REDEFINE magazine's Arts Tumblr

<strong>Compare & Contrast</strong>: Mao Zedong, Then And Now

OLD _ a paper-cut propaganda poster discovered by the University of Michigan’s Center for Chinese Studies. SEE MORE IN HI-RES

NEW _ Mao Money 8 by David Foox. SEE LARGER IMAGE

David Foox

David Foox might envision a future where economic differences between the United States and China might be settled by an international currency. About Mao Money 8 and Mao’s influence, he states: “It is clear to me that Chairman Mao was a truly iconic leader and his image is a larger than life representation of forces and factors that have helped shape the modern era. My artwork titled “Mao Money 8” was a re-visualization of future US Currency and as part of that notion, I included both the concept of a world currency and a US currency backed by Chairman Mao. It is a commentary on the ever changing notion of money - and who knows we may all see the day where there is an international currency based entirely in the digital world.” You can learn about the full symbolism behind the piece HERE.

—-

OLD _ Portrait of Portrait of Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Gate

NEW

Marko

Marko Koeppe is one artist who became interested in Mao Zedong after seeing Warhol’s Mao.

As a German artist, Koeppe holds strong opinions about borders and walls; he hopes that his art, including his incorporation of Mao’s image, can transcend those boundaries.

“The [Berlin] Wall is standing (for me) as a border, not to think outside your world view. To be limited [by] your horizon… is something that is all the same with dictators and similar systems. If you wanna go deeper, it’s the same with all human beings here,” Koeppe says. “Everyone has got his own horizon, and most of us do not want to be disturbed [by outside influences]… I’m making pictures for the ones that want to be disturbed, that want to extend their horizon. Everything develops in the eyes of the viewer - (so open your mind).”

—-

OLD

NEW _ Representation of an Idea to the Outside by Ever

Ever

Argentinian street artist Ever works a great amount with Mao’s image and has thought quite deeply and extensively about the subject. At the very heart of his work is his desire to talk about what he calls the “human contradiction.”

“In a capitalist society, the volume of information available to us affords us an incredible degree of choice in what we want to consume. However, when faced with the sheer number of options, we often end up overwhelmed and unsure about our own objectives. So, though happy to buy into the appealing illusion of freedom offered by capitalism, we ironically find ourselves frequently plagued with the paralysis of indecision and distracted from our own ideological desires with constant material craving[s]. To illustrate this contradiction we have only to consider the current youth generations in the western world. They find themselves at their peak and with the whole world within reach, but paradoxically they often feel stagnant and impotent, temporarily satiating themselves with a new iPod or car while battling disillusionment in a failing system which can no longer fulfill the promise of a bright future. Despite this dilemma, Western society defends its system with conviction when faced with other options, like that of Communism. China is a country long exposed to Communism while Western society [has] demonized it, but all are now involved in the same economic system. China gave up true Communism long ago and is now the creator of the majority of the products used in modern day capitalism to satisfy our most immediate and shallow needs.

Often when we defend our systems against those that we think threaten them, in reality we are only defending outdated ideologies which are no longer truly embodied by our current political systems. To reveal these contradictions, I have chosen to utilize the images of Chineses Posters for describe Mao Tse Tung and the Chinese culture. When I see [those] posters, you see [the] progress of an idea, but on the facts at this time, you see a bad ending.”

—-

OLD

NEW

David Szauder

When glitch artist David Szauder decided to explore how glitch art could be combined with iconic imagery, his mind went directly to Mao — an individual that, for him, provided “direct connection to pop art.” Perhaps it as the callback to Warhol that made this connection, but working with Mao has led Szauder one step further, to contemplate the relationship between pop art and glitch art. Nonetheless, despite the bright colors and fanfare, Szauder’s impressions of Mao are less than positive. “I am coming from an ex-Communist country. I have total bad feelings about Mao, because the blood [is] on his hand[s], but visually… I [see how] the idealistic images from that era [are] totally [controversial],” he says.

Read David Szauder’s complete statement

—-

OLD _ Urgently Forge Ahead and Bravely Advance with Great Leader Chairman Mao (Jin gen weida lingxiu Mao Zhuxi fenyong qianjin!), 1971

NEW _ Long Live Chairman Mao

Hongtu Zhang

On Long Live Chairman Mao and about his Mao-related series, Material Mao, Zhang bluntly says, “I believe in the power of the image, but I don’t believe in the authority of the image. If you stare at a red shape for a long time, when you turn away, your retina will hold the image but you will see a green version of the same shape. In the same way, when I lived in China, I saw the positive image of Mao so many times that my mind now holds a negative image of Mao. In my art I am transferring this psychological feeling to a physical object.”

In a sarcastic and joking tone, Zhang downplays the importance of his ethnic heritage by continuing, “Sometimes the hole in my work might remind you of the Nothingness of Taoism or the negative space of traditional Chinese ink painting, but the visual inspiration of my work comes directly from a bagel.”

In reality, though, China’s influence — and subsequently Mao’s influence — continue to have an impact upon his life. In a public talk, he was quoted with the following:

“Mao followed what Karl Marx said: “Religion is the opium of the people”. After he took power, all religions were banned in China. During the Cultural Revolution, anything that had any religious meaning, such as books, statues, portraits… were destroyed. As a result, Mao created a huge vacuum of belief, and at the same time, he used his power and all the propaganda tools including literature, art, music… to make himself a new religious icon.

It was a hot late summer day in 1966, when I went to a rally at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. Around a thousand students sat on the ground of a sports field. Suddenly, I heard someone yell: ” Beat, beat this counterrevolutionary, he dares to sit on our great leader Chairman Mao’s portrait!” That student was beat-up by at least 10 people, and blood was all over his body. In reality, he was only sitting on a newspaper. But Mao’s portrait was printed on every single newspaper, every single day.

It was a lesson that showed me how powerful and how terrifying an image can be when it becomes a religious icon.

Like everyone in my generation, at the beginning of the Culture Revolution, I had complete trust in Mao. Some writings in his Red Book were so romantic, so idealistic. But ironically, the CR and Mao himself made me change my mind. I saw people dividing into different groups, fighting and killing each other, but everyone including the killers and the victims declared they were on the side of Mao’s revolution. I felt that all of the young people, including myself were fooled and used by Mao.

After I left China and moved to the States in 1982, I tried to forget everything that happened in China by doing so called “pure art”. I hated any political content in art. But I just couldn’t erase Mao’s image from my mind.”

END.

Lovers Of Creativity, Please Join Us. SOPA Blackout.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR FULL SOPA-RELATED POST,
WITH DETAILS ON HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED.

Dear REDEFINE reader,

I am writing this letter with the sincere hopes of convincing anyone involved in or inspired by the music, film and arts industries to join REDEFINE in taking a united stand against two bills that, if passed, may greatly restrict creative freedom as we know it. The possibility of government-sanctioned censorship of the internet is very, very near.

On Tuesday, January 24th, 2012, Congress is set to vote on Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect-IP Act (PIPA), two extremely loosely-worded and broad bills that would give the United States government the power to deny user access to any websites they feel are violating piracy laws.

If they pass, SOPA and PIPA have potentially serious repercussions for smaller and independent music and arts publications, blogs, record labels, and distribution sites. They are backed by the major music and film industries, and if these bills pass, we will see the distribution of media controlled by companies that care only about profits and the preservation of their businesses in the digital age.

First, if you’re skeptical that these bills will affect you or I, you should also know that:

THESE BILLS HAVEN’T EVEN PASSED AND WE ARE ALREADY BEING AFFECTED.

One hip-hop site was seized for a year without warning, for posting content that they were given by the record labels to post. They were punished simply because RIAA assumed they were posting unauthorized content, although everything was fully authorized.

“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
– George Orwell, 1984

If SOPA and PIPA pass, we would be relying on the judgment of the government and major film and music corporations to determine who is actually violating piracy rules. And considering how personally disconnected from the arts all of those entities are, it would be the overwhelming influence of money, not of maintaining artistic integrity, that ultimately wins. Smaller publications without the financial or influential means of defending themselves could find themselves being unfairly punished.

A quote from German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler paints a vivid picture of how innovation and growth will be limited, should these bills pass:

“… an older alien Culture lies so massively over the land that a young culture born in this land, cannot get its breath and fails to achieve pure and specific expression-forms, but even to develop fully its own self-consciousness.”
– Oswald Spengler, The Decline Of The West

The internet that we know it — an unregulated one — blooms with brilliant ideas. With it has come developments more incredible and wide-reaching than we ever would have imagined, including new media distribution models which have given your average content creator and passionate human a fighting chance. Our favorite artists, musicians, and filmmakers have the internet to thank for this. But under PIPA and SOPA, the government will be employing tactics Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin considers to be akin to those employed by the governments of China and Iran, and the internet will be regulated in a way that effectively limits creative expansion.

To anyone who sincerely cares about artistic growth and integrity, I hope that you will join REDEFINE — and countless other sites — in 12 hours of Blackout on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 from 8:00am to 8:00pm, to help raise awareness about the issue. Send me a message with a link to your website if you plan to participate. Those without websites can help spread the word or find other ways to get involved via the links below.

Creation paves the way towards a better future. Let’s work together on supporting what we love.

Vivian Hua
Editor-in-Chief
huav@redefinemag.com

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR FULL SOPA-RELATED POST,
WITH DETAILS ON HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED.

Troy Gua! Fulcrum Gallery! Closing Reception! TONIGHT!

Head over to the Fulcrum Gallery in Tacoma tonight for the closing night of Monument, Troy Gua’s current amazing show exploring the effects of war on, well, the human body. There’s also an artist talk going on tonight, which should be interesting. Reception starts at 6:00pm, but though it’s the closing reception, closing night isn’t until March 13th! Be confused!

Gua says:

“This installation is my memorial to loss. I’m not a soldier I have never seen war. How do we reconcile this experience? How do we grieve loss?”

<strong>Bask In Your Thoughtcrimes Artist Interview</strong>

February 2008 Interview

“[I find my materials in] alleyways, roadsides, and other places you’d expect to see junk,” Bask explains. “It’s like being on a treasure hunt sometimes, looking for that perfect panel to paint on.”

When we last spoke to Bask over a year and a half ago, his work was largely motivated by political and social issues. They featured huge amounts of iconic commercial figures and symbols, for example, the Morton’s salt girl or dirty ol’ Linus from The Peanuts.

“When I first started incorporating brand icons into my work, I started to notice how people would react to certain paintings of mine,” Bask recalls. “I started to recognize the power of “the brand,” and their collective messages to consume, consume, consume.”

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW

One commercially-inspired piece piece that stood out at that time was one that was created using a sign from an old coffee shop in Miami. The piece was entitled Harvey’s Cafe, and featured half of the green Starbucks crest emerging out of the carcass of Harvey’s Cafe’s old hand-painted sign. Bold red letters above the Starbucks crest read, “COMING SOON,” and a small message is inscribed in ink, saying, “Another failed attempt to fit in.”

At that time, Bask didn’t think much about the closure of the coffee shop and was simply excited to have found an interesting new panel to paint on. But when he returned to Miami months later, he saw that a brand new Starbucks had opened in the location of the old Harvey’s, and it made a significant impact on him.

“We all have heard and seen examples of large corporate chains pushing out the little guy, but this case hit home with me, and I didn’t really know why,” explains Bask. “Maybe it was the change of guard switching out one humble little coffee shop for the bigger, better new one, or maybe it was the fact I actually had a piece of Harvey’s in my studio like an old fossil, [as] proof that it once stood.”

Although Bask does not seem any less politically or socially-aware now than he was before, his works have changed through the years — in context and in influence.

“As an artist, I’m influenced by the current state of affairs as a whole,” Bask says. “There are broad issues like the war in Iraq and our government’s constant missteps, but I’m also influenced greatly by personal issues. Over the years, my work has become less political in theme and more personally intimate in meaning. I’d rather my paintings inspire than preach.”

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW

But in some cases, sometimes a message is on the tip of Bask’s tongue, waiting to be heard by the world. We were lucky enough to have Bask custom-design the cover of this issue for us, and as a fan of all types of music, he was clearly inspired by injustices in the music industry when he created this piece. The art features a vintage-style man who looks like a stereotypical corporate fat cat. He is donning a suit and smiling cheekily while a cigar pokes out from through his teeth. On the man’s hand is a scraggly puppet he is controlling; the puppet wears an anarchy t-shirt and is waving flags that say “indi” on them. It’s a clear and forceful message.

“The piece is inspired by the state of affairs in the music industry,” Bask explains. “Words like “indie” and “punk” seem to be fading fast, and in their places, we get deluded [artists] owned by large record labels. I’m not saying [all musicians] on large labels are evil and bad, but in many cases, large labels use smaller, more underground labels in an attempt to legitimize themselves to audiences. They are basically buying street cred.”

As a full-time artist, Bask works at home, in his studio. He may not paint everyday, but art is on his mind daily. Like most artists, if he has a show coming up, he tends to go all out and dives in headfirst. On the topic of crunch time before a gallery showing, Bask says, “I’ll paint 20 hours a day for a week straight, then crash for a few days and repeat the process.”

Bask’s pieces frequently have a decayed look to them, and the amount of detail in every nook and cranny of his work is sometimes hard to keep up with. His pieces look like they’ve been weathered for years, and the paints crack, blister, and peel with personality. These effects, coupled with the use of bright colors and innovative thinking, help Bask’s work command attention in the streets as well as in the galleries.

It is sometimes difficult for artists to find venues that have their best interests in mind, but Bask believes that with enough perseverance and patience, any artist can find those galleries.

And as for the ones that might not look as kindly upon his work as he’d like, he has no qualms about them. To him, it seems simple. Artists need galleries to hang their work in. Sell yourself.

“It must be my graffiti, ego-driven personality,” he says, “but I make my work to be seen by as many people as possible. I chose to be a career artist, and there is no room to be shy.”

But there is a little room to be shy as an artist, particularly when it comes to being present at your own art shows. “[It] is very intimidating,” Bask says. “It’s like standing in a room naked while people come up and praise and/or critique everything about you.”

Bask has not found much difficulty in finding galleries in where to show his street- and graffiti-influenced work. As far as he can tell, street art is becoming more and more mainstream.

“From my experience, street art today is so in vogue that galleries are open to artists that present street elements in their work. Too much so, in my opinion,” Bask admits. “Street art is becoming so mainstream that the figurative pond is becoming muddied up. But like with everything else, time will sift out the true from the rest.”

END.

August 2006 Interview

You use a lot of commercial references in your work. Why? What does this have to do with growing up and noticing the similarities between communistic propaganda vs. commercial icons?
I use commercial images as metaphors or symbols of contradiction in scenarios playing out in my work. The other purpose they serve is as bait to viewers who identify with a particular icon being used. I use the power of familiarity and twist them to deliver a message of my own. As for the communist and commercial comparison? They both use very similar tactics using images to promote a way of life. In capitalism, you have choices, but each individual brand pushes their product the same way a totalitarian regime pushes propaganda.

When did you first find a correlation between communistic propaganda and commercial icons?
When I first started incorporating brand icons into my work, I started to notice how people would react to certain paintings of mine. That’s when I saw a very specific relationship between commercial images and regular folks. I started to recognize the power of “the brand,” and their collective messages to consume, consume, consume. In the Communist regime I grew up in, the message was different, but the way propaganda was relentlessly promoted through the media was very similar.

Do you consider yourself a political person?
I think “conscious” would be more accurate than political. A political person, to me, is someone active in anything from protesting to running for office. Although many of my paintings are political, most of my work deals with more personal and social issues.

What advice can you give artists who are trying to get their work out independently?
I’ve never taken a crash course in art promotions, and have kind of worked on intuition. The secret formula is to be consistently productive in all things involved with your art, and don’t be lazy. The other advice I would give is: make your own opportunities, instead of waiting for them to find you.

What was the first art piece you remember doing that people took notice of?
I think when I used to make little handmade holiday cards for my family as a child. The satisfaction I got after presenting my toiled mess to someone and making them smile was the best feeling ever.

Your works definitely use a lot of textures. Is the love for textures something you’ve always had? Did it emerge naturally from being a street artist first?
Doing street art definitely shaped my approach my art, which would include how textured my work is. Aside from how appealing textured surfaces are to me, what I really enjoy is the challenge of painting on them. It makes it look more like art to me, rather some manufactured promotion.

What is the message behind your street art, and what do you think of random graffiti that does not put forth a message?
The Bask In Your Thoughtcrimes campaign promotes free-thinking and the separation from the status quo. The word “thoughtcrime,” as you may well know, was first coined by George Orwell in the book 1984. I found this word very fitting and appropriate to the message I was trying to put forth. As for other graffiti, I love it. I love all forms of street art, be it a commissioned mural or a tag on a dumpster. The art is the message when it comes to street art and graffiti, and to me, there is no higher art then it.

Can you pick one of your pieces and explain it?
I made [“Harvey’s Cafe”] from a panel I took from a coffee shop that went under in Miami. I don’t live in Miami, so I never had a chance to visit this place. Now, I’ll never get the chance. From what I could gather, though, it was as mom and pop as you can get, and had been there for years before closing. At the time, I didn’t give it any further thought beyond [the fact that] I just found a great panel to paint on. A few months later, I returned to Miami and saw that a brand new Starbucks had opened in the old Harvey’s location. We all have heard and seen examples of large corporate chains pushing out the little guy, but this case hit home with me, and I didn’t really know why. Maybe it was the change of guard switching out one humble little coffee shop for the bigger, better new one, or maybe it was the fact I actually had a piece of Harvey’s in my studio like an old fossil, [as] proof that it once stood.

REDEFINE stands for a lot of the things that your “bask in your thoughtcrimes” mentality does. That being said, it seems similar to your mentality of non-conformity. Want to give our readers a message of sorts in your own vein?
I guess I would quote slogan coined by Joseph Campbell and tell your readers to “follow your bliss.” Non-conformity is a state of mind, so as long as you wake up every morning and love what you do, then, in my opinion, you’re winning the game of life. Not everybody can play a guitar or paint a picture, but everybody has individual hopes and dreams that can be achieved if pursued.

END.

<strong>Michiko Stehrenberger Artist Interview</strong>

Since your name is so…
Gnarly?

So gnarly, what is your background?
Well my Mom’s from Taiwan and my Dad’s from Switzerland, and I think they were traveling in Japan just before I was born. Michiko’s the name of the Empress there, and since none of the American baby names were doing it for them, I guess they decided to go for it. I have two brothers and a sister with crazy hybrid names too, and we all learned to be pretty good spellers early on!

What kind of art do you do?
Mostly I like sketching with pencil or whatever’s handy and stylizing the shapes and perspective to keep it interesting. I also really like using the simplest tools available, which in my case is really just using a #2 pencil and tracing paper. It’s super cheap, and I like that I can be more spontaneous and experimental with the whole thing, as opposed to feeling too precious and anal-retentive with it, like back in art school where they made us buy hundreds of dollars in oil paints and archival papers and we didn’t even know what the heck we were supposed to be making yet. I take my sketches and scan it in on my little 1” thick $60 Canon scanner which is small enough to fit in my backpack (I love that!), and then I color it in Photoshop. I love that I can output that onto high resolution gallery prints or create entire products and books or whatever ­ and the idea that you can travel light and work from pretty much anywhere still cracks me up. In the old days I had to drag portfolios of slides from one design firm to another in NY. I still get all happy whenever I’m able to catch a friend’s wireless signal these days.

How did you first get started?
I think it first started in fourth grade ­ I got into drawing unicorns, and then everyone wanted me to draw them unicorns. My teacher had me draw the Pink Panther for the classroom wall, and when I think about that now, that was probably a trademark or copyright infringement, but I don’t think anyone will go back in time to sue me ­ heh! For awhile I thought I was too cool to take art classes, until about 10th grade, and then I took my first fashion illustration class and I was like, “Whoa, I can either do this on my own and take forever, or I can actually learn more quickly and give up having an ego.” After high school, I went to Art Center in Pasadena, and I think I was halfway through before I realized, “Oh! You can make a living at this!” At first I think I was just really young and just wanted to learn to draw better. Halfway through, I’m like, “Oh, so this is how you can make a living without having to get a day job!”

What was your first commercial job?
I did something for Pasadena’s local newspaper, the Star-News an article debating the merits of creationism vs. evolution. I just came up with a drawing of Adam ­ this guy with a big ol; fig leaf on ­ and a monkey which represented evolution, and they were arm-wrestling. And they printed it, and I was like, “Yeah! Fifty bucks!”

How did you get connected with clients like MTV and Coca-Cola?
I started doing this for a living in 1992, just before I graduated from art school. After I got out, I was too poor to have postcards printed, so I mailed photo prints with my phone number to my “wish list” of people I dreamed of working with. I sent that out and got some exciting responses and developed more work from that. A few years later I was working on a book project late one night for Disney’s book publisher, and I’d picked up one of those free postcards they have in racks all over town. I was taking a break from drawing and wanted to call the number on the back to leave a message after hours, but it turns out the owner was working late that night on some kind of book too so we joked about that. We were having this great talk at like 3am, and he said, “I’d like you to come by tomorrow and meet with our art director and see about us putting your stuff on our cards.” This was a barter deal and I was thrilled because there’s no way I could have afforded their advertising rates. Those came out in 1995, and at first they said they were just going to put them on local racks in the empty spaces when they ran out of paid ads, but they ended up printing millions of them and putting them out in all the major cities with my contact info on them, and the owner later called me from the road to tell me my cards were the most popular in the history of their company. I said, “Well what do you expect? They’re free,” but he said it was a pretty big deal ­ people don’t take stuff they don’t want, even if it’s free. We started getting offers to have stuff in Darren Star TV shows and stuff (the guy who later created “Sex & the City”) and these things started showing up everywhere, creating all these coincidences in my life. I think the postcards are probably how my number later ended up getting into the hands of MTV and Coca-Cola and clients like that, and the word of mouth from people collecting them for whatever reason. I still get emails for people all over the world off of these cards every few days, and that was like 10 years ago (!) and my number and email have changed a bunch of times so it’s great that they like the stuff enough to try and find me.

You definitely lucked out there.
Yeah! ­ and all because I made that random late-night phone call, instead of waiting till morning like a normal person :)

What advice would you give for artists who are just starting out?
This is going to sound kind of cheesy ­ but the business part of art is my favorite part! Making new art is great, but licensing my existing library of images, renting them out to different types of clients ­ the whole multiple streams of income thing ­ is great too. Writing up good legal contracts and working out how to structure the deal so that everyone wins, and knowing that there’s some interesting project proposal right around the bend ­ I love that. But it seems like a lot of artists think that business is somehow bad, or that it’s somehow insulting to ask for a contract detailing the work arrangement, but to me, you start off learning your craft and enjoying the creative stuff first, but you’re in a bit of a dreamland finding your voice and your look to your work. Once you’re through with this part, the next step is going to be, “How do I negotiate for this and make a good living?” Whether it’s pricing, or artwork you’d choose to do for this audience or a product that you believe in, taking charge of the messages you’re helping to create. By “business,” I mean that you protect the value of your intellectual property and make sure that it’s copyright registered (check out copyright.gov, where it’s only $30 to protect your copyrights). I don’t mean just mailing it to yourself in an envelope, which is a common misconception and doesn’t hold up in court, unfortunately. The fun part is asking for what you think it’s really worth, and then finding out that other people actually agree with you. That’s the thing I like the most ­ structuring something that normally wouldn’t have very much structure to it, carving something out of nothing, and making it better as a template for the next artist to use. I think a lot of artists I’ve met feel weird about the business and money aspects of things, maybe because we all have this ongoing fantasy that our art is so amazing that it’s supposed to sell itself effortlessly without any marketing effort from us, and that that’s proof of how great it is. But to totally simplify it ­ I think we all want to be rewarded and validated for our work and our talents, and there are many different ways to do it. Maybe we start out with some guilt about getting money for art, for something that sometimes looks like a hobby, maybe it feels a bit like vanity. We don’t want to be greedy ­ this is supposed to be a labor of love, passion, after all! But we’re creating content and culture potentially for the long-term, and protecting the value of this is important, perpetuating it, so that we can keep creating it and building and contributing more ideas while being supported along the way. It’s nice to be rewarded on merit alone, but it also means fighting for that reward sometimes. When you stand up and say to a client or a collector, “I think it’s valuable for this reason,” and you see that the client actually agrees with you, then this gives you the energy and belief to go on and create the next great piece.

What kind of projects are you working on of your own right now?
I’m working with Art Patch on a postcard book at the moment, which’ll be ten different characters from the BimBionic® (Perfect Girls for an Imperfect World) series to start off with. We’ll be doing a signed limited edition of 500 postcard books in the beginning, and hoping to have them in all our favorite little stores around Seattle and San Francisco in the next month or so.

Can you tell me about your Ex-Boyfriend Dolls®?
Heh! Originally I was going to do these one-of-a-kind dolls, and I thought it would be funny to make doll portraits of some of the characters which my friends and I have dated. People always ask me if they’ll have pins in them, but I actually don’t hate ‘em.­ I love those dudes! ­ and they’ve been huge influences in my life. So originally the dolls were based off of real people, but as I talked to more and more people I found that there were some pretty funny things that a lot of people’s exes have had in common, and I thought it’d be fun to caricature the different types in a new format, through sewing them instead. It was fun getting everything trademarked and copyright protected, and learning to pitch ideas to toy companies and potential investors too ­ I’m still learning a lot. Working with the idea has springboarded other projects now too beyond dolls, which is fun since they wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and now we’re working on the Ex-Girlfriend spoofs too ­ just to be fair! :)

Camel cigarettes used your artwork without your permission. How did you find out?
I got this email from a guy in Denver which was like, “Congratulations, I saw your cigarette ad.” I thought it might be a fluke, because people get styles confused sometimes, but then someone else sent an e-mail from SF, and then my sister told me she’d seen it in the LAWeekly. I asked her to scan it for me so I could see what she was talking about, because cigarette companies are usually pretty careful about getting permission to use artwork because a lot of artists are against having their work used that way. She sent it over, and I couldn’t believe it - yup, it was mine, and they had their Camel logo stuck right on it! Years before, someone working for Virginia Slims asked me to do some work for their campaign since they were doing the whole “You’ve come a long way, baby” stuff trying to attract women. I guess my BimBionic characters would have been perfect for their intended audience at the time, but I said, “Thanks a lot, but no.” At that point, I knew I’d potentially turned down a whole heck of a lot of money, but I knew where I stood on that. That’s why it was so disturbing to have a different cigarette company just steal it and run it in national ads, and then pretend that they didn’t do anything wrong. They claimed they Œdidn’t know’ the artwork belonged to me, even though ad agencies are required to get permission in writing. Later, we found out that they scanned a promo postcard with my name, my website to contact me for permission, and even my copyright line on it, and they just scanned it and erased it out.

What do you think they were thinking? They obviously have a ton of money and could have hired someone else to draw something.
I know! The fact that they didn’t ask was really weird, and that they erased my name off of it is just — what the heck! I called the ad agency in Chicago and spoke with the guy who was in charge of everything. He wouldn’t even apologize. I tried to work it out with him, asking him how we could make it right, and he was extremely disrespectful. I don’t know if it’s an act they put on to scare artists away, but I just got the sense that that was their whole attitude about things. The tobacco industry spends millions of dollars every day on advertising ­ it’s not like they didn’t have the resources to do the right thing. I would have said no, but they could have easily hired somebody else.

Do you know if they have done similar things to other artists?
I think for their Salem cigarettes, they just got busted for copying a photographer’s work for their ads. He sued them and I think he got a
settlement, but part of each settlement deal seems to be that they admit to no wrongdoing. Then last October they got busted again for their Kool Mixx campaign targeting hiphop kids. It just keeps happening. Part of what bothered me is how they used my stuff to target teens through free alternative newspapers, because a lot of my audience is made up of teens and kids. At that point, I’d been doing a lot of work for teen-based companies like MTV and Playstation, and that’s what disturbed me most, because cigarette companies are not supposed to be targeting kids under 18 ­ and in this case, Camel had already been busted for using their Joe Camel cartoon character by the government. There’s a whole thing called a Master Settlement Agreement; they’re not supposed to use cartoon characters anymore, and then of course they used my character within a few months of that without asking. They keep getting caught targeting teens, and they keep pretending like they’re not doing it. I got a chance to see some of their corporate documents, and how they target what they call Œhipsters’ and Œtrend-setters’ and how they’re studying ways to insinuate themselves into these environments. There’s a website now that shows their confidential documents made public after lawsuits, how their adult consumers are dying out and how they need to attract kids in the 15-18 years range since that’s an age their studies show where most people get addicted to nicotine. It shows their marketing plans to pay off bartenders and bar owners to let them conduct their research at nightclub and arts venues, collecting names and mailing addresses and basically controlling it through event sponsorships so that no one smokes anything but their own brand in that space. If they can’t use typical advertising, they’re doing other stuff through events and attempting to buy off people’s behavior, I guess making people their new billboards in a way. I know it sounds kinda sci-fi and creepy, but those
documents are right from their company files.

I read that you were being threatened with bankruptcy by the cigarette company’s lawyers?
Yeah. Eek. There’s this thing that happens in court cases a lot, called an “Offer of Judgment.” They basically said, “We’re offering you this settlement amount. If you turn it down, you go before a jury, and even if you win, if the jury gives you even a penny less than what we originally offered you, you have to pay all of our legal bills.” Like Camel and R. J. Reynolds would need an artist to cover their bills, you know? And for some reason it’s legal for them to do that. The way people are supposed to get around it is through incorporating their businesses first, or creating a limited liability situation, and figuring out other ways to protect your assets before bringing a case. I don’t have much that you could call assets ­ just an old Honda, really! ­ but I’ve worked hard to keep up my credit score and it would be ridiculous to wipe that out while trying to defend my rights when someone else stole something from me… I guess my lawyer might’ve blown it on that one with giving the wrong advice, uhmmm…but I’m glad I’ve learned so much about how the system works. I got into the court thing to go in front of a jury to let them know that these guys are working to target kids, even stealing artwork to do this. Sure, it bothers me that I didn’t get a chance to do that. And they actually had the nerve to offer an uneven dollar amount (adding another dollar and another penny to it), because juries generally offer amounts in round numbers. If the jury said they were going to give me ­ for example ­ ten bucks, Camel would say that they’d offer me eleven dollars and a penny. The jury wouldn’t know, and they’d think they were doing a good thing by saying, “We’ll award you ten bucks,” and Camel would say, “That’s less than our offer of eleven dollars and one cent, so you have to pay for all of our legal bills.” It was clearly an intimidation tactic ­ so if you ever find yourself part of a jury, try not to give an award in a rounded-off number, just in case the defendants are up to no good! :)

Is there no way you can mention that to the jury?
I guess not. Lame, right? Even if they guessed it, and awarded eleven bucks, they wouldn’t know about the one extra penny, and you could be bankrupt on the spot ­ at least this was how it was explained to me. I know now that it’s a very common tactic among law firms, and that you have to expect defendants to do that ­ and I’d like for ‘normal’ people like us :) to be ready if they ever find themselves in a similar situation. There are definitely much better ways to handle it than what my law firm did, and we’re looking into those “accidents” and mistakes through the grievance process, but it’s still been one of the most interesting experiences of my life. It’s definitely a fascinating game…

Has this whole case sparked something more anti-tobacco with you?
Heck yeah ­ now that I’m more aware of how tobacco companies operate, when I see a person smoking, I don’t hate ‘em, but I definitely catch myself thinking, “Oh man, they fell prey to those guys.” It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

END.

www.michiko.com

www.artpatch.org