SADDO (Bucharest, Romania) Street artist/ painter/ illustrator
How early in your life did you start making art ?
I was drawing since I was a kid, I was super inspired and influenced by sci-fi and horror movies, cartoons, and a friend of mine who was older, and was drawing monsters and heroes, comics, etc. But I wasn't really "serious" about it, it was just something I needed to do from time to time, it was fun. Then I went to University, which pretty much took away all the fun in drawing, and after I graduated I had two years when I haven't drawn anything. Then I discovered street art and I almost had to start again from scratch, I was afraid of drawing, but slowly I rediscovered the fun of drawing and painting.
Who are your influences ?
My girlfriend Heliana ( Aitch ), whose works I love, was a huge influence, she almost forced me to try new mediums, when I met her I was only drawing with paint markers on stupid papers, she taught me that working on different kinds of papers, with ink, watercolors, acrylics, is nice, fun and precious.
Also, another huge influence was my friend Other - I learned from him that it's so beautiful to paint on pieces of found wood and old furniture, and I was also very much impressed by his work ethics and energy, which motivated me to work more.
I really love art in general, so aesthetically my influences are many, and range from street art, pop surrealism, naive art, naturalistic illustrations of plants and animals, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Henri Rousseau, Walton Ford, Bosch, Fernando Botero, Victor Brauner, to young artists like Jon McNair, Other, Aitch, Jean Spezial, Heiko Mueller, Barry McGee, Os Gemeos, Ekta, Zbiok, and many others whose works I love.
Here's a blog with few of my favorite artworks: http://saddo-recommends.tumblr.com/
What's one of your favorite subjects to draw ?
I have periods when I like to draw mixes of birds, tribal heads, symbols, abstract shapes, or more thoughtful paintings, meditations on the passing of time, loss, death. And times when I draw zombies. Or times when I like to draw/paint cute cartoonish characters. And times when I mix all of these. It depends on my mood.
What medium do you mainly use ?
It's the same as with my subjects, it really depends on moods, sometimes I like to make fast illustrations with ink on paper, sometimes I like putting a lot of work on paintings made with acrylics on canvas, sometimes I like painting on wood, on walls…I like all of them, ink on paper is much faster, brings an immediate satisfaction, it can be sold cheaper/quicker. Painting on canvas or wood or walls takes more time to develop, and at some point it can become pretty frustrating, but the satisfaction is much bigger in the end.
What keeps you up at night ?
The Sopranos and Oz.
For Images of Saddo Raul's art work visit his Flckr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saddo/
Suntur
Bangkok Thailand
Illustrator
Bangkok Thailand
How early in your life did you start making art ?
I've been interested in arts since I was very young so I went to an art university. And I started making art pieces since my 3rd university year.
Who are your influences ?
My cousin. He is very good at drawing and he was my first drawing mentor.
What's one of your favorite subjects to draw ?
Human in different characters as well as simple objects I found in my daily life.
What medium do you mainly use ?
Any plain paper with water color.
What keeps you up at night ?
Drawing. :)
Sarah Welch (houston,texas)
How early in your life did you start making art ?
I started drawing pretty early, but didn't take it seriously til high school. I knew I didn't want to go to the giant shitty public school my neighborhood was zoned for so I found a way out. I managed to get a transfer to a better public high school by enrolling in the school's "fine art academy" which was a kind of proto-magnet program that had course requirements and access to better than government-issued art supplies. Going to that school changed everything. It made me more ambitious about life in general.
Who are your influences
Raymond Pettibon, Christina Ramberg, Kitagawa Utamaro, & Mariah Carey
What's one of your favorite subjects to draw ?
I studied textile design for part of college and am still fully obsessed with prints. I love inventing and incorporating pattern into my work. I'm all over drapery, garments, and made-up ambiguous forms that look like drapery and garments. I've actually taken it as far as screen printing images of puffer jackets and rumpled looking shapes as repeat yardage.
What medium do you mainly use ?
I use basic mechanical pencils and 001 ink pens. I do printmaking, especially in the last couple years, I started working with VROOOOOM Press doing screen printed comic books and short run gig posters and whatever. I've worked with screen printing, relief printing, offset, letterpress, and actually, tonight I'm going to start learning about using risograph printing. I just helped move this risograph yesterday, we drove all the way to a church in Killeen to pick it up and then hauled it back to Houston last night. It was way heavy.
What keeps you up at night ?
The future keeps me up at night. I am also scared of cockroaches.
www.sarahwelch.info
Shannon Lynn Grant (Austin,Texas) Photographer
How early in your life did you start making art ?
I started photography ever since I put my hands on a camera as a little girl, playing with point and shoots, photographing your average objects and people. Once I became a student in high school I took every possible class learning how to develop film manually, photograph it manually, and printing in the darkroom manually; both black & white and color. The process is beautiful. It reveals the true Art and beauty of photography. You would perhaps find me in the photo lab in high school the majority of the time, and I loved being there with no hurry to get out of class. Once I became aware of the Art of photography and the Art of seeing, while building the ability to see beyond seeing, photography eventually became natural for me and I wanted to learn more and more and photograph more and more. Writing was always my art, mainly poetry, and through the years my photographs started to write the words for me. I stopped writing at a point. I did not consciously decide to, I just stopped. However ironically I am currently writing a very elaborate and lengthy blog entry of my journey back and forth to Los Angeles from December 2011 to May 2012, documenting Occupy LA, revolutionaries, protestors, activists, and the other very odd lives of people who surrounded. The main idea of the experience is to educate and document the current awakening through multiple Arts forming a community of awakened spirits. Stay tuned for the entry at
www.shannonlynngrant.wordpress.com. Eventually I got into digital photography and photographic software programs when I was 18 at the start of college. I hated the idea of digital at first because I felt as if it was destroying the Art, however I learned to understand the many benefits within digital and I have not been in a darkroom since. I would love to again experience the process of projected light, and thankfully someone last week just referred me to someone who has a darkroom, so that very well may be possible in the near future. Photography has everything to do with light in which I remember my high school photo teacher Nicki Stager saying, "I paint with light". She inspired me to pursue photography as something more than just a personal Art and hobby.
Who are your influences ?
Henry Cartier-Bresson and Aaron Siskind would be my biggest influences. A photojournalist and an abstract artist. Cartier-Bresson is known by his "decisive moment". He would never set up a photograph and he has captured some of the most beautiful and well known photographs through patience and awareness. While creating a photojournalistic series or moment, it is important to capture those moments of time naturally and become almost invisible.
Aside from photojournalism, I love abstract photography. It is something that I have not spent much time on lately because of other focuses, however it is one of my favorite personal styles. There is so much beauty and design overlooked through our normal everyday lives. The key is seeing the image rather than looking for it, and also having the ability to see that image even when one is not looking for it. Anything can be seen as beautiful; it is all in how you perceive it. Aaron Siskind photographs various textures creating black and white images of objects we would never suspect to be objects of beauty. Becoming aware and seeing beyond what many ignores is a different way of seeing the world. Not only is it possible to create beautiful Art seeing this way but also one becomes more aware of their surroundings even when without a camera.
What's one of your favorite subjects to draw ?
Sometimes you can catch me doodling flowers and mushrooms, hah, I don't draw much, nor do I put passion into it. On the other hand if I were to put effort into drawing I would draw observationally, perhaps people or things in their natural environment. However I could use a camera and the subject could be captured with light onto a sensor (or perhaps film) capturing thousands of pixels of information creating an image that captures a moment in time. I than could put it in photoshop and put a sketch filter on it. Word.
What's one of you favorite subject to photograph?
I typically like interesting people in interesting locations or people who live in odd environments with interesting ideas. Photojournalism and documentation over a period of time or random spontaneous moments is what I mainly focus on and love. I hate posing subjects, and it just doesn't work in journalism. There is more of an impact with unposed images. I want what is real, and I want to capture what society does not typically see or ever see. I also love abstract photography which is one of my personal styles. I'll photograph anything from rust, pealing paint, dripping paint and I have even shot something that seemed to be vomit once. Being aware of my surrounding and seeing the image rather than looking for it has created some of the most interesting and beautiful images. It is important for me to be constantly aware of my surroundings if I want to effectively see the beauty surrounding me, in which the average person usually overlooks or doesn't perceive as anything. All expectations and control of a subject must go out the window. I am also a sucker for graffiti. At one point in my life I could never pass a graffiti wall and not abstractly photograph it. The lines colors and diversity of graffiti creates some real interesting stuff and I also love the Art. Graffiti is what lead me to become aware of the rust, peeling paint, dirt and grim surrounding the walls and ground of buildings and nature, in which that is when I started to shoot grim and create imagery that looked nothing of the sort except for a beautiful design. Music is something else that I also enjoy photographing, because I love music; who doesn't. I shoot anything from live music to band promotions to musicians in their natural environment.
What medium do you mainly use ?
I use digital cameras processing RAW files through Light room or Photoshop camera RAW. I prefer Canon cameras, however I will not turn away a Nikon. I have not photographed using film in almost 5 years because I haven't had access to a darkroom. Also film is pricey and scarce and some brands don't even sell film anymore. It is also just not the same taking film to your local film developing store. I have no control over the process of the final image in which the darkroom is where the Art of photography shines. I would rather shoot digital in that case. Anyway eventually I would have to scan the image or negative to make it digital. Today we can make digital images look like film which is what I often do. I love film grain however sometimes it is not necessary. I typically use more monochromatic colors rather than full color because it reveals more emotion. I mainly use Lightroom and Photoshop and sometimes Illustrator for specific designs. If I am creating a composite obviously I will use Photoshop. Photoshop and Lightroom have become a part of my everyday life, and it is currently the photographers professional workflow to shoot digital. Film is slowly dying and darkrooms are becoming computer labs. Because of the internet it is not necessary for me to print too often, but it depends on what the image is being used for, however if I were to print for personal use or gallery shows I prefer semi-gloss paper at an unique size printed at a professional lab. No 8x10's please. Canvas is cool too.
What keeps you up at night ?
The thought of the many issues in our society and the unhappy, ignorant, and sleeping state of humanity, especially in America, keeps me up at night. I am an empathetic wisdom seeker and I put effort into learning anything and everything to help guide myself and humanity into a higher consciousness, becoming spiritually awake. Through both the conflicts and beauties of survival we all can create Art. Inspiration is key. Art is mainly an expression of the self which is in my opinion important for every single human being to put effort into doing, especially now with the many internal changes we are all experiencing. Everybody has an Art they can express themselves with. If they do not, they have not discovered it yet. I am and will continue to influence more LOVE in this society through Art and inspiration. It's time to wake up. ; )
More info on Shannon Grant
www.shannonlynngrant.wordpress.com
Shakey Graves (Austin,Texas)
How many members are there ?
Shakey Graves is a solo project, its just me, Alejandro Rose-Garcia.
who are your influences in this project?
Everyone. This is what music sounds going in my ears and coming out of my mouth….my heroes include the late great Townes Van Zandt, Michael Hurley, Elliott Smith, The Wu-Tang Clan, ABBA, you name it.
Whom have been influences in past music projects?
Influences are influences past or present. All the same stuff I already mentioned and some stuff I havent, I love black metal, crazy lo fi shit, horrible screamo music, weepy dude jams...whatever, but I used to want to be in Saetia, Cradle Of Filth, Japanther, Die Emperor Die....I used to play in a shitty awesome screamo band, so, loud crunchy whiny shit that I love..and Usher of course.
Do you write the lyrics or the music first ?
Usually music, but sometimes words demand melody….there is no math to this.
What are you listening to right now ?
Crooked Cowboy & The Freshwater Indians which is the best unheard band on earth in my humble opinion, Electrelane, Tim Fite, Those Darlins, Wild Child, Other Lives, Cradle, The Luv’d Ones, M83, The Ventures.
What was the last show you went to that you really enjoyed?
Those Darlins
Whats the last thing you ate ?
A Kool Summer Sammich at Bouldin Creek Café in Austin TX
