Whenever I click on a David Sankey sidebar contribution, my heart skips a beat because I know I’m about to fall in love with yet another illustration of the most uplifting aspect of life: Death. Yes, his illustrations always make me wish I were a dead animal because then maybe he would draw me and I’d look as beautiful as those dead animals that he draws. Honestly, I feel very honored to get to ask David Sankey, The Greatest Artist to Have Ever Lived Who Draws Dead Stuff for Fun, a bunch of questions because, obviously, he’s the greatest artist to have ever lived. I mean, I know that one guy, Michael Angelou, could sculpt a mean Pieta, but he’s not nearly as good as David Sankey. I mean, I know that one guy, Van Go, could paint a mean potato eater, but he’s got nothin’ on David Sankey. So, without further ado, here’s the man of the gory hour—David Sankey!

Megan Michelle: You’re the greatest artist to have ever lived. Who do you think is the second greatest artist to have ever lived? Why?

David Sankey: Impossible question. There can only be one. However, the first human that comes to mind is the Biblical Sampson, whose elaborate performance pieces included killing 1,000 men with a donkey’s jawbone and setting foxes on fire.

Q: How did you accrue your mad drawing skillz? To whom/what do you owe your genius?

A: I owe a fair amount of my mark-making ability to my parents, who forced me to find my own fun by forsaking television. In pining for cartoons, I drew Belle’s father, from Beauty and the Beast. I drew my favorite basketball players, because I could not watch them play. I drew on paper, on myself, drew in soap on the bathroom walls. I scratched runes with a dagger-shaped letter-opener into the bedroom doors of our home.

I owe almost as much to teachers who crumpled up my work, spat on it, fed it to me that I might taste my failure and produce only that which was beautiful. And without any irony, I am grateful to the powers that be for allowing me to participate, in a tiny way, in the holy and mysterious act of creation.

Q: If you could marry any piece of art, what piece of art would you marry? Why?

A: In any world where marrying art is okay, I would definitely be a polygamist and shack up with as much of it as I could. But if somehow it had to be just one, I can say with near certainty that I’d pop the question to the Anselm Kiefer sculpture Book with Wings. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few years back, and I’ve been head over heals since. I’ve been writing her letters, but they keep coming back, return to sender.

Q: Finding dead animals and drawing them must take a lot of energy and, therefore, a lot of good, nutritious food. What’s your diet like?

A: I wish I could tell you that I only eat the animals I come across, but my diet is fairly modest. I’m told that I make very good scrambled eggs. I like them well enough. I average three grapefruit a week, and as many scones. Trader Joe’s is a boon to my wallet and palate alike. I’ll never stop loving Taylor Ham, choice breakfast meat of northern New Jersey. I really like yerba mate (is it true that it gives you cancer?). Once, my sister and I unwittingly ate pepperoni made from a black bear that my uncle killed.

Q: (Yes, all naturally-occurring, herbal teas give you cancer.) Now, whenever I write a Pulitzer-prize-winning Sidebar contribution, I always listen to music to help inspire me. Do you listen to music to help inspire you while you work, too? If you do, what inspiring music do you listen to? Backstreet Boys, or Jonas Brothers?

A: I sometimes listen to music while I work, but it’s usually strictly background noise. Maybe it affects my work more than I’d like to think. There’s this great artist, Leif Inge, who slowed down Beethoven’s 9th, just edited it without altering the pitch so that it would take 24 hours to play. It’s great and cosmic. It sounds like the universe expanding and contracting. You can stream it online for free; I do that sometimes. Although, I’m always looking for inspiration in all sorts of mediums. I’ve decided it’s irresponsible to go more than two weeks without purchasing new music. I don’t ever want to not be in the middle of a book. There are too many smart people out there creating wonderful things that need an audience.

Q: I’ve heard that artists tend to not make a lot of money because they are busy being artists and artists tend to not make a lot of money. Are you rich, or are you poor? Have you been forced to take a second job, or are you able to live solely off the income you make from your dead animal portraits?

A: By day, I am a graphic designer. I am neither rich nor poor. I work at a small design firm not far from my home and put in some freelance time on the side. I try to spend as much time with illustration as I can. This keeps me clothed and fed, keeps my rent paid. While I’ve worked with some great clients and created some pieces I’m genuinely proud of, there’s a clear distinction in my mind between the commercial work I handle and the things I make on my own time. The two come from totally different places and mean entirely different things. I think the biggest difference for me is that when I’m working on a self-initiated piece, I feel there’s full potential for me to make a discovery. I think that’s the comically tragic and misleading goal of the artist, really—to happen upon something new, to actually create—that is, to make something from nothing. I’ll let you know when I’ve got that down. Through it all, though, I’m slowly learning to manage my time and productivity, prioritize. Not an easy task.

Q: Have you ever been able to travel to see famous art pieces? Like, have you ever been to the Cistern Chapel or the Lube? If you have, was it really, really great like everyone says it is, or was it just really, really boring like everyone says it is?

A: I haven’t left North America. Of course, I’ve been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Moma, the Guggenheim, the New York museums. I’ve seen all that the National Archives has to offer in lovely D.C. Plenty of things from art history books that are beautiful, significant and moderately moving. I never get bored in those places. A few years back, though, I was at a children’s illustration museum in Massachusetts that had some great work. I got to see some of Eric Carle’s very hungry caterpillars. That was a small pilgrimage I won’t forget.

Q: How much does one of your dead animal portraits go for these days? Do you take Visa, Mastercard, or wampum?

A: These pieces haven’t been priced. I’m open to offers but I don’t think I’d like to split the series up; I think it would be a disservice. I believe they’ve found some companionship and a sense of belonging in their collective afterlife. I accept PayPal, check, cash, wampum, or beaver pelts. I have sold a few pieces in the last year or so for actual American currency. One was through a great gallery in Louisville called the 930 Gallery. I had the opportunity to show some work there on a couple of occasions, and during one of these shows, recording artists Herman Düne came through to play in the gallery’s listening room. Apparently, David, who sings, plays guitar and writes songs, purchased my print. I was really excited about that. I love his music and he’s also a very talented visual artist. That was a huge compliment. I haven’t met him or had a chance to thank him personally, so a big public thank you to David from Herman Düne!

Q: As you well know, a genius artist must acquire perseverance and courageousness to make genius art because it takes a lot of perseverance and courage to make genius art. Also, as you well know, a genius artist must perform a sort of self-incarceration to be able to acquire perseverance and courageousness because perseverance is only produced in the prison and courage can only be conceived in a cage. What’s your prison/cage-residence like, then? Do you have enough room in there for me? If you do, can I come live with you? (thanks)

A: Not long ago, the folks I live with and I set out to build ourselves an ice palace, a snow fort, an igloo. It comfortably housed the four of us, but it was cold. We had candles inside—four grown men, building a snow fort, and then hanging out inside, spending the longer half of a Saturday doing so. It was the very fuel I needed to sustain me for no less than three years of tortured productivity. The roof has since caved in, and I think grass is showing through the floor. I think we could work something out in the way of rent there, but it’s gonna cost you a pretty penny. We’ll have to fly snow in daily from the far north to maintain it. The ongoing construction costs will be huge. It might be worth it. Wireless internet is provided.

Q: It’s common knowledge that whenever an animal dies, a fairy comes to take its soul to Animal Elysium. Why do you always leave these fairies out of your illustrations? Do you have something against fairies or something?

A: I like to pursue in my work the suggestion of the fantastical and the metaphysical. I often think more can be said of the spiritual by way of omission, by abstract inference, than by reference…what I mean to say is, I post all of my fairy drawings exclusively on my page at deviantart.com.*

*For those of you who prefer dead animal portraits, visit David’s other webpage, www.davidsankey.net.

Ms. Megan Michelle is a former Classics Major, a proud Preschool Teacher, a greatly-skilled Goatherdess, and a full-time Romantic who has always loved the Living Logos. Feel free to cyberspacingly stalk her here.

Green Frog (Rana clamitans melanota)

Place of Incident: South Main Street, Pennington, NJ. Date and Time of Death: Between the hours of 7 and 9 a.m., October 13, 2009. Cause: Contact with a motor vehicle or cyclist.

Notes: Both feet were flattened, one partially severed. At present we are led to believe that it was not the immediate impact of the vehicle that proved fatal to the frog, as his vitals appeared to be intact. More likely, trauma or perhaps even eventual starvation as a result of immobility ended the fellow’s life.

DAVID SANKEY graduated with a degree in Graphic Design from The College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State) in the Spring of 2008. He is getting used to splitting his time between north and central New Jersey. He enjoys art making of all kinds. For more of his work, visit www.davidsankey.net

Last fall Japanese photographer Hitoshi Toyoda presented two silent outdoor slide shows as part of the Time-Based Art Festival in Portland, Oregon. Toyoda only presents his images in a live setting—shot on and projected as 35mm slides, his photographs are almost entirely out of print or web circulation. The images are simple and incredibly sentimental: a seedling on a NYC windowsill eventually reappears as a vine of Chinese Lantern plants climbing along the fire escape; walks with the family dog along Tokyo side streets are shown through various seasons; or the single image of a fat cat in mid-air leaping across a tiny studio apartment.

I had picked up Hitoshi from his hotel room to take him to set-up for that evening’s screening. “Is this David?” he asked in reference to the music as an old tape of David Bowie’s Changes rumbled from the car stereo.

His “feature-length” shows, Nazuna (2003/2004) and spoonfulriver (2006/2007), are constructed from over 500 slides, which he manually advances on the slide projector. Sitting atop the 15-foot scaffolding I noticed he was wearing headphones, so I asked what he listens to during the “performance.” No music, in fact, a metronome, to keep his pace in case he gets nervous and starts moving too fast through the slides.

On our way to the second night’s screening, we noticed a black cat and white cat roughhousing on the sidewalk. There was a pause in our conversation. We looked at the cats and they paused too, peripherally aware of our attention. Obviously up to no good we agreed smiling.

A self-taught photographer, Toyoda has been working in the medium of slide shows for the past ten years. He writes, “I am trying to bind three dimensions of time together with delicate thread: the time, or the period in my life I photographed, the time passing inside of me while looking back at it, and the time the audience experiences while watching images.” The narratives that arise from Toyoda’s work are loose and suggestive and, like the material status of the images, unfixed. These are visual haikus, but long, meditative, and surprisingly familiar.

Mia Ferm currently resides in Portland, Oregon where she is a collective member of Cinema Project. She is a writer, photographer, and videographer and holds an MA in Cinema Studies from NYU.

Danielson Heart (Via)

The scales of contemporary art, in all of their massive tentacled complexity, are not tipped in the direction of sincere pathos. And no wonder… it’s really difficult to make work that is tenderhearted and not cheesy. In honor of Valentine’s Day, a mini-list of artists who have ridden that line gracefully:

Harrell Fletcher: His whole oeuvre can be considered to be a celebration of the peculiarities of being human–individually and in community–but one of my favorites is his video “The Sound We Make Together.”  A description from his website:

I had various groups of people from Houston: a baptist choir, a meditation class, a break dance group, dogs from a dog park, and ten other groups doing what they normally do but in the gallery space. The video projection sort of recreated them being there one after another.

Nola Avienne:  In a recent project, The Donor Wall, Nola gently and expertly drew blood from a long list of artists and made lovely monochromatic paintings out of each sample.  Straight from the heart.

Lee Mingwei:  I appreciate the simple and poetic effect of pieces like The Mending Project, in which gallery guests brought ripped items that the artist mended with brightly colored thread, or The Dining Project, where he made a meal for and dined with one stranger per day.

Lee Mingwei. The Dining Project. 1997. Installation view. Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York. Photo: Charly Wittock

You Are Beautiful: I wrote about this collective endeavor here, a little while ago.

Peter Bonde Becker Nelson:  PBBN’s video performances are an exercise in empathy.  Nine Monologues, for example, has him carefully lip-synching the voices of women describing femininity.  If the truest of true love is being other-centered, the proverbial walk in someone else’s shoes is a step in the right direction.

Gala Bent is a mother-artist-teacher living in Seattle who enjoys, among other things, this thought: between thesis and antithesis arcs the ever-loving synthesis. www.galabent.com

^ from Greta Pratt’s  Nineteen Lincolns, 2005 ^

Before the New Weird America was the Old Weird America.

An art show that circulated the U.S. in 2009 (and landed in Seattle at the Frye Art Museum) called The Old, Weird America: Folk Themes in Contemporary Art, takes its primary title from music/culture writer Greil Marcus.  In 1997, Marcus released a book, Invisible Republic, exploring the influence that recordings like Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Music had on Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes; the book was re-released a few years later as The Old, Weird America.  Harry Smith, John Cohen, and Alan Lomax, among others, can be credited with crucial roles in preserving recordings of folk, blues and gospel music before the generation that carried it in their bones passed away.  These compiled tracks, in which atmospheric on-site recordings were sometimes captured in kitchens or on front porches, give us a misted peek into an America that is and was truly weird.

To listen to these tapes is to be transported into an earthy and secret place—to go under the spell of the country’s collective ghosts.  Chairs creak, winds blow, babies whine, as voices wail, bellow and croon songs from older times, mother countries and bloody histories.  The picture of America painted by these voices is much more colorful and eerie than the tidy rendition that one might read in a textbook.

In this age, we are nothing if not skeptics of tidy histories, yet to re-frame the past is difficult.  Any retelling must borrow from standards of storytelling, or riff on the accepted versions of the past that we have in common, especially when the accepted versions have promoted questionable conclusions or notable exclusions.

The artists compiled in The Old, Weird America exhibit do just that.  Pieces like Dario Robleto’s science-classroom classification drawers (Shaker Apothecary [2007] shown below) and Sam Durant’s remixed museum dioramas  (Pilgrims and Indians, Planting and Reaping, Learning and Teaching [2006]) glory in educational reductionism: the desire to distill complex narratives into clean pictures with captions (on plaques for more authoritative effect).

Greta Pratt’s sincere Abraham Lincoln impersonators (one contemplative Lincoln shown above) are moving in their desire to capture a fabled personality on which we hang endless ideals of civic bravery.  Eric Beltz’s both irreverent and astoundingly beautiful graphite drawings of the Founders of America spin off of the same type of clichés with a dour backward glance.  Greil Marcus has also warned that “…it is a sure sign that a culture has reached a dead end when it is no longer intrigued by its myths.”  Looking at the work of these mostly thirty-and forty-somethings, it seems that we are still happy to paddle around in the wily wilderness of our shared and unfathomably complex past.

Listen to bits of old songs:

Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music

There is no Eye (Smithsonian Folkways)

^Dario Robleto, “Shaker Apothecary” (with “A Rosary for Rhythm” and “Salvation Cocktails”), 2007. Pine, hand-ground vinyl 45 rpm dance-craze records, various medicinal botanicals, carved bone calcium, typeset ^

Gala Bent is a mother-artist-teacher living in Seattle who enjoys, among other things, this thought: between thesis and antithesis arcs the ever-loving synthesis. www.galabent.com

Growth in American cities is often just an assumed fact. For many urban regions, the most pressing question of the last several decades has been how does one handle a growing megalopolis? However, the recent economic turbulence gripping the nation has helped shed light on a slow, simmering problem in a number of former manufacturing-based cities in the Rust Belt of the Midwest and Northeast. What happens when a city shrinks?

Several factors — some dating back to the 1950’s and before — have contributed to the ongoing woes of Rust Belt cities. Manufacturing’s steadily decline as a dominant industry in America, federal policy favoring suburban migration, and the Sun Belt’s rise as a center for both industry and population are just a few of the reasons why many Rust Belt cities struggle with the hollowing-out of their cores. For example, according to the U.S. Census, from 1990 to 2008 Detroit alone lost more than 100,000 residents. The Detroit News reported that in 2008 over 3,000 homes were torn down in the city. The problem is only exacerbated by the recent mortgage crisis. RealtyTrac calculates that the number of bank owned homes and those in pre-foreclosure in Detroit currently exceeds 10,000. The result is a large amount of vacant properties or empty space throughout the city.

Detroit is not the only place facing this problem. Other cities in Michigan as well as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (among others) are dealing with this same situation.  Some cities in the Sun Belt are also suffering due to the mortgage crisis and a recent over-reliance on the construction industry to fuel growth. One solution some are offering to counteract this crisis is to embrace and facilitate the “shrinking” of the cities in question.

To a great extent, this makes sense. Poorly maintained vacant buildings are a burden to many and can be havens for crime, environmental distress, and a general blight on existing neighborhoods. But, before one brings in the bulldozers, it would be good to think in a holistic, sustainable manner. Is it any better to simply have vast expanses of empty land, or worse, partially cleared tracts of rubble? What might be done with these new empty spaces?

Many have offered suggestions that revolve around greening the urban areas. Perhaps the former vacant blight could be reclaimed as green space while the thriving parts of the cities morph into nodes connected by light rail, rapid bus systems, and bike trails. Zoning could be changed in the existing, successful nodes to permit more infill development allowing for growth in the future while the new green space throughout the city remains untouched. Along with development as parks, some of the green space might also work well as vast urban gardens. Thinking in terms of holistic solutions, preserving clusters of structures may be a good idea. Could some of the residences be saved and offered to charitable organizations? Could creative new public/private/non-profit alignments be forged to the benefit of local government, businesses, and residents? Habitat for Humanity has already seized this opportunity in some neighborhoods.

And what about the arts?

Could artists and musicians be a part of the solution? Many cities already look to the arts as a tool for economic development and to a lesser extent, community development. Economists have noted that a crucial element in the development of successful arts communities is a lower cost-of-living. If artist-friendly public policy initiatives leveraging existing vacant housing stock were to be  greenlit in Detroit, could the city become home to a network of thriving arts districts in the next decade? What types of initiatives might be considered?

The second installment of this admittedly brief commentary will look at a successful arts-based urban redevelopment plan in a formerly blighted neighborhood. Until then, take an afternoon and examine your neighborhood, town, or city. Are there new opportunities for change? Although the Joni Mitchell song claims that you “don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone,” this time around, if we take some time to plan and be involved, we might know what we can have because it’s gone.

Michael is a doctoral student in urban planning and public policy at the University of Texas at Arlington. You can follow him on Twitter here, visit his website here, and listen to his band here.

I’ve been following Mark Weaver’s work on flickr for awhile. I enjoy his subtle playfulness and consistent design aesthetic. He’s done a lot a lot a lot of great work for Paste Mag!

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Will Bryant makes stuff as a freelance creative and is a member of the Austin based collective Public School. He and is young bride enjoy pedaling about town and having lunch dates on the east side.