I’m off campus at the moment, far off-campus, on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. I am participating in an NEH Institute along with 23 other professors of various topics from across the U.S. The NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) and CCHA (Community College Humanities Association) are co-sponsoring a five-week study tour of the Maya world. We will be met at archeological sites by some of the foremost scholars in the field. I’ve read six books on the Maya in recent weeks; that’s less than half of my assigned readings. I’ve learned that I have a lot to learn. When I get back to Kutztown University I will have new insights on the art and iconography of the Maya to share with my Historical Survey of Graphic Design Class. I will also be giving a public lecture on this scholarly adventure at Rohbrach Library in October.
I’ve long been interested in this part of the world. In the mid-1970’s I drove a Toyota Corolla from New Jersey to the “Lost City” of Tikal in Guatemala. That was some hard traveling. This time we will be traveling by bus and river boats. It may not be possible for me to get access to the internet. I know I pledged to update the blog weekly, and I will do my best. If you send comments, be patient, I may not be able to reply in a timely manner.
Lately the popular media has been filled with a sensational misinformation about the Maya, especially in regard to their calendar. As a letter from the project directors, Dr. George Scheper and Dr. Laraine Fletcher, points out, “Maya culture does not need exoticizing or sensationalizing to command our attention. What we actually do know about the Maya from responsible scholarship places them in a sufficiently exceptional category of study.”
It might sound like a refreshing summer drink, but a Cool-Off is summertime institution at the Cyberpunk Apocalypse in Pittsburgh. This is something you and your illustrator artists friends might try. You know how you get more artwork done when you have a real publication date? The Cool-Off acts as a pre-publication debut, a chance to share WIPs, Works-in-Progress.
It is like TV show with no TV. In May, there were about twenty young writers/artists in attendance. Each guest is asked to put a 2 to 4 bucks into a box. Everyone sits in a big circle. They show and tell about their most recent creative endeavors. At the end of the presentations there is a vote and the winner takes home a trophy and half the kitty. Even though there is a winner, the evening’s tone is largely nonjudgmental. Some mild suggestions are made. Everyone gets applause.
May 2011 Cool Off Trophy (Wow, neat shadow! )
The Cool-Off Trophy is different for each month. May’s trophy was assembled from items that Grandpa, the house’s visiting dog, collected.
Nearly half the of group I met were into comics and they shared unbound pages of works in progress. Nate McDonough showed his latest Grixly zine. Danny Mac passed around pages he was submitting to Kindlin’Quarterly magazine. Sarah (a.k.a Gunner) read a new short story. One guy totally surprised me when he pulled his project out of a bag. He made quilts from his old pajamas inspired by the master quilters of Gee’s Bend. artnoose, who I wrote about recently, read from the latest issue of her letterpress zine, Ker-bloom!
The winner was a first-time visitor, Jessica Heberle. She won for her book, Unbuilding a Wall, an elaborate artist’s book, a meditation on the metaphor of the walls we build around us, between us. There is a lot of handwork involved in her project. One page had an envelope full of miniature printed bricks that might be assembled on the facing page, for example. She promises to treasure her Cool-Off trophy forever.
There is another Cool-Off at the Cyberpunk Apocalypse this weekend, Sat, June 11 at 7. Calendar and directions can be found here. You aren’t near Pittsburgh? O.K. The point is, you should try this concept with your own circle of creative friends. It is guaranteed to boost your creative output! Let me know how it works out.
Want to get a feel for the Pittsburgh Zine Scene? Join The Cyberpunk Apocalypse Zine of the Month Club. Get a new zine every month made by the Cyberpunk Apocalites and our friends. Like the Andromeda Comic Anthology, or Kerbloom! Plus bonuses in your mailbox: letters, drawings, or letterpress cards! One year subscription is just $35.
In the “letterpress/zine” circle artnoose is a superstar. Admittedly, this is a smallish orbit, but lately interest in zines and letterpress is exploding. I ran into her the other day when she was printing in the damp basement of the Cyberpunk Apocalypse. Cyberpunk Apocalypse is a two-house writer’s colony in Pittsburgh. It is where my son Dan McCloskey lives and works, too.
artnoose printing on her Chandler & Price press, May, 2011, photo by Kevin McCloskey
I asked artnoose how she describes herself. She said, “Sometimes people ask, ‘–Are you some kinda’ artist?’ I tell them I’m a printer. That’s what I am, a printer.”
She reveals a few more details on her Etsy page bio: artnoose began letterpress printing the zine Ker-bloom! in the summer of 1996 and has been making it every other month since then, never late, never missing one. After 14 years in the Bay Area, artnoose moved to Pittsburgh in the hopes of transforming a derelict old house into a loving and productive home. While the city home buying process takes its own sweet time, artnoose is a writing resident at the Cyberpunk Apocalypse Writers’ Collective.
A decade ago, artnoose started a letterpress studio called Crafty Cards in Alameda, California. The name was inspired by the Beasty Boy’s song, ‘She’s Crafty.’ One day in 2004, Crafty Cards got a small commission to print an engagement announcement. The bride-to-be wrote for a trendsetting blog called The Daily Candy. The day The Daily Candy wrote about artnoose, her phone rang off the hook. She got a year’s worth of work, and quit her day job as a substitute teacher. She has been a printer ever since.
artnoose tends to be a philosophical and careful writer. Letterpress does that to you, individual pieces of type for each letter or comma must be set by hand, before the hand-cranked press can ink and print it. Here are a few lines from Ker-bloom! #85, about storytelling:
“I never have a day without a story. The void gets filled if not by us… ‘Enough of their lies; its time for OUR lies!’ A friend said this to me a year ago at a crowded dance party when I asked him for words to live by. It stuck with me, not as a modus operandi but as a rather catchy deconstruction of truth. Is all narrative really propaganda? Is there such a thing as non-fiction?”
Last year artnoose launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to create a Letterpress House in Pittsburgh’s Upper Lawrenceville neighborhood near the Cyberpunk Apocalypse. Kickstarter is becoming a popular way for artists, among others, to raise funds to realize their dream projects. Her Kickstarter pitch is worth looking at, she raised $4620. Daniel McCloskey did the illustrations for that Kickstarter video. artnoose says the secret of Kickstarter success is “to tell a compelling story.” Her years of Ker-bloom! have clearly honed that skill. $4620, believe it or not, is enough to buy an abandoned fixer-upper from the city of Pittsburgh. For the price of a Williamsburg loft you could buy a Lawrenceville block. Pittsburgh artists are quick to point out, however, the buzz is not about cheap real estate, it is about the human energy and synergy of the arts community there.
The morning I watched artnoose printing she had just been stood up by a “key guy” who was supposed to give her a walk-through of her future Letterpress House. Yes, maybe you can get a house in Pittsburgh for a song, but there is a lot of bureaucracy, red tape, and waiting. Working the press keeps artnoose sane and fit.
artnoose’s most recent Ker-bloom! (#89) is in the form of a Mad-libs autobiography. You and your friends pick the nouns and verbs to round out the story of her life. It is available for just $3 on Etsy. Wanna buy Dad a unique Father’s Day card? artnoose has this and other hand-set goodies for as little as $1. She also still does custom wedding, shower, engagement, birth announcements, and business cards.
I would love to be in Pittsburgh to witness the massive cast iron Chandler and Price press moving to its new home. The machine weighs nearly 1500 pounds. A friend of artnoose’s who makes bike messenger bags is rigging canvas harnesses. artnoose plans to enlist a crew of ten to dress as draft animals. Clydesdales, reindeer, and oxen will ever so slowly heave the press over rollers made of steel gas pipes. They will proceed down the back alley, Dresden Street, then take a left at 53rd Street. It should be a sight to see and a story to tell. Ker-bloom!
The Borough of Kutztown is gearing up for its bicentennial. There is a $200 prize for a logo to commemorate the town’s 200th birthday. Deadline: July 23, 2011. Prof. Emeritus John Landis made the flyer below which contains all the details. He purposely designed a typographic flyer so as not to suggest a particular visual style for the logo. It can be illustrative, graphic, folkloric, digital, retro, you name it. You are welcome to enter multiple entries and there is no entry fee.
If you are in Kutztown you can get your own flyer, or drop your completed entry off at the Kutztown Community Development Office. (Next door to DeTurk’s Hardware.) You can mail your entry if you prefer, as long as it arrives before July 23.
Mara Rockliff, is a talented and prolific children’s book author who lives here in Kutztown, PA. She sent me a note to share with illustration students about a scholarship opportunity from SCBWI. That is the Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators. They have grants for students to attend their NYC or L.A. conferences. Details on the SCBWI student scholarships are here. Next deadline is Nov.1.
Mara Rockliff’s most recent book is Get Real: What Kind of World Are You Buying. -“This frank, teen-friendly manifesto reveals what you’re really buying when you spend your money on a burger, a cheap t-shirt, or a cell phone–and points the way to better choices, both for people and the planet.”
By the way, a number of Mara Rockliff’s chapter books (written under the pseudonym Lewis B. Montgomery) have been illustrated by a Kutztown U grad, Amy Wummer. A portfolio of Amy’s artwork can be seen here.
Beth Krommes recommended joining SCBWI when she was on campus last month. I must admit I am no longer a dues-paying member of SCBWI. I did attend their NYC conference one year, and I’ve also participated in the portfolio day SCBWI holds at the Society of Illustrators. Personally, I found the Society of Illustrators event more worthwhile. The conference I attended was at the Roosevelt Hotel and for an added fee I was able to set up an easel on a table. I felt it was overcrowded and claustrophobic, like a science fair on steroids. At the Society of Illustrators a limited number of artists participated. Illustrators could leave a portfolio, cards and other promotional material on a table. Then artists leave the premises for a couple of hours. When you come back, you count your promo cards to see how many have been taken and look. Ideally, an art director has left an encouraging word or requested a meeting.
A nice thing about SCBWI is that they have an active Eastern PA chapter. Here is a page where you can check out local member/illustrator’s work. SCBWI has much info, (like market tips) that is password protected for members only, but they do also have useful info for interested visitors on their main site.
Another valuable site for anyone interested in illustrating children’s books is the Children’s Book Council. They are a trade group composed of many of the best and most reputable publishers. I find their members list page is especially worthwhile. That’s where you will find if publishers are even considering submissions. Like SCBWI some of the CBC site is password protected, but much of the info is freely available.
Let people know you are an illustrator. Do not be shy. Somebody you know will ask you to create a picture for their business, band, or website. When it happens for the first time students often contact me with this seemingly simple question: How much should I charge?
Here are my thoughts: First ask the client: “What is your budget?” If they know, that helps a lot. They may toss it back to you again asking, what is your rate? Rule of thumb, even as a student, you should charge at least 3 times minimum wage at the start of your career. Remember, you have a skill set and tools that most people don’t. Pennyslvania’s 2011 minimum wage is $7.25, so around here, that would be about $22 dollars per hour.
In my opinion once the work is done to the satisfaction of the client, billing should end. For example, you show the client the artwork that took you five hours; they love it. Bill them $110, and look for the next job. You, however, might have a higher standard and work another five hours tweeking the art. I’d argue the clock stops at five hours because that earlier image, even if it is somewhat inferior, satisfied the client. Again, this is just my opinion, to be used as you see fit.
Obviously, if you are doing artwork for a family member, or a favorite charity you might charge less. However, even if you work for free, (sometimes called “pro bono ” meaning for the public good) it is reasonable to bill for your materials. Also if you work for free, you ought to get a clear printed credit, and copies for your portfolio.
On a practical note, below you will find the info you need for simple illustrator’s invoice. I hope it comes in handy sometime soon. The illustrations on this blog are by recent KU grad Brandon Malone, winner of the 2011 Terry Boyle Award for most improved illustrator. Brandon shoots his own photo-reference and is meticulous in his inking. To see more of his work visit his site.
Artist Name: (Studio Name if applicable.) Address, telephone, email, web address. (Most of this can be on your letterhead.)
Invoice # 301 (Don’t use single digits, start at 101 or higher.) Maybe use a code based on the date, like # 050511 for May 5 2011.
Date:
To: Rodale Press Attn: Jane Smith, Art Director
Backpacker Magazine, 111 Main St, Emmaus, PA
From: J. Artist
Social Security/taxpayer I.D: 000-00-0000 (Always include S.S. number, or payment may be delayed, buyer needs this for tax records.)
For services rendered as described below:
Three (3) pen and ink illustrations on the subject of sports medicine.
One time use only. Reprint and other rights revert to the artist. (If possible, do this to retain future rights.)
Total due: $350.Three hundred and fifty dollars. (Use numerals and words)
Payable to: Important! Best to use your given name. If you call yourself “AJAX Illustration Studio,” but haven’t really got a checking account and a DBA (Doing Business As) form filed with the state, you may have trouble cashing the check.
Terms: Return of original artwork and payment due within 30 days of delivery.
…………
If you live in PA, look at this website which will help you with the forms to get your “Doing Business As”, so you can get a really cool name for your studio. In other states you might have to Google the agency. Some states call it a “fictitious” business name. You should not need a lawyer to do this. Someone at your local bank can explain the process, since the bank needs the state registration in order to open an account under a fictitious business name.
Jerry Pinkney speaking to KU Communication Design students
In 1992, nearly 20 years ago, Prof. Elaine Cunfer and I went to Philadelphia to hear Jerry Pinkney speak. Mr. Pinkney was being given a lifetime achievement award by Drexel University. If he had been struck by lightning, or hit by a bus that day in Philadelphia his place in the pantheon of great children’s book illustrators would have been secure.
He hasn’t rested on his laurels in the past 20 years he has amassed many more awards, including a silver and gold medals from the Society of Illustrators, multiple Coretta Scott King awards, five Caldecott honors, and the ultimate prize in children’s book illustration, The Caldecott Medal in 2010. That Caldecott was for The Lion and the Mouse, his wordless retelling in watercolor of the classic Aesop’s fable set in Africa.
Illustration students getting advice from Jerry Pinkney
He has had three major museum shows at the last year including one in Lancaster at the PA College of Art and Design. He had a show at the Schomberg in NYC and a major retrospective at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts.
There is no doubt Jerry Pinkney’s artwork is suitable for framing. We even exhibited his artwork at Sharadin Gallery during the Dornish Collection exhibition. Some curators don’t believe illustration belongs in gallery. In some cases this is an old elitist fine artist aesthetic bias. A reasonable argument can be made, though, that his artwork is best seen in print, in a book, in the context of illustration. Not to diminish the achievement of his museum shows, but watch someone in a gallery the stop and look at a picture. Count, one, two, three, I find most people look at an individual picture for about 5 seconds max.
Jerry Pinkney is a master of line, color, and composition. His work rewards those who take the time to look at it longer that 5 seconds.
Now try this. Read one of his books to a youngster, someone 5 years old, in his target audience. Children’s eyes will linger over every page far longer than the gallery-goers eyes might. When you try to turn the page, the child might turn it back to look at it longer. Children know greatness when they see it.
Mr. Pinkney gave an informal slide talk to Communication Design students. Dean Bill Mowder of the College of Visual and Performing Arts helped fund Mr Pinkney’s visit to KU Children’s Literature Conference. I sensed that a number of these CD students realized they were in the presence of greatness. Mr. Pinkney talked about his early career. For a time he worked at Rust Craft Greeting Cards in Boston. Insurance rules kept the illustrators in their studio space, far away from the onsite printing presses. He said he would sneak down on occasion. He loved to watch the magic of mechanical reproduction, and “loved the smell of the ink.”
My favorite anecdote was from earlier in his career. Young Jerry Pinkney, aged 12, had a newstand in the Germantown section of Philly. Between sales he would sketch the view of the shops across the street. One day a cartoonist named John Liney stopped by the newsstand and admired these sketches. He invited the newsboy up to see his studio and gave him a handful of art supplies. John Liney was the man who drew Henry, a comic strip originated by Carl Anderson. Henry was one of the most popular newspaper comics of the time. Pinkney warmly recalled the studio visit that gave him the ‘first glimmer of an idea’ he might be able to make a living as an artist.
John Liney's Henry, illustration from Wikipedia.
By the way, there is another blog by a KU faculty member, Dr. Marty Rayala of Art Ed & Crafts. It is called andDESIGN. Clearly, Dr. Rayala is much more efficient that I am. His posts about Jerry Pinkney and Beth Krommes have been online for two weeks already. He calls andDESIGN -“the online magazine for people interested in Design Education in K-12 schools.” It is well worth a look.
KU Anime Club at Katuson Convention, Md, Feb. 2011
For years I’ve been faculty advisor to the Kutztown Anime club. Anime, as you probably know, is Japanese animation. This group has a reputation for being a bit odd. I’ve heard them called them “nerds,” “geeks,” or worse, by other students. Personally, I’m not a great anime fan, but I firmly believe anything that helps students build a sense of community during their time on this campus should be supported.
Help Japan graphic by ChaseJC
When the deadly 8.9 earthquake and then the tsunami struck Japan on March 11, I emailed the Anime club president, Abe Klein, to suggest they might do a fundraiser. “Even a small contribution would reflect concern for the culture that gave birth to anime,” I wrote. Abe wrote back instantly that they were already working on it. 100% of the proceeds from their March 16 cookie sale went to Japan Relief. Typically, the Anime Club makes under $50 on a cookie sale, this event raised $487. Clearly many people at Kutztown University overpaid for their cookies, and some folks sent us donations through the campus mail. I’ve got the receipts from the American Red Cross /Japan Relief fund on my desk. I’m proud of these students.
Graphic above came thanks to ChaseJC: his deviant art page ishere.
Beth Krommes was born and raised just over the hill in Emmaus, PA. She recalls applying to study art at Kutztown State College. Her portfolio was accepted, but she chose to go to Syracuse University, in part, because it was further from home and she longed to travel. After her undergrad painting degree there, she earned her Masters from U Mass, Amherst. She got to travel abroad when she studied for a year at St. Martin’s School of Art, London.
She and her husband have raised two daughters in New Hampshire. Today she works full-time as a children’s book illustrator out of her home studio. It the past she has worked at a wide variety of jobs, including that vanishing occupation “public school art teacher.” She was a secretary, an art director for a computer magazine, and has even worked in retail as the manager of a fine handcraft shop.
Beth Krommes visited Kutztown this weekend for the KU Children’s Literature Conference. She gave three presentations, including one for local school children and one for the university community. She then thrilled conference attendees, mostly teachers and librarians, when she passed around her actual 2009 Caldecott Medal. Named for the great Randolph Caldecott, the medal is awarded annually to the finest picture book illustrator. At least one local librarian was moved to tears to hold the Beth’s medal in her hands.
Beth Krommes Caldecott, photo courtesy Kim Beyer
Beth Krommes is master of several media, including wood engraving. It is a very detailed, labor intensive way of making pictures. Wood engraving is one on the oldest forms of reproducing art. Today the medium is having something of a renaissance. Wood engraving is the refined cousin of woodblock printing. Engraving needs to be done on the end grain of the wood. Actually, Beth explains the process quite well at her website, www.bethkrommes.com. Below is a sample her wood engraving. You can see and purchase individual limited edition prints here.
Since wood engraving is so time-consuming and unforgiving, her recent illustration work is done on scratchboard. Scratchboard has a similar look to wood engraving since it, too, is a subtractive way of making a high contrast illustration. If you want to learn more, a visit to her website will reward you with more information about her scratchboard technique, and a link to her moving Caldecott speech.
Beth ended her Kutztown conference speech with some tips for aspiring illustrators which I’ve taken the liberty of copying from her website:
1. Join the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (the SCBWI). This professional organization is dedicated to those who write, illustrate, or share an interest in children’s literature. There are more than 22,000 members worldwide.
2. Read The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books by Harold D. Underdown. Of the many available books on this subject, this is my favorite.
3. Read Writing With Pictures — How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books by Uri Shulevitz. I especially like the chapters on designing a book.
Above is a picture of KU CD student Cheryl Sheeler signing a copy of her illustrated KU Lit conference poster for Beth Krommes. As Cheryl would say, How cool is that?
Amazing enough, Beth Krommes wasn’t the only Caldecott winning illustrator on campus last week. Next week I will write something about our other distinguished visitor, Jerry Pinkney.
One of the great things about these WordPress blogs is that the moderator is able to see which search terms visitors are using to reach this page. Lately there has been a big upsurge in searches for “Vinnie Torre”, “Hoboken Museum,” and “pigeons.”
I wrote about Vinnie last year in my very first Illustration Concentration post. I met Vinnie and his girlfriend Lynne Earring when I illustrated a chapbook for the Hoboken Historical Museum. Turns out Vinnie has recently been featured on a new Animal Planet documentary series mentoring boxer Mike Tyson on the finer points of pigeon racing. I haven’t seen the series. In the trailer, Mike Tyson tells about the first fight he ever had. He was 10. He beat up the Brooklyn kid who ripped the head off his pigeon. In honor of the uptick in searches for Vinnie and pigeons, I am posting a few more of my Hoboken sketches, some of which never made it into the chapbook.
Lynne told me that Vinnie used to cut down the iconic Hoboken clotheslines that hung in the way of his pigeons’ final approach home. Vinnie looked wounded, he said he never did any such thing. Maybe, once or twice, he witnessed somebody sanding clotheslines so that they were so frayed that when the women hung their family’s heavy, wet clothes they “naturally” broke. He assured me that would happen only in the case of a very important race.
I drew a pigeon before I arrived at Vinnie’s house. Vinnie took one look at it and shook his head. It looked like a street pigeon, he said. He told me to thicken the neck and add more waddle on top of the beak. Here is how it looked after I took his suggestions:
You can download the whole book for free here: The Pigeon Guys: Recollections of Vinnie Torre and Lynne Earing. The 40-page chapbook, designed by Ann Marie Manca is part of a nifty series of Hoboken oral histories. Lisa Sartori interviewed Vinnie and Lynne. Holly Metz edited it, I donated the illustrations, and Museum Director Robert Foster added historic and new photographs.
By the way, I was in Hoboken last weekend and stopped by the Hoboken Historical Museum. They have a sweet show on the walls now, about Hoboken’s love affair with candy and desserts. It began way before the Cake Boss. At the museum you can sit in a booth on loan from Schnackenberg’s Luncheonette and watch a truly touching 10-minute film about Schnackenberg’s, a Hoboken landmark. The film entitled Counterparts was made in 1989 by Nicole Lucas Haimes who has since gone on to a successful career as a documentary filmmaker.Vinnie Torre is a great booster of the Hoboken Historical Museum. In the Animal Planet videos he can be seen wearing his HHM T-shirt. It is a worthy institution and well worth a visit anytime.
Illustration Concentration 