LittleBird

15 Questions About Art :: Tyler Bewley

Tyler Bewley was raised in Oakland and now lives and works in San Francisco. In addition to being a painter, he is a K – 8th grade art teacher. Bewley’s work has been shown around the Bay Area and in a number of literary publications.

Tyler’s show with Ramis Kim, Above You, Below Me, opens this Saturday, May 8th:

LittleBird at Grain
3135 Glendale Blvd.LA, CA 90039
7 - 9pm
Gallery located in back studio

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What is your earliest art-related memory?

I remember receiving my first art lesson from my mom who is an art historian. I am pretty sure I was three, and that we were drawing bunnies. My mother played a huge role in exposing me to the arts as a child and young adult.
 
Who has had the greatest influence on your work?

The Mission district is full of bright and exciting murals of local artists like Andrew Schultz and Barry McGee. The aesthetic that is prevalent amongst the younger San Francisco art scene has played such a role in forming my own style. I am also an avid surfer and I enjoy the works of Thomas Campbell who had a studio at a local break I surfed growing up.
 
What are the main tools of your craft?

Watercolor, gauche, acrylic, spray-paint, xacto knives, coffee.

Is a formal education important?

Yes, but so is experience.
 
What is the biggest misconception about art?

That one can ever really reach a final destination or growth point with their art.

You are never fully matured as an artist. Art for the individual is ever evolving and changing. An artist exists in a relationship with his or her work that expands and takes on new dimension with every endeavor and experience.

Which is more important in art - concept or execution?

I think ideally they should coexist. However, there is a concept in the music world that is if you strip away all of the production and embellishment from a song, it should stand on its own. Essentially, without a strong concept, there is no base for the execution.

What theme or aesthetic are you most drawn too?

I am intrigued by the conversation between man-made structures, commercial development, and the natural environment. Aesthetically, I am attracted to the Mission School, and pop surrealism. However, I am also fascinated with Chinese and Japanese landscape paintings, as well as with the brilliant color and pattern found in Tibetan Buddhist thangka paintings.

What is your favorite piece of art in your home?

I currently have a lovely picture of a dinosaur eating flowers hanging on my wall that one of my kindergarteners gave me. It is green with pink spots.
 
If you could collaborate with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

Frank Herbert or Phillip k Dick. I am a huge Sci-Fi nerd.
 
Which emerging artist do you think more people should know about?

Casey Jex Smith
 
What has been your greatest achievement to date?

That I am able to pursue my art and create things that are exciting and meaningful to others.

 
What has been your biggest roadblock?

Time! There is never enough!
 
How do you define success?

Production. I am someone who is always working and producing. I feel successful only if I am reaching goals, making new ones, creating, and in general never having a moment to pause.
 
What will be the name of your autobiography?

I think I need to live more of my life to really have an answer for this one. I guess “In Progress” will work for now.

What is the best piece of (art-related) advice you’ve ever been given?

Being a professional artist is not only about making art when one feels greatly inspired. One needs to be able to make art and continuously interact with their work whether or not they are feeling a burst of creative energy. 

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15 Questions about Art is an ongoing series in which we ask our collective favorite artists, writers, musicians, sleepy dreamers and object makers from across the creative spectrum to give us a glimpse into how they perceive art through a standard set of questions.

Please click here for the archives and check back next week for a fresh perspective.

15 Questions About Art :: Minty Lewis

Minty Lewis has been creating comics since 2003. Her characters are mostly fruit, yorkies, jerks, and nerds. A collection of her work, titled PS Comics, was published by Secret Acres in June of 2009.

She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and an army of small pets.

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What is your earliest art-related memory?

I drew a picture of a sleeping lady and slipped it under my mom’s pillow when she was taking a nap. I think I was bored and sort of hoping the pillow jostling would wake her up so she could entertain me. She told me later that she did wake up but chose not to open her eyes so that I could carry out my plan uninterrupted. She still has that lady somewhere, or at least she did for a long time.

Who has had the greatest influence on your work?

I don’t know if there’s anyone from whom I’ve directly derived my sensibilities, but there are so many artists and works that have been important to me. I’ve spent a lot of time absorbing Devo, Roald Dahl, Pee-Wee Herman, Michael Kupperman, Gary Larson, Lynda Barry, Jack Handey, Chris Elliott, and David Shrigley (among others), but there must be something in my raw material that drew me to them in the first place. I guess everything I create is a byproduct of the interaction between those influences and the gray matter I was born with.

What are the main tools of your craft?

Pencils, erasers, Bristol board, India ink, pen/nib, Photoshop. Plus regular old notebooks for working out ideas.

Is a formal education important?

I guess it depends on what you want to do. You can still make beautiful art without a formal education, and I don’t necessarily think an art-specific education is so useful, but I’ve observed that most of the smarter, more dedicated, and well-rounded artists I know have a formal education of some sort.

What is the biggest misconception about art?

That it has to be serious to be sophisticated. Humor is very underrated in the art world, even though it can communicate so much.

Which is more important in art - concept or execution?

Concept holds more weight. I can still enjoy impeccably executed art even if there’s a weak concept, but I won’t think about later if the concept is weak. I think the important art is the stuff I think about even when I’m not directly experiencing it.

What theme or aesthetic are you most drawn too?

I like clean lines, bright color, bold shapes, modernist design, animals, and things that don’t take themselves too seriously.

What is your favorite piece of art in your home?

It’s this weird papier-mâché/rope relief painting thing that my dad bought at a community college art sale in Delaware (see photo below).

I wish I knew who the artist was and how this piece compared to the rest of his/her oeuvre. I like how they avoided having to render hands and also maximized the number of patterns and colors. I also like the big fish lips. Also I like making up stories about this scenario. Where are they—a candy store, a bar, a library, a ship? Is the person in the back jealous of the two people in the front? Is the person in the back a woman? This painting really gives me a lot to think about.

If you could collaborate with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

I fantasize about making a live-action movie with my fruit characters, but I am not interested in directing. Maybe Tim Burton is the man for the job?

Which emerging artist do you think more people should know about?

 Damien Jay, of course!

What has been your greatest achievement to date?

This little book of mine.
 
What has been your biggest roadblock?

My biggest challenge is maintaining focus on my art. Between work and a social life and the internet, it is really easy to find other things to do, and putting art ahead of any of them takes serious effort. I have to keep reminding myself that making art is more personally enriching than most of those distractors.

How do you define success?

As far as art is concerned, I am always raising the bar a little higher. I don’t think there will ever be a point where I can wipe my hands on my pants and be like, “Voilà! I’ve done it, time to relax!” I used to think finishing a minicomic was “success,” but now I have finished a handful of minicomics and published a book and I just feel like I have a lot more ahead of me.

What will be the name of your autobiography?

Put a Milk Crate over It. It doesn’t necessarily closely represent my life, but I decided a long time ago that this would be the name of my autobiography. It has to do with an incident that took place at Blockbuster in Charlottesville, Virginia, around 1998: there was an upside-down milk crate in the middle of one of the aisles and, upon investigation, I realized it was covering a turd (human? canine? I don’t know, I didn’t take it to the lab or anything!). I guess they don’t pay Blockbuster employees enough to pick up turds.

Anyway, I think Put a Milk Crate over It works for anyone’s autobiography—it’s kind of an alternative to “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” or “doing the best you can with the tools you have.”

What is the best piece of (art-related) advice you’ve ever been given?

Don’t wait for inspiration.

I’ve heard this advice echoed in a number of books on writing (Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg are two I can think of), and it’s really so true for all art. I always have to get started by telling myself, “OK, I don’t have any ideas, but I am just going to fill up a page with writing (or sketches) and see what happens.” Amazingly, ideas and inspiration always develop when I just commit to taking that first clumsy step.

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15 Questions about Art is an ongoing series in which we ask our collective favorite artists, writers, musicians, sleepy dreamers and object makers from across the creative spectrum to give us a glimpse into how they perceive art through a standard set of questions.

Please click here for the archives and check back next week for a fresh perspective.

15 Questions About Art :: Moselle Spiller

Moselle Spiller is a graphic artist and drummer based out of
Redhook Brooklyn. She creates animations, collages, and drawings.

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What is your earliest art-related memory?
Crayons on a paper placemat at a rural diner. There were water rings
on the paper and it kept ripping when I tried to rub really hard.

Who has had the greatest influence on your work?
My mother, ants and uncle who are all avant garde and weirdly brilliant.
They were in India before the Beatles.

What are the main tools of your craft?
Scanner, computer, internet, a scrap of paper here and there, a smudge of ink

Is a formal education important?
Yes. It taught me discipline.

What is the biggest misconception about art?
That being an artist is a career choice.

Which is more important in art - concept or execution?
Execution.

What theme or aesthetic are you most drawn too?
Psychedelic…also a bit of goth and kitsch

What is your favorite piece of art in your home?

A 4x12ft Batik textile from Indonesia- it looks like blue swan clouds with phallic heads. I find things in it…

If you could collaborate with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?
Hipgnosis

Which emerging artist do you think more people should know about?
Ray Ray Mitramo

What has been your greatest achievement to date?
Picking up drums in one year for my band Boom Chick.

What has been your biggest roadblock?
Getting out of New York City.

How do you define success?
When people start paying you to just do what you do, not make them
what they want.

What will be the name of your autobiography?
Long hairs in a digital wonderland.

What is the best piece of (art-related) advice you’ve ever been given?
Advertise your personal aesthetic as a commodity only you can provide.

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15 Questions about Art is an ongoing series in which we ask our collective favorite artists, writers, musicians, sleepy dreamers and object makers from across the creative spectrum to give us a glimpse into how they perceive art through a standard set of questions.

Please click here for the archives and check back next week for a fresh perspective.

15 Questions About Art :: Dallas Clayton

This week’s 15 Questions About Art comes to us courtesy of Dallas Clayton, who amongst other things, wrote and illustrated An Awesome Book -  which he self published and which was received by a whole bunch of strangers with some pretty awesome success.

Dallas then channeled all that success and momentum into a really awesome foundation he started in an effort to promote children’s literacy by encouraging kids to dream and dream often.

We think he is - for lack of a better word - awesome.

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What is your earliest art-related memory?

I went to an MC escher exhibit once with my dad. That was pretty amazing. What a beast that dude was, huh? He must have had so much time on his hands.

Who has had the greatest influence on your work?

My son. My friends. People who make things that are good without even trying.

People who try to make good things even though people say they are bad.

What are the main tools of your craft?

A computer, a pen and some paper.

Is a formal education important?

If you want to become a surgeon.

What is the biggest misconception about art?

That it should be expensive.

Which is more important in art - concept or execution?

Concept. 100%.

What theme or aesthetic are you most drawn too?

Themes that help people better appreciate or understand confounding situations. Themes that are broad enough to be understood by a 5 year old and a 95 year old at the exact same time.

What is your favorite piece of art in your home?

The original Mona Lisa. (shhhh. don’t tell anyone!)

If you could collaborate with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

Michael Jordan.

Which emerging artist do you think more people should know about?

Dominique Young Unique

What has been your greatest achievement to date?

Making a child. A distant second is making An Awesome Book.

What has been your biggest roadblock?

The fact that I can’t fly or breathe under water.

How do you define success?

Being stoked. Fully Stoked.

What will be the name of your autobiography?

RAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!

What is the best piece of (art-related) advice you’ve ever been given?

Do as much as you can, all the time, every day, and don’t think about it.

Awesome Book Tour from Dallas Clayton on Vimeo.

Credits: Image of Dallas Clayton: RJ Shaughnessy ; All other images excerpted from An Awesome Book by Dallas Clayton, with permission of the author.

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15 Questions about Art is an ongoing series in which we ask our collective favorite artists, writers, musicians, sleepy dreamers and object makers from across the creative spectrum to give us a glimpse into how they perceive art through a standard set of questions.

Please click here for the archives and check back next week for a fresh perspective.