tipple”, but I can’t drink and draw – it’s impossible for me. All of my art is created stone sober.”

Harem Kept | 22” x 18” 2009

And Jake may well be some sort of role model for the anti-college sect out there…those misunderstood geniuses who truly believe that Universities are businesses, and not necessary, given the wide access to knowledge available for free (Jake could tell you the strong point of almost every public library within an hour’s bus-ride of downtown Cleveland). It just takes more personal motivation, devotion and concentrated effort to hone a craft…and Jake has done exactly that, perfecting his technique through years and years of daily execution, from conception to finalization…he’s become a cornerstone of the Cleveland underground art scene.
I sat down with Jake after a recent group show we displayed over at Low Life Gallery in Collinwood (which also featured the art of Stephe DK). And I hope that the following (at least) comes close to nudging the tip of the iceberg known as JAKE KELLY…and if you want to get in contact with him – try: myspace.com/rapidtransient

REALLY? YOU FELT THAT ENTITLED AS AN ARTIST, TO ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT YOUR ART DISERVED TO BE ON THAT MANY FLIERS?
I’ve known I was an artist since I was four years old. There is a drawing of a rhino that my mom has and will not give up. It’s the first thing I ever drew…when I was three years old. IT LOOKS LIKE A RHINO. I drew it from memory after we got back from the zoo. It has all the bony plates familiar to a rhino and even the double nose – a lot of little kids will just draw one pointy nose, but I drew the DOUBLE pointy nose. I could see something, remember it, and then draw it. So I’ve known how to draw forever. Obviously, reading comic books also helped me learn how to draw.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD FLIER?
The clubs tell me to do fliers for certain bands and I don’t always know what the band is all about. But more often than not, when I ask – “What’s it sound like?”, and they say – “Indie Rock”…if I happen to be at that show and run into a person from the band, they’ll say – “Man, you really captured it” – even though I’d never heard their music before.

DOES THE NAME OF THE BAND GIVE YOU THE IDEA FOR THE FLIER?
In this day and age, the name rarely tips you off…and this is something I’d like to address – there are, I believe, in the Oxford English Dictionary some 23 million words. And beyond that, in medical dictionaries there are yet another 50 million words – THERE ARE PLENTY OF WORDS OUT THERE! THERE IS NO NEED ON THIS GREEN EARTH TO HAVE MORE THAN ONE WORD IN YOUR BAND NAME. Because for me, when I have to write – “The Volcano Sleeps at Night and Becomes Electric” – and that’s a band name, it pisses me off!

Flyers:

[View with PicLens]

YOU ALSO HAVE SOME VERY LARGE WORKS AROUND, HOW’S THAT RELATE TO YOUR FLIER ART?
What do you mean?

SOMETHING, LIKE SAY – “ANTLER GIRL”. WAS THAT PREVIOUSLY A FLIER, OR DID YOU SAVE IT FOR A LARGER PIECE?
No, I read in Juxtapose that antlers were passé. So I decided to pursue antler art work.

I AGREE WITH JUXTAPOSE, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE BEEN THE SOLE PROLIFERATOR OF THE DREADED “ANTLER ART” FOR MANY YEARS NOW…
Yeah, but now they’re into tentacles. And you know what…I really know tentacles. I’ve been doing tentacles forever!

Loser #2 | 11″ x 8.5″

ALMOST ALL OF YOUR WORK IS STRICTLY BLACK AND WHITE…IS THAT BECAUSE IT’S MORE EASILY XEROXED?
I guess my artwork has been based around “Xerox-graphy”. Between the fliers and the comics I’ve done, I know that the only way that I can reproduce them is by Xerox machine, because no one else is going to do it for me. So black and white has become my forte…I used to paint a lot, and now I’m just kind of relearning that after throwing myself headlong for the last 9 years into understanding how to just use a pen and black India ink.

Loser #1 | 11″ x 8.5″

YOU ALSO USE BRUSHES, RIGHT?
I use brushes – I wish I was like Charles Burns and could use a brush like he did, but I have to use pens to get those fine feathered lines.

HOW ABOUT SUBJECT MATTER? THE WORD DYSTOPIAN COMES TO MIND.
Dystopian works. But it’s also Cherubic, bringing across feelings of love and good things. The big works are trying to approach somewhat of a fine arts (although I don’t know what that is) approach to my work. I mean, making art [with no buyer beforehand] is a weird concept to me. For our past show, making “Trip Trap” was kind of an odd thing. People have bought the other large works that I’ve done, because there were always people saying – “If you make a big piece, I’ll buy it” …then I’ll make a big piece, and they’ll buy it. In that way, I’m lucky…even though I’m at a station, monetarily, where I’m still scraping and struggling to get by.

YEAH, YOU LIVE SOME SORT OF VICTORIAN ERA EXISTENCE…NO PHONE, NO CAR – YOU NEED A PERSONAL PAGE THOUGH – WHO YOU CAN SEND OUT AND LET US KNOW THAT – “JAKE KELLY IS NOW ACCEPTING GUESTS”!
Well, what I would really like, would be an agent. If there is an agent out there who wants 30 percent, who is willing to represent me, let’s go to the moon!

LET’S TALK SMOKE DRAWINGS…
Well, I guess I have to go back to the beginning. I saw a really terrible drawing in a magazine, but the material was candle smoke on paper. And I said to myself – “candle smoke on paper aye”, and I held a candle to paper, then scraped it with my fingernail and said – “Oh, I see – you can just scrape it away and it’s white underneath”. So that led to a huge glut of work on my part. Once I started riding the horse of “smoke art” I started figuring a lot out, like – you have to wear a smoke suit…an old T-Shirt and pants that you don’t care about, because hot wax is going to be dripping down on you. But getting down to the why…I can be a lot more impressionistic than I can be with a solid pen and ink drawing.

 
Owl #10 | Smoke on Paper | 11” x 8.5” 2009

MOST OF YOUR WORK SEEMS TO DRAW FROM SUBCULTURAL IDEAS…
Yeah, you’re kind of right. My entire life is based around counterculture, as they used to call it. They’ve called it punk. They’ve called it alternative. They’ve called it a thousand things. I identify myself mostly as a punk rocker, and I don’t know what that means anymore, but I don’t care. And as a punk, I became fascinated with other subcultures, be it – Ken Kesey’s Further Bus, or freak shows of the 1890’s…imagining how similar all these different things are. Being a lizard girl isn’t that much different than being able to paint. It’s a talent that people want to see, and they also want to pay for. And every subculture has identified itself with being creatively different.

I’M GUESSING THAT ROBERT CRUMB HAS AN INFLUENCE ON YOUR WORK…
Robert Crumb is an influence, not necessarily drawing-wise, but he showed me that…for instance – you can put a dick in your drawing…you don’t have to be afraid of anything – just put yourself out there. Technique-wise, some illustrators that I admire – number one, hands down is John Totleben. His work on Swamp Thing completely influenced exactly what I do. Now I don’t know who he was influenced by…this is kind of a Sonic Youth paradigm, I love the Archers of Loaf who are influenced by them, but I hate Sonic Youth. Charles Burns who did “Black Hole” – available at your local library, “Black Hole” is an amazing book. And I also love Daniel Clowes. A painter that I like is Norman Rockwell, even though the people at the Guggenheim would scream – “He’s an illustrator not a painter”. I think Norman Rockwell’s pictures capture more emotion, feeling and sense of time and even provoke more thought than “Lot’s Wife” by Anselm Kiefer. “Lot’s Wife” is meaningless to most people, but everyone can relate to a Norman Rockwell illustration. I also love Picasso because he was a fucking asshole. I love everybody who did DC Comics, especially Wally Wood and Jack Davis…and Jack Davis also worked for Mad Magazine, another huge influence in itself.

Rock | 11” x 8.5” 2009

Beyond visual realities, into archetypes…the many changing cycles involved within life, it’s mysteries and our shared connection to a larger “subconscious” framework – the art of Douglas Max Utter succeeds in visually representing these ideas. It’s easy to fall into an intellectual approach when talking about such lofty subjects. But one of the largest reasons Mr. Utter’s work is so striking, is because these themes are expressed within the actual process of creating the art…they’re not talked about, but inherent.

Afternoon News | 20” x 16” 2008 | mixed paint media on canvas

Many of the readers out there may recognize the name Douglas Max Utter from his coverage of the visual arts in The Scene (and also the previous free Cleveland arts magazine, but now defunct Angle Magazine), his writing is detailed, knowledgeable and positive…and that probably stems from his experience as an artist. He’s not a critic, but a fan of art itself, and seems to find a strongpoint in almost any work of art that he encounters.

As one of the premier artists (in my eyes) within Cleveland, Mr. Utter has not only weathered the passing trends of the contemporary art scene over the past 30 odd years, but become stronger…although his techniques have changed/evolved over the years, his characteristically figurative style has remained intact. His art has a timeless quality to it…painterly but not perspective based, representational but abstracted, primitively refined – his work could belong to almost every movement in modern art.

I had the pleasure of talking to Douglas at his studio over in Cleveland’s Asia-town District…and in the process revealed some first-hand knowledge into his artwork, and how he visually exploits one of art’s strongest points – the creative process. The following text recaps some of our conversion…to see more of his art online, go to douglasutter.com.

Adjustment | 16″ x 20″ | Mixed Paint Media on Canvas

To me, your art does a great job of balancing the line between abstraction and representation…
I’m interested, to some extent, in texture – burying the figures in the ground and in the surrounding. It’s really an atmosphere that’s almost as if it were turning solid behind it – maybe slowing them down. Some of these works are more like sculpture than paintings in terms of how I’m thinking of them, and the way they strike the eye, and the way I’m executing them. I’m working into the tar, kind of wiping parts of it off – covering the image, unburying it, revealing it, discovering it by touch.

Obviously, over the years, you can’t be doing the same thing forever…what have the changes been for you? 
For a long time, it was spray paint on canvas…from 1984 through probably 1991 or 1992. Then it was a gradual transition to more and more tar. At that point, I was being influenced by my ex-wife’s work, which was ceramic work – high fire stuff, very bold, very dark, very figurative, ancient seeming. It was something we had in common – this desire to evoke the past, the power of it, and the powers latent in the human mind, and sexuality…but more in terms of relationships. A lot of it’s about having kids. A lot is about having lovers, just being alone in the world and seeking to be reunited with some primal state of cohesion…looking for things which evoke that.
The imagery has evolved too. For a long period of time it had to do with two heads coming together, sometimes two bodies. The moment of touch was always featured as a central motif with the paintings.

Then, after the tar, I gave up on the spray paint – apparently for breathing reasons! And I started using black pastel, which can also give a somewhat photographic effect as it hits the canvas. So that is also going on in almost all the paintings from 1985 on, is this idea that there is some reference to photography. In our times, photographs seem to be the gold standard for what reality is. So, referring to them seemed to work, in terms of the very painterly orientation that I had.

What I’m doing now, for the last 5, 6 or 7 years, is pour paint on canvas, let it dry, and draw in relation to that. Sort of using [the ground] as something that’s either attached to the figure or interacting with the figure…it’s still mostly figurative work.

Woman with mask | 16” x 20” 2008 | mixed paint media on canvas

How about Cleveland art, you see a lot of art, any trends or changes, that you’ve noticed? 
I think I see more genuinely contemporary art here, than things that are hooked up with art everywhere else. I think that’s happening in a lot of different cities. There’s just an increasing level of sophistication as well as several really strong artists that have elected to stay here…like Amy Casey, who only began to be recognized here after her show in Chicago. It kind of illustrates that you can’t have that much of a career in the space of Cleveland without getting out of it. I think as people increasingly recognize that, yet still want to stay here – that changes things. Cleveland feels like part of a circuit, especially with smaller works on paper, there’s a lot of exchange, a lot of travel.

And getting back to your art, anything else that you’d like to add? 
Painting for me, is all about presence. The reason you do a painting instead of doing something with a digital program for instance, is to have this magic happen. It’s not that it’s shamanism or alchemy or anything, but those are good things to compare it to.

The kind of paintings that I’m most interested in, are the ones that talk about and recognize the mystery of being in the world…being able to find yourself in other things. There’s really a moment where you learn things about the stuff that you’re working with, and how to do it, that you could never have imagined. And that surprises me, in that – things that you would not have expected sometimes speak back to you. And there’s no thrill like it, if you’ve experienced it.

Yeah, there’s a surrealness involved…
Absolutely, whatever that is…when the unconscious begins to become manifest – and the unconscious is everything that we’re not. It’s the other, of which we’re always looking for and always afraid to find.

Marat | 20” x 16” 2008 | mixed paint media and black pastel on canvas

Dont ever give up your scoops!! | 18” x 24”
Mixed Paint Media and Black Pastel on Canvas

The most curious aspect of Steve Ehret’s work is the storylines going on in the background. There’s this whole strange other world of pissed-off monsters and worker eggs that he’s created. And from the sound of things, this world will keep growing and evolving on its own terms – the rules and actions changing in response to the personalities, dictated by the characters themselves…doubt he really has any idea where it will lead. It’s a great example of art gaining a life of its own and taking the artist along for the ride.

Steve’s a self-taught artist, his style can be summed up as graffiti influenced, cartoony, and off the freaking wall…he uses a lot of different materials for these – ink, watercolor, acrylic, spray paint, coffee…whatever’s available (Blood? Pizza sauce? Fire?). He’s not afraid to get weird.

I was first introduced to his art at an opening (which also featured the work of Ron Copeland and Webs) over at Low Life Gallery in Cleveland this past Spring. Which, he’s been pretty busy showing around, even exhibiting at 111 Minna in San Francisco…and his art was also recently featured by a pretty cool (and large) new online magazine from the U.K. – L.S.D. (London Street-Art Design).

Steve will be part of the upcoming “Stark Naked Salon” exhibition at the Massillon Museum, which opens on August 22nd. It’s nice to see a museum supporting their local, emerging talent for a change, as the show will be displaying the work of quite a few innovative artists from the Stark County area. More of Steve’s art is online at lbstrclws.com or myspace.com/mnstrrrrr.

Spooked | 30” x 24” | Oil on canvas

ARE THE OILS NEW, OR HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THEM FOR A WHILE?
No, actually I just started. I took a lot of time to really figure things out. I’ve been doing acrylics for about 4 years now. I don’t know why, but right after I started doing acrylics, I started getting shows, so then I never had time to pause and learn oil. I had a show every couple of months, so I couldn’t stop, I needed to produce, so I just kept doing acrylic. It was good, because I learned a ton. But then I had a little break to learn oil when I came back from San Francisco in April.

YOU HAD A SHOW OUT THERE RIGHT?
Yeah, it was a group show at this gallery called 111 Minna.

Ohio’s Burning | 24″ x 18″ |
Ink, Watercolor, Acrylic, Coffee, Marker, Spray Paint, Bugs & Grass on Paper

OH, THAT’S A GREAT PLACE, I USED TO GO THERE ALL THE TIME…HAVE YOU EVER COME ACROSS SOME ATTITUDE FROM GALLERIES BECAUSE YOU’RE FROM MASSILLON, OHIO?
Not to my face. But I’ve had people say – “we love your art, we’ll put you in a group show”…and then they’re like – “where are you from?”…and I’ll say – “Ohio”…then never hear from them again. That’s happened a couple times.

HAVE YOU GONE TO ART SCHOOL OR ARE YOU SELF-TAUGHT?
As far as canvas work, I’m completely self-taught. I took my first “Drawing 1” class this semester at a local community college. Other than that, I’ve really never been taught anything. I just kind of go with it.

Catch and Feast | 16” x 11”
Coffee, Ink, Paint Marker on Watercolor Paper

THAT’S USUALLY HOW A UNIQUE STYLE DEVELOPS…
I think it’s the best way to do things. It’s hard work. It takes a lot longer to learn things. It probably helps that I’m super hard on myself. Every painting I get done, a day later I’m like – “eh, I don’t know how I feel about you anymore”…I could have done this better, I could have done that…but that’s how you get better. You can have confidence in your work, but if you think that your stuff is the best that anyone’s seen, then you’re not going to really progress as fast as you can.

WHAT ABOUT CHARACTERS…DO YOU HAVE A REVOLVING CAST OF CHARACTERS THAT YOU BRING IN AND OUT?
Kind of. I get in weird modes with characters. I have A.D.D. with them…I get bored and never quite do them the same.

A discovery of sorts | 18” x 24” | Oil on panel

THE EGG GUY SEEMS TO GET AROUND THOUGH…
He’s part of the paintings. I just like throwing eggs in, because I started a whole storyline about 2 or 3 years ago. The eggs aren’t really the main focus of the painting…this may sound kind of weird, but I wanted them to be just in the painting doing things. Like for some paintings I’ve had them building fences, they’re almost like workers for me. They do random stuff. Sometimes they’re just hanging out. Other times they’re doing something horrible. I have control over what they do…so they’re going to help me out, they’re going to build this thing…and it kind of gives it a little atmosphere.
And then there’s the balloons. I started thinking…once an egg has three balloons, it’s free to do whatever it wants. It can leave, or it can hang out, do whatever it wants…but until it gets the three balloons, it has to stick around and do work – and if it’s lazy then it won’t get any balloons. I hope to keep running with it and then eventually do rotting eggs – those are the bad ones that steal stuff…and keep building on it so by the time I’m 50, there will be some crazy shit going on. It’ll be like a whole long story, and when I die and people see it all…they’ll be like – “I never knew”.

Slipping | 15” x 11”
Watercolor, Ink, Fire, Smoke and Wax on Watercolor Paper

WHAT ABOUT THE SQUID MONSTER?
I did a couple here and there. But then this year, has been the year of the squid. I don’t know why, it’s not even like that’s what I want to do exactly. But then I’ll get an email from like Bob Peck or someone, and they’ll be like – “We got this huge wall, and we want you to do a character that’s massive and can take up a bunch of space”. And I’m thinking – “well, what else can I do that will really wrap things together other than a squid of some sort”.

Kill em all, ask questions never | 15” x 11”
Acyrlic, Watercolor, Ink, Coffee on Paper

Once in awhile Cleveland actually picks up a creative talent instead of losing one. With Terry Ryan’s recent move from the San Francisco Bay Area to Cleveland’s Westside, another eccentric oddity has been added to the sound and visual landscape here. The move makes sense to me – Mr. California is definitely one of the least politically correct acts out there…and most of the incredibly sensitive Bay Area scenesters never got it (he has some pretty funny stories regarding various crowds’ misunderstandings, especially with another band he fronts – The Vagina Boys).

And it’s not like he’s spreading hate or anything even close – it’s quite the opposite, Mr. California’s all about fun, problem is…our society is constantly moving toward safety, whether it’s softening ideas and comments or outlawing anything which may harm ourselves. Most Clevelanders have pretty thick skin though, so his lyrics shouldn’t offend too many people.

His one man band, Mr. California (and the State Police – his sampling/beat station) has released a ton of music over the last 9 years. From 7-inchers to LP’s and many compilations and splits in between – he packs his releases with as many songs as possible (most of them run around a minute and contain a few quick verse – chorus changes over a noise-laced, jagged guitar chord progression). His live show is out of control as well – a spastic (and funny…like ha ha) dance of rock’n’roll confusion, not to be missed and hard to be ignored…especially with that cute little butterfly guitar of his.

I sat down with Terry over a couple beers at Now That’s Class, which is probably one of the main reasons he’s moved to Cleveland…Paul really has a great thing going on over there these days, booking a good mixture of quality shows and all around stupid fun-fests (hot tubs, dunk tanks, skate ramps, dodge ball and other ridiculous nonsense). We’ve also included some of Terry’s artwork here as well. It’s a pretty good reflection of his style – a jam-packed collage of rock’n’roll badness!

You can join the legions of Mr. California fans (over 62,000) at: myspace.com/mrcalifornia

What inspired the move to Cleveland?
I bought my round trip ticket to come out here and play the [Romantic Getaway] fest…to do about 10 days out here, visit Alessandro [of the Grabbies and Flyin’ Trichecos] and just kind of hang out. Then my roommate told me that he was moving out of our apartment in Alameda, so I decided to just cancel my return ticket, go to Cleveland and stay – because Alessandro and Paula both have been like – “just come and stay”…and I had a lot of fun the last time I came out here – on a tour that went kind of sour. Things just weren’t going well because there was a lot of snow and stuff…it was January of 2008. But then I ended up playing the bar [Now That’s Class] for like 10 days, or 7 days or something…and I had a fucking blast when I was out here, and I always remembered that. And then – I get phone calls from Alessandro saying; “this band is playing or that band played, you should fucking be here”…and I was like – “yeah I should, I really should”.

That’s one thing about Cleveland versus San Francisco…you get a better dose of new music, there’s always some small band from the East Coast or Midwest playing, a lot of the tours never make it out to California…
One of the other really big attractions…with this bar specifically, or the show you have coming up…is that there’s this thing that’s not happening in Northern California – where everybody wants to have a metal show, or a punk show, or another kind of genre show. I don’t know how to get it across to those people who just want to hear black metal all night, but – you know, like the last fest [Champagne of Fests]. Saturday’s show ended with a black metal band, but there were no black metal bands all day long – that was great! So that variety to me is a huge attraction, I can’t get that in San Francisco.

Well I think that’s where the world is now – it’s post genre…
Absolutely, even with bands that I might consider shitty, that I don’t necessarily go for what they’re doing, at this point in the game, there’s this part where I go – “I don’t like this, I don’t like what they’re doing, they’ve pulled all these certain elements”…and you’re going – “this hybrid is fucking weird”. But they’re at least trying something new, I can hear that they’re at least trying to toss a curveball, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but for me, at least they’re trying to do something a little different.

How long has the Mr. California thing been going?
I’ve been at it for awhile. Mr. California has been around for a little over 9 years now…

Yeah, a one man attack with a butterfly guitar, right?
Well, the butterfly guitar is a recent acquisition. I’ve only had that for a little over a year now.

And comedy is a large part of your act, at least as far as the lyrical content…
I don’t know how on purpose that is. I think it has a lot to do with my viewpoint, and where my influences stem from. When I was growing up in the greater Los Angeles area, on Sunday night from 6 to 10 on KNET, which no longer exists, was the live Dr. Demento Show…he was a DJ who had a syndicated show, which would run for like an hour all across the United States, but at KNET he had 4 fucking hours of just playing novelty songs. I listened to it religiously every Sunday. And then, on top of that, on KROQ from like 8 to midnight at that time was the Rodney Bingenheimer Show, in which like the first 2 hours was the psychedelic stuff, which is like – anyone can kind of find that…well maybe, maybe not at that time period – now you can find anything on the internet. But the last 2 hours was all hardcore…so it was a combination of Sunday night being the best night of the week for me, and listening to that stuff over and over again helped me put my stuff together. Humor, yeah…humor has a lot to do with it. I’m a huge Frank Zappa fan. But I don’t know if he would like where I’m coming from…he didn’t really like punk rock all that much.

I was checking out your myspace page and saw you had Sockeye on your friend list…
I love Sockeye…actually the 7-inch with Joe, from Shoot It Up, playing guitar on it – I think it’s called Mr. California and Joe O’Phetamine wish you would die in a virus 7-inch, which Charles is putting out from My Mind’s Eye. The artwork for that is done by Food, that’s Dave from Sockeye, so he did the front and back covers for that…which was really awesome because then I was able to do some trades with him and getting a bunch of old Sockeye material on CD-R.

Right on…how about the live show, how’s that translate from the recordings?
I think that there’s a big difference between the audio versions of my stuff and the live show. They’re two different things…I really can’t play guitar very well, so jumping around a lot and acting like a fool is helpful for the live show, and then doing 38 takes at home on a 4-track is the other version of getting it to sound right for me.

How about other stuff, you do a little art on the side as well, right?
Yeah, I’ve always doodled in notebooks and stuff, but not really anything to where I got canvas or paper and really sat down. Then I found that I had some time when I was on unemployment to mess with that kind of stuff…the creative process is kind of weird for me, sometimes I’m just – music, music, music and that’s all I do, and then sometimes I just want to draw and paint. I have two really nice books full of acrylic stuff, and that’s actually where it started. I would just lay down the acrylic and let it dry – I’d fill the whole thing up, and then take a paint pen and just doodle in my spare time. After I had like a book and a half of that done, then I would go through and look at some of the stuff I did, and start doing those 12 by 12’s…I could draw from what I liked and be like – “oh, I like how that looks, I’ll incorporate that into this and start building from there”.

Like it or not, graffiti based street art is the wave/genre/school of art that will be remembered, written about and studied by future generations regarding our current point in art history. Artists like Shepard Fairey (formerly of OBEY Andre the Giant stencil fame…and now – the “hope” Obama poster) have knocked down the art gallery doors previously closed to graffiti artists and busted them wide open for the masses. And it’s really a double-edged sword…an art form that is anti-establishment by nature, but at the same time – commercially viable because of its graphic roots, colorful impact and simple design…guess it’s always just a matter of time before the establishment jumps on the latest “fresh” streetwise movement and waters it down to crap.

However, Cleveland has yet to jump on the bandwagon. Most the folks out there writing graffiti do it for all the right reasons (fun, expression, and props), but outside of a few smaller galleries (Artchitecture, Lowlife, Doubting Thomas and Pop Shop) they have no stepping stones to actually take their art to the next level – financial support.

So…here’s a top-notch, local graffiti-learned artist for yous – Mike Gezze (we’ve included some quotes for further entertainment). He’s not burning down the gallery walls yet, but his work is first rate – enjoy! And if you’d like to contact him or see more, try heading to myspace.com/gezze.

“I went to Columbus college of art and design for 1 year – I pretty much failed out, hated it – I don’t like to paint neatly and they wanted me to be precise. I’m more about surface and texture. My work is always dirty. My canvases are usually trashed, and that’s the way I like them…on old canvases over old paintings, or on street signs.”

“I usually use house paints…latex, it’s cheaper.”

“I’ve slowed down on the graffiti since being arrested for writing in Portland, but I’m doing a lot of legal walls in Cleveland. I like transferring my characters from the canvas to large scale on walls.”

“Graffiti is more of an addiction than anything – you can’t help it. I wanted to stop, but after a good night of drinking and spraying on stuff…seeing it the next day feels great. It almost has a celebrity quality to it, kids come up to you and ask for your signature. It’s a good feeling.”

Multiple faces
Double eyes
Squished-in faces
Dirty

“People get too deep into their own paintings, I start with an eyeball and go from there.”

Texture
Puffy paint
Zappa on a bike

“In Oakland, the kids go crazy over putting tinfoil in the spokes of their bikes, they call them scraper bikes and write rap songs about them. It’s a craze.”

“The Saddam sun…I’ll never have an explanation.”

“I want to sound more bitter with the art world. It’s a funny world full of little girl drama.”

“My friend just got arrested last week. We all had to jump over this barbed wire fence…I slashed my hand open and was bleeding everywhere. The rest of us got away. I lost both of my shoes in the mud. I was running down the street barefoot wasted on tequila at three in the morning. Then we saw this ambulance, and thought it was for our friend, but it was for the RTA cop, he needed oxygen…they eat at Applebees, they can’t run.”

“I like doing paintings of ugly people that are happy.”

Scott Pickering is an artistic maniac. A lightning rod of creative energy – the canvas doesn’t stand a chance! It’s like Little Red Riding Hood walking through the forest…I can picture him leering at that nice little white canvas, thinking of all the ways he can eat her up. And you can see the slaughter as it happened – the process is left out in the open. It’s a weirdo manic color orgy unleashed by the inner child of a mature talent.

Identifiably individual! A Blasphanomaly of beauty! Multi-layered and musical! Like a jazz solo, only not as cliché as the simile itself. And music is the driving force behind his work, inseparable by his account – “I can’t do music without the art or art without the music”. Which, he’s also one of the hardest working musicians in the city (I once saw him sit in on drums with 3 different bands at 3 different venues – in ONE night) and plays in some of the most original bands in Cleveland, many of them following the same improvisational form that is found in his art.

A common image that recurs in his work – a dog-faced, rainbow-coated stick figure with a big-eyed smile – evokes the innocent dreams of a child…a release from the pressures of life, escapist, therapeutic, and fun. But despite the crude panache of his work, he actually places a lot of forethought into these compositions and has developed his style from many years of training.

He grew up in a family which supported him in the arts from a young age, studied art at Kent State University and much like Picasso himself, turned away from painstaking traditional renderings and began to re-imagine detailed forms back into their primitive natures…loud, savage, out of control, caveman stomps!

We had a blast hanging out with Scott at his pad in Slavic Village – it’s like Pee Wee’s playhouse, only for grown-ups…different music/sounds playing in each room, the walls ravaged with art, tricked-out to creative extremes – we didn’t leave until seven hours later…and a few excerpts from our conversations are included in the following pages. Also, the coverage here is just of the artistic sort – “Pick” does a ton of other things as well…owns a few creative companies, teaches, puts out records, plays music…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

If you’d like to contact Scott or see more art, you can find him online at: myspace.com/revpickering

“I was a very tight renderer in the past…very classically trained. But it wasn’t fun for me. It was like washing dishes – I wasn’t getting anything out of it. It never looked perfect, and I wasn’t going to beat myself up over my inability to make it perfect. So I was like – hell with it, I’m going to do something that I get a chuckle out of later on, and maybe get different views of. I didn’t want to be reminded of the things I didn’t get quite right. I want to see the stuff that’s like – wow, how’d I do that? And it made me feel better. It allowed me to embrace my work more and also my music, where I could be more improvisational and open-minded. So I came from one extreme to the other.”

“Anyone can make a drawing that looks like a kid drawing. They can! Really!
People are like – “my kid can do that”, but putting something else into it makes the difference.”

“I get pleasure from leaving the process on the canvas. The creation of it is almost better than the result. I always try to condense it so that it’s a little bit more intense. It doesn’t get interesting until you’re under the gun. I know it sounds like a bullshit procrastinator answer. That’s not to say you haven’t been thinking about it and working it through your mind. You can do a lot of painting in your brain without ever touching the canvas…working it through your brain while you’re trying to sleep…and when you finally get to getting it down, you’re
already prepared.”

A (Parital) List of Scott Pickering’s Bands:
Maximus Warp Deaf White Kitty Juice Tokays Ragged Bags Terrible Parade Spike in Vein Prisonshake My Dad is Dead Sleazy Jesus Smoking Baloneys Gem Supie T and the Getdown Airwaves Speaker / Cranker Burning Lesbians Terminal Lovers Rainy Day Saints CHUMP Flat Can Company Scarcity of Tanks Pufftube Clouds Forming Crowns Mohammed Cartoon Ear Control / Black Wolf Puffy Areolas

(Johnny Wu on set)

Independent filmmaking is a tough business. The deck is always stacked against you…limited budgets, lack of star power, few options for distribution and there’s always somebody else out there with a better connection and a more commercially viable film on
their hands.

Despite the odds against success, local film director Johnny Wu has fared pretty well with his past efforts, and began carving out a niche for himself with his previous film, The Rapture, which obtained video distribution in Japan and Thailand as well as many showings at film festivals across the country.

During our conversation, Mr. Wu stressed the idea of challenging himself with every new film, he seems to really enjoy pushing his limits and learning on the fly…and that’s really the only way a director can make progress. It’s good that he’s up to the challenge, because after all – making a film is truly one of the hardest occupations out there. Thousands of things can go wrong in a single shoot (and hundreds usually do)…it takes passion, drive and patience to walk the tightrope between chaos and brilliance in order to see a film to completion…and a little old fashioned work ethic also helps (The Rapture was shot in 11 days using 2 crews – an insanely short period of time for a feature film).

With his cohorts at MDI films, Johnny’s been able to mix a healthy dose of live action effects (kung-fu wire work, bloody zombie gore) and post-production computer effects to create some very intricate visual displays considering the size of his budgets. Mix in a healthy dose of parody and you have a Johnny Wu film – entertaining, fun…and also a bit of a curiosity due to his stylistic use of visuals and editing.

I had the chance to sit down with Johnny at his house on the West Side to talk about his latest film, Jean Claude the Gumming Zombie (showing at this year’s Ingenuity Fest)…he’s a busy man – one of the founding members of Cleveland’s Indieclub, a local network of independent filmmakers who meet up every month to show their films, get feedback, listen to guest speakers and chat over drinks…and he’s also the president of the Organization of Chinese Americans of Greater Cleveland.

Zombies – are there any reasons why you chose that genre?
My friends Jim and Carl were over at my place drinking lychee wine, which is a Chinese wine. We were getting drunk and they brought up the idea of – what happens to a zombie without any teeth? So that’s when the whole idea came about and I told them “if you write a script and I like it – then I’ll shoot it”.

Originally, the script was almost 60 minutes long. We felt like it was either too long, or not long enough…you either have to go for a full feature length film or for a short. In the end we opted to go for the short film – it’s much easier.

Cool…and it’s kind of a zombie satire right?
It is a Zombie satire. It’s a comedy that pokes fun at lots of things we already know about…mostly making fun of the former administration.

Hell yeah, I caught that – and also the all American family with kitschy, close-minded views…
Yeah, mostly it’s just about the 1950’s styled family who actually lives in our current times, but is somehow still stuck in the past. It’s a bit similar to Fido, which is another zombie comedy. When we were finalizing the script, we read that it was coming out, so we ran out and watched it, and luckily it wasn’t really the same.

(Tom Luhtala – Pink Eye’s favorite Gore Artist – checks out his life cast.)

Oh, that’s tough when someone beats you to an original idea…It’s no longer original, but it actually is. When did you finish it up?
It took two years to finish. We decided to shoot during the weekends, when everyone would be available. We ran into some troubles and wound up having to ADR everything [replacing the voices in post-production].

Yeah, I could tell by the quality of the voices. But you did a great job syncing it up.
It’s tough, but we managed to do it. We had a lot of video issues, where syncing became a problem, but we took advantage of the issues we had and turned them into something much more interesting. It was shot on both SD and HD cameras, which was a problem at first, until we blended them within a frame, and decided to do it consistently throughout the film…and used a lot of color correcting to makes things even more interesting.

Yeah, creative problem solving, that’s probably one of the most important qualities in a film director…any other tips on directing films?
We spend a lot of time preparing the actors for their roles so that they can really get into character, in this case, lots of background stories for them to work with. For Jean Claude the Gumming Zombie we wanted theatre actors, because we wanted it to look like a staged performance…more exaggerated, most stage actors use large exaggerated motions so as to be able to project to the audience. The family is very 1950’s, so we wanted this exaggeration…and Jean Claude is a Frenchman, so he was already over the top!

(Good clean family fun.)

Did you shoot primarily in a studio environment?
We shot mostly in Creative House Studios, in downtown Cleveland, where we shot all the green-screen and also created the dining room, kitchen and living room sets there as well. A couple other scenes were shot on location at a house and in a basement as well.

How about filmmaking in Cleveland…we hear a lot about the need for tax incentives in order to bring in production companies, does that also affect local filmmakers?
It depends on how you look at it. Obviously, having a tax incentive will help bring other films to Cleveland and create more opportunities for people here. However, independent filmmakers that are already established here don’t really have to worry about the tax incentive, because they’ll still do what they do. In the long term, though – it should help create some opportunity for filmmakers like myself as well…not necessarily in the short-term, but filmmakers here need to keep making noise, the movie making noise and move forward regardless.

 By Butch Fredrick Collins

Terri Gerrard. This is a name that conjures up so many images. There are many artists in this town of great talent, and it’s sad to see some of them going. We haven’t seen Terri in three years and most “art-people” didn’t even notice. Sure, in a few dark corners of the art world there were a few tears shed, a subtle rumble in bar whispers. The few who did notice are happy to have her back though. Many of you don’t know who Terri Garrard is, and most of us probably never will. So who is Terri? Simply put, Terri is a Cleveland artist. Not a native, but a Clevelander none the less.

She was driven up to Cleveland by her friend Jordan, from Alabama, where she has lived with her parents on their farm. The nearest house is at least two miles away and the nearest mall – seven. She has lived there for the past three years now. Her friend Jordan tells me that she doesn’t know anybody out there – “not a soul”, as he put it.

“The Triumphant Return of Terri Garrard”, a show that opened at Doubting Thomas Gallery on April 10 of this year, is one of “more than a few” that she’s had there over the past ten odd years…she has shown with countless artists in Cleveland.  Many of the pieces sold – people took them right off of the gallery walls on opening night. Many didn’t even have price tags, and I was told before the show that Terri was asking people to help her name her paintings.

Now, I could go into her paintings – try to deconstruct them, examine all the visual elements and technique and formal elements and the latter…but I don’t think this will get us any closer to what Terri is trying to say as an artist. However, I will tell you this – all the elements are there if you look for them. Rumors tell me that Terri is still here, but for how long? And will Cleveland notice when she goes? 

I walk out on the back porch into a yard with three mutt dogs, four hens and three cocks dancing around the back yard cooing and pecking at the ground.  There was a big fat white one, and another that was tiny and dark black and seemed to follow the fat white one around like a shadow. Terri (with wine stains on the corners of her mouth) talks about how she’d asked D, the owner of the house, if that was a chicken?

“Have you ever seen a chicken that looks like that?! I think the thing is scary,” says Terri. 

I am guessing that these chickens are Gertrude and ZaZa.  I only know this because at Terri’s opening there were eggs of different sizes, pink, sitting in a bowl labeled “laid with love by Gertrude (Small Eggs) & ZaZA (Big Eggs)”. In spite of the surroundings, and after trying to track down Terri for three days to get this interview, we went right into it.

What does you art mean to you and how does it speak for you?

Well, at this show in particular, I felt a little threatened and forced because I’m stuck in the country [Alabama]. I basically wanted to see my friends. I do love art. No, the reason I paint in the first place – I’m assuming because I don’t even know my own mind…is because I like to. 

What is your fascination with animals?

I’m really not fascinated with chickens – my favorite animal is a dog. I used to like monkeys until I found out that they eat their own shit, and they uh…eat each other. But I love dogs and I like cats to some extent because they find their own food.

When did you move to Cleveland? Or when did you first come here?

Okay, well I left my parents. I moved out while I was in high school, when I was in tenth grade. My parents moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee from Savannah, Georgia and I moved out. I saw an ad in the paper and moved in with a woman.

This might be a silly question, but what is Cleveland Art to you?

People in Cleveland paint what they feel. Cleveland isn’t a small New York in my opinion. There’s a lot of heart and soul here and it’s better than New York. That’s what I think! Here, people paint and talk and they love and they feel what they feel.

What do you have to say to young potential Cleveland Artists?

I’d say do what you want because you got nothin’ to loose and this is the city you got. 

What are your goals as an artist?

I don’t really have any goals as an artist, and I’m not sure what my goals as a human being are. 

Roughly how many exhibitions do you think you’ve had?

You’re asking the wrong person. I don’t know…more than a few. 

This is a Cleveland magazine, so do you have anything to add, any closing statements? 

Okay, if it’s recording…I love Cleveland. And that’s what I told Jordan, my friend who came here with me.  He even said it himself – “There’s more heart and soul in this city than you can pull out of a chicken’s ass!

I think that’s a good place to end it.

No don’t put that in there!

“The Ohio Landscape paintings can best be dubbed ‘doubtful landscapes’. They are about our loss of regional cultural identity. Development Opportunities abound on bare and quietly peaceful land. Splendid architecture left to rain rot. The lack of grocery stores or general stores other than Wal-Mart. The Mom and Pop restaurants and businesses banding together in small neighborhoods are the only places left with a true sense of community. In the end, I don’t think it’s a matter of reclaiming our cultural past, but instead creating something new, independent of the crutch of convenience, while revering the ingenuity and aesthetics of the past.”

- Joshua Rex