| R. Land (June.08 issue) |
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| Written by Jeff Clark | |
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Page 4 of 4 Have you ever considered opening a store? “Sort of, in a way, I’ve entertained it, but ultimately, I think if it were 24-7-365, I don’t know if it would be interesting to me. There are places like Joe’s (the East Atlanta coffeeshop) where I try to make it a repository for my work.” You’ve also done very well for yourself doing T-shirts and stickers… Extracurricular marketing, I guess.  “Yeah, I guess one of the things with that is, as much as I like to have all the mass produced stuff that I’ve always done, whether the switch plate covers, or T-shirts, all that’s kind of been a part of my little universe, but I’m not full on committed to it in a way. And I don’t know how much of that has to do with the fact that it is a really commercial kind of thing, that I’m mass producing all of this stuff to sell…Like, Urban Outfitters carried Loss Cat stuff a couple years ago. They bought the rights to have that for X amount of time. It was Loss Cat prints, and some other merchandise. And that was cool, but as much as I like seeing that, and it’s good money, it’s not really my mission overall. In terms of breaking it down to where I have to own a store and keep it stocked all the time with a specific type of thing, and keep it interesting, like I think Keith Haring had a shop in the ’80s, that’s cool and it’s an art project in its own way, but it’s also very distracting, because you have to consider it in everything. I’d like to have a little bit less of a known path, you know. I like it to be a little more adventurous. And not to have one more distraction, and if it’s a store, it’s going to be a fairly massive distraction. It’s like owning a big dog, and every time you wanna go out of town, it’s like, ‘What about Marmaduke?’ (laughs) So it’s not really that interesting now. Maybe if I get to be an older man, things may progress in a way where I think it’s important to do that. But right now I don’t think it’s that important. And I’m always hopefully going to have a stake in this city, as much as I love other places. People always ask me why I don’t move to New York, and it’s a legitimate question, I guess, and I did split my time between New York and Atlanta back in the late ’90s, I’d go back and forth…but there’s something that I like about this place. I’m finding less and less about it that is Southern, but I still feel like it’s connected to all things Southern. As much as Atlanta doesn’t feel like what you would define as a Southern city, when I would go to New York, I’d spend two or three weeks there, and I would absolutely get immersed in that, and get involved with little things, and have a great time, but I was always looking forward to coming back here for some reason.”It’s not as exhausting here. “And it’s so easy to get things done here. And be effective here, both here at home and stuff that’s exported to other places. It’s so easy to man the helm from Atlanta, and be relevant on some level. I think it’s important that people like us stick to it, and be a part of it. Who are we if we just pick up and move to the next cool city? Part of it’s about ambition. I know so many people in New York that are doing really cool things, but their life is so completely guided by their ambitions, to the point where everything that is involved in their life is part of that ambition, and everything else there’s no room for. Not that they’re doing anything wrong, but it’s just, they’re so committed that that’s all they have time for.”  Tell me then about what you’re doing nowadays and what’s going to be in this show.“There’ve been a few things I’ve tried in the last couple months that I thought were just stupid ideas five, ten years ago, but for some reason they seem appropriate now. I can’t think of anything in particular. It’s just interesting how things over time become appropriate and more interesting than they might have been in the beginning. For whatever reason. You’re conditioned to understand that certain things are good, or are cool, or whatever, and then as time goes on you realize that…it can go both directions, too. It can be something you’re just not ready for when it comes out, some sort of music or art, and then eventually over time you understand it. It’s waiting for you, twenty years from now – see, I told you I was good! Or else something that’s sucky, or mediocre, over time you appreciate it more. Like some sort of ’80s music act… So anyway, I’m rambling because I’m trying to pinpoint where it is that I’m at, or what I’ve been doing, but it’s all over the place. But in putting on a thing like this, you want to show a little bit of the old school – you know, return to some old formulas, because I haven’t completely abandoned all of the old formulas. Maybe give ’em a bit of a new bump or twist. And I also want to experiment, and try a lot of new things…And then usually at the event, everybody’s having a great time, and it all makes sense. Especially the last hour of the night, when everybody’s drunk off their ass, and dancing to whatever music’s being played. That’s the thing, as much as I say I’m not as much inspired by visual art as I am other things, like old movies, or new movies, or music, the same can be said about an art event – I want it to be something that’s very lively and very connected to everything in the community. I mean, the stuff I was doing in the ’90s was barbecue ribs, fried chicken, malt liquor and Miller High Life. That was the fare for the event, and the music. And for a long time in the ’90s, I think the only people that were really doing this kind of thing were like Youngblood – those girls, before they even had their gallery, were doing house shows. And I was always having these house shows. I don’t really remember anything else that sticks out. But now it’s like, not only do you have that kind of thing happening, you have tons of art parties in Atlanta, you have galleries like Beep Beep, Youngblood, and four or five new ones that have popped up in the last four or five years.” SummeRLand runs June 28th through July 30th at 1154 Euclid Ave. in Little Five Points, Atlanta, GA. The opening night event goes from 8pm-midnight. |
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