Gary Baseman Interview

My favorite quote out of the whole thing is “True plagiarism is the moral equivalent of rape.”

“No single person has done more to help define, progress and legitimize the current movement towards accessible art than Gary Baseman. He has left his mark upon an amazing variety of mediums, from the Emmy Award winning Teacher’s Pet animated series and subsequent feature film to commercial illustration for corporate heavies like Nike, Chili’s and Mercedes-Benz. His “Dumb Luckâ€? designer vinyl toy (produced by Critterbox) has taken the collectible market by storm, selling out left and right, leading to several other toy concepts in development. Amidst all that, he’s still made time for internationally staged solo and group gallery shows, contributed illustration work to Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and Time magazines and compiled and released a 350+ page book showcasing his work. He also coined the term “Pervasive Artâ€? and has remained on the cutting edge of this movement, helping to foster it’s growth and contextualize it within the contemporary art world.”

Link

Amy Crehore Interview @ The Drama

“What was your earliest artistic influence?

My grandmother in Philadelphia had piles of the latest comic books and all of the classic children’s books. We used to sit on her porch swing and read about “Archie� and “Little Lulu�, “Madeline�, “Pippi Longstocking� and “Nancy Drew�. I loved “MAD� magazine and I even started my own humor magazine with a little printing press and distributed it around the neighborhood.

My other grandmother, an interior designer, lived in NYC. She used to tell me colorful stories of Italy in the Roaring ‘20s. I would visit her in Greenwich Village and stay in a high rise apartment. I remember watching people in the next building through the windows just like in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, “Rear Window�. But, I think my biggest turn on was going to the Museum of Modern Art and seeing a 1926 Max Ernst’s painted construction called, “Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale� and the melting clocks by Salvador Dali. We also took in Broadway shows like “Man of La Mancha� and I had a Picasso poster from that show hanging in my room. It was easy to take the train into NYC from New Jersey where we lived, so I hung out a lot in the city during my high school years.

When I got to college (Virginia Commonwealth University), the art world really opened up for me. A trip to the Barnes Foundation was truly an eye opener as well as my classes in film, animation and photography (especially photographers like Emmet Gowin). I was inspired by the books of Henry Miller and old picture books such as “Slovenly Peter� by Heinrich Hoffman.

I only began painting seriously on my own more or less right after college and I consider myself to be self-taught.”

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Visiting Stefan Sagmeister

Pingmag is a Tokyo based magazine about “design & making things.” They have an interview with Sagmeister that’s worth reading.

“Stefan Sagmeister’s work surprises, touches, provokes, makes you laugh and makes you think. The Austrian Graphic Designer published the book “Made you look” in 2001 containing all of his work up to that point, took a year off client work and toured the world talking about Graphic Design and the importance of content over style. Time has passed and PingMag was just too curious to wait until he comes to Japan next! I visited him at his studio in New York to talk about his more recent projects.”

Link