A few weeks ago I asked if anyone had any questions for us. Well , here they are .
Adrian Asks:
What's the key to keeping your art and living situations alive being self-funded and all? I want in on the secret. I mean, I know sacrifices and MAJOR decisions need to be made, and setting your priorities straight, obviously. I take my art very seriously, but I still have to work a terrible job to pay my rent and chemicals/paper/photo supplies with barely anything to live on, and I have a serious record/book habit. What's your deal? Does the Seripop conglomerate of awesomeness stay alive on their having fun with printing all day long, every day? Does it have anything to do with where you live? I've always thought that every place is the same, no matter where you live. But i'm starting to doubt that. Maybe I need to move to Montreal? Studio space is non-existant where I live. I have to print photos in my small bathroom tub living with two roomates who always seem to have to take a shit. Hi Adrian!
Our secrets are simple : we live cheaply and simply + work constantly. We avoid buying things we don't don't need (other than treating ourselves with books or records from time to time) , and though our income from most jobs we take on is pretty modest , we try to ALWAYS have several jobs on the go to keep us afloat. Apart from that we keep a steady hustle from selling our prints online and in stores AND are lucky enough to have a few bookstores/distros and record stores/distros that trade goods for prints or art services so our addictions aren't too expensive.
The first 3 years of Seripop we lived VERY lean and pretty much didn't buy anything other than food and art supplies. We were determined to create as much work as humanly possible and to get it seen by as many folks as possible . This got us a bit of notoriety and got our machine rolling , so to speak.
Montreal IS a relatively cheap city to live in , though it is gentrifying fast. For us , founding a co-op space to share with many other artists (there are 23 of us!) allowed us to have a large , centrally located studio we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise. We found a warehouse and with our friends did all the construction/renovation work ourselves.
Now we have been in this space for 4 years and share a total of 3300 sq ft with our studio-mates. I'm sure in most cities there are artist co-ops you can join , universities you can work or volunteer at (and get lab time ) , or affordable real estate you can covert to a shared work space. Find places to sell your photos , don't be scared to do some commercial work in order to buy supplies for your personal work and do whatever it takes to get your photos seen and your skills in demand.
Show in galleries , make zines of your pics , submit to papers , magazines , blogs and zines. Do some pro-bono work for local charities .
Brendan asks:
First show/concert? Chloe :Is it bad that i don't even remember what bands played? It was summer '91 and after my first show ,I was hooked and going to 'em, 2-3 times a week. Pretty sure it was a local band bill at Porter Hall (in Ottawa)
Yannick: A local show with Subb and Les Marmottes Aplaties in '94 (St. Jean, QC).
Preferred pens or other materials for drawing? Chloe : Rapidographs
Yannick: Any kind oF pen really.
Brian asks:
How can an artist(s) tour like a band? How would you break even? Hi Brian.
The first thing is to keep costs low, if you are traveling in a car or van , travel with another artist and do joint shows. If traveling by bus , rn'r. Avoid eating out as restaurants are giant money suckers! Instead hit up grocery stores to buy ready made stuff or stuff you can make with minimal prep. We tend to eat lots of homemade sandwiches on the road and we always have various nuts , fruit , carrot sticks and trail mix to snack on.It's way cheaper than hitting up fast food places and you'll be healthier.
Next is to consider WHAT you are showing and how salelable is it.
If you make multiples of any type (photos , screenprint ,letterpress , litho , zines , comix ect) it's pretty easy to both carry and sell . The key is having stuff that you can sell under 30$.
If you are showing paintings or more expensive work , it might be worthwhile to make a some prints , a zine or small artist book of your work ect.
Badges and t-shirts work well too.
If you are organized and contact places in advance , artist centers , universities , community centers ect might be will to to have you do a lecture , talk or workshop that you can collect a fee for (depending on you level of experience , if you are green don't fret , craft fairs or d.i.y spaces might still be happy to have you). And some galleries will pay your travel expenses. if you are like us , you'll mostly be showing in more D.I.Y spaces that don't have any money at all but you should try to show at at least a couple "official" type places . This will look on on your C.V. for the future , help you break even and be a great way to meet artists outside of your circle of friends.
Art or craft fairs are also a good thing to plan your tour around , if there are any that cater to the type of work you do, it might be a good starting point. We've set up a tour around music festivals that we'd sell our posters at , and art festival we were invited to show at and around a Flatstock poster convention .
The 3rd thing is to make people aware or your art shows. We've made tour posters that we sent out to all the organizers , contacted the media in each city and bought banner ads . We also got a website to "sponsor" a tour we did with free banner ads.
By doing these things , and by often pairing up with local artists or bands , we managed to break even on our costs. It actually was easier than breaking even on a band tour!
Jason asks :
1. What started u guys in the art/printmaking/music scenery? I (Chloe) go started with printmaking by doing zines in my teens , Yannick in art school. We'd both been involved in the punk / experimental music scenes in our cities from our teen years on. Both of us started as spectators , then promoters , then began performing towards the end of high school.
Surprisingly , it took us each many years of printmaking and music making before we got together and started making posters in order to tie our 2 interests together.
2. Do u guys do collaborations with other Artists/Musician-artist and if so are you selective of who you choose?
Of course we're selective! Our time is pretty limited cause we have so much stuff on the go and generally we only collaborate in real life settings (where we can jam together). We like to work with friends (old and new) who's work we respect and admire.
3. I am an Art/musician of sorts and I do printmaking when I can ,its a long and rewarding process how long do the prints you guys wonderfully make take??? Including drawing and layout , usually 4 days.
4.What are your influences in art and music? How have they shaped what you do now in your artwork and music???? --Art influences :
Philip Guston, Jim Lambie , Saul Steinberg , Vittorio Fiorruci , Keiichi Tanaami,
Wiktor Gorka ,
Jan Mlodozeniec ,
Eduaordo Munoz Bachs , Mark Beyer , Jelle Crama ,
Gunsho ,
Zeloot , Simon Bosse ,
Bongoût.
Musical influences : Captain Beefheart , Voivoid , Black Flag , Arab On Radar ,
Fat Day ,
US Maple ,
Pussy Galore , Harry Pussy , Sightings ,
Lake Of Dracula , Mars , Emerson Lake And Palmer , Gong , Batucada music, Throbbing Gristle, Royal Trux , Slayer.
The shaping is by osmosis , inspiration and having our brains wrenched open and filled with greatness.
5.There any music/experimental music and art that you would NOT do? Or are you guys open to anything within taste and reason? Well , with both our band and our art , we like to shift focus every once in awhile and bring in new elements and new ideas. Or main goals are to be honest to ourselves , do work that we find personally interesting and challenging and keep evolving. So I guess what we would not do is stuff we aren't interested in.
MP asks :
What kind of ink are you using? Speedball? We actually print with acrylic and latex paint.It's a trick we learned from
Henriette Valium.
Where to get the best and cheapest supplies in Montreal or internet? In Montreal we buy our chemicals , squeegees , blades , screens and even our press at
Cosmex and buy our paper in bulk at
Technolith.
How do you come up with your layers and transparency color to get these effects?
We've always been interested in pushing the medium of screenprinting , thus are very into overlays , split fountains and other such trickerys. We use a light table to plan out our layers and are very generous with the transparent base while printing. we usually work everything out on photoshop in advance .
I'd suggest studying upon color theory and experimenting.
Isn't screenprinting toxic (chemical cleaning product)? Dangerous to do that at home on a long time basis? Quite possibly. we've done it at home and know many others who have. None of us are dead but who knows what will happen down the line.
Obviously , the more ventilation you have the better and a hood vent is great but can be expensive. We keep 2 fans in our washout area , one to push the air , the other to suck it.
We also open the windows when working with reclaimer or dehazer. Obviously this is not the perfect scenario.
Wear that respirator and make sure it's well fitted and . Store it in airtight container and change the filters often.
What kind of paper are you using? We don't have a particular brand we stick with. We generally go for white stock between 8 and 12 points. white because it's easier to control overprint colours that way and thin stock because are editions gets pasted in the streets. we buy all our paper at technolith so we are somewhat dependent on what's available. When we find stock we like we buy crates of it.
Neither of us are into fussy expensive art paper and feel that unless you are some hotshot "fine art" type who sells work for major $$$, the cotton rag paper is a waste of money.
Ethan asks :
What advice can you give me. I always post art, shirts, whatever on myspace/my wordpress/livejournal/etsy and it seems like I'm not getting it. I don't think enough people are seeing my stuff. What do I need to do? Even locally, what can I do? Knoxville just seems to be a dead end. Well I don't think ANY city is a dead end. I bet if you were to set up an art show in town with your own work + work from a few artists you like and are in contact with , folks would come out of the woodwork.
People respond well to physical objects , if you make zine compilations of your drawings (and perhaps drawings from other artists you like) , it can be a good way to folks remember you.
In any case , I think "real life" interactions are better than online ones.
Ryan Asks:
What were some expenses you ran into when starting the co-op? Well our main expenses were rent and construction materials. When we first got the space , it wasn't set up at ALL so we needed a few months to get shit together. By throwing a few parties we made the money need to transform the place into rentable shape.
What would you say the best method of getting your name out there and making it stick?
Hmm this one is tricky. For us , blogging , touring the US and Europe with our work , sending our work to magazines , hosting workshops , submitting to group shows , entering competitions and networking online helped out a lot. We still have a ways to go.
As for making your name stick , I think the most important thing is to always be doing new work and try to showcase it as often as possible.
Shawn asks :
I'm going to start being an artist and printing soon and I know this question is dumb, but how do you actually print? Get this book , it has everything you need.
2. And what kind of paper? We use 12 or 10 point offset stock we buy from a local factory. Honestly though, you can print on any kind of paper.
3. And what kind of "things" do you use, do you scan and stuff? We render our work in pen and ink , sometimes a bit o' collage. Everything is worked out in black and white , scanned and mounted in Photoshop. We then print out enlargements at a local copy shop and use these enlargements as films. We bring them to our studio and begin the screenprinting process.
Our important tools : technical pens , pencils , tracing paper , drawing paper , speedball pens and nibs , brushes , light table , india ink, fw acrylic inks , x-acto knives , type sample books , old magazines and books , glue sticks , whiteout, xerox machines , scanner , powerbook.
4. How do you scan a bigger piece of work? We generally work small and blow our work up so for us , this is not an issue.
5. What's overprinting like? Overprinting is simply when you print over top of an area that's already been printed. We do this often because:
a) If you work with transparent inks , you can create extra colors by overlaying inks on top of each other.
And b) because sometime we like to cover our drawings and line work with big blobs of color to add some mystery and abstraction.
There are many ways to use overprinting to create more personal work , if's all about experimenting and developing a style.One word of advice though : when overprinting it's VERY important that your ink is properly dried to avoid paper distortion. ideally have a dehumidifying in the room what the prints are drying and a couple of good fans.
6. Can you scan paintings? Yes you can. And you can make screenprints of them by seperating the colors into CMYK channels in photoshop and printing out each layer.
Import your image into photoshop , convert it into CMYK , go into channels and select each chanel seperately and copy it into a new window. In each window you now have a greyscale file .
Now you can adjust the contrast of each layer.
now convert your image to bitmap and select halftone.
You will have to select lines per inch and angle.
The finest you can go in lines per inch is to take your mesh count number and divide it by 5.
For the angle the standards for screenprinting are as follows :
K:45
y:90
C:105
M:75
Once you have some experinece with seperations , you can mess with theangles for fun.
You can also do
index seperations , which is a bit more complicated but nicer.
7. How do you print on shirts? Pretty much the same way you print on paper although registration gets tricky for more than one color. For great advice on building a cheap and easy shirt press check out
this book
8. How can I get bands to want make posters for them? Well we did it by making posters for our own band and our friends' bands . Gradually by word of mouth local promoters starting asking us and then out of town bands started asking us. The best way to get bands to wanna work with you is to do quality work in a distinct style and then get your work seen by people.
Dustyn Asks:
HI THERE
MY NAME IS DUSTYN, I LIVE AND ATTEND SCHOOL HERE IN INDIANAPOLIS, IN. I AM ALMOST FINISHED WITH MY UNDERGRAD AND AM LOOKING FOR POTENTIAL PLACES TO MOVE WITH POSITIVE PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE ENVIRONMENTS. IVE JUST BEGUN TO LOOK AT POSSIBLE RESIDENCIES AND INTERNSHIPS OF SORTS, STUDIO PRACTICE RELATED, THAT I FIND ON THE INTERWEB. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION REGARDING THE MATTER THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL.
ANYHOW, AS A PRINTMAKER I WAS CURIOUS WHAT ALL WAS AVAILABLE AT THE LOCAL CO-OPS IN YR AREA, AND WHERE IS YR AREA? MONTREAL?
&
HOW ARE YOU HANGING THE PRINTS IN THE GALLERY SETTING, A WHEATPASTE? ON BUTCHER PAPER? WITH ACRYLIC INK? OIL BASED INK? AND THEN REMOVING THEM... PEEL THEM OFF SAND AND REPAINT. THE LAYERING LOOKS BADNESS TO THE MAX. Hi Dustin! In Montreal there are several DIY artist studio spaces , including ours , The 100 Sided Die. You also have more professional places like
Atelier Graff, that are artist run printmaking studios that get gov. funding.
Our installation work (like everything we do) is all printed with water based acrylics or latex. It's on 8pt white offset stock and is wheatpasted to the wall. Clean up after the show is done with wet sponges and wallpaper scrappers. You will wanna repaint after.
Melo & Logan ask:
We are a couple who wants to work together, we took this decision 2-3 weeks ago. we want to make books, prints etc with a "DIY ethic"... It cames not from anywhere. We take this decision because we are pretty angry and disappointed by stuff like: depend of a boss, a publishing house, a gallery/Art stuff, people who are asleep, those who have projects they never do, those we have to push or all this kind of stuff...
And well, as we see that from here you are a pretty good model for that, Bongout and Le Dernier Cri too. Sort of fairy tale...! So thanks!
This couple's work is like a beginning from zero. And it is a nice thing. We have to build, develop a sort of common personality in our drawings.
How do you begin all that stuff?
Do you think the internet may be a solution to promote our work and maybe get jobs? Because we are kind of shy awkward social retards, we don't know people (you know those people who can make you work etc...) , no bands around, just some friends we can count on one hand.. We live in a small city in Europe, so no emulation here.
You think it is just a combo of hard work, production,promotion on the web and originality, if it is possible today...?
We want not to be billionaires, just make a living of what we love to do.
We are motivated but a bit afraid like a first day in school... Maybe we know some answers but we need communication, advices about that.
So here it is.
Hey guys ,it's possible but it's difficult. At least in Europe you have the advantage of cheap and reliable travel by train . AND great quality screen ink that's affordable (
Unico is excellent) So make stuff , get it online , stop being shy , start meeting folks and travel around to do art shows. Put your stuff in stores in different cities and reach out to other artists to collaborate or exhibit together.
Most artists are shy awkward social retards (Yannick and I being prime examples) and it can be very hard but it's of upmost importance to network , at least a bit.
Plan trips to larger cities to sell your work at the consignment shops and attend some openings (vernissages) and try to meet people. Bring some small prints or books you can give away to artists you like. Contact people and send them stuff in the mail. If you wanna work with bands , get on the phone/internet and contact some promoters/booking agents or some local bands you can do stuff for to start out. Go to shows (if your town is too small for interesting shows , visit nearby cities) and talk to the promoters and bands. Show them what you do and if people like it , they will contact you. It's important that people know you in order to want to help you/work with you.
Good Luck!
ryan asks
Hello! :)!
I am a first year art school student in Auckland, New Zealand! I have just started screenprinting halfway through this year. I am now obsessed! I was just wondering if I could please ask you some questions to get some perspective.
How long have you been printing for???? We've each been printing for more than 13 years , but only 6 years of that has been spent printing full time.
How old were you when you started?I (Chloe) Started at 16 , Yannick started at 18 , We're both 30 now.
How long did it take for you to get the hang of the printing process/gain confidence in your ability????
Well we only started doing more complicated and ambitious work once we started Seripop in 2002. Right away we started talking shop with other printmakers and visiting their studios . This was probably the best instruction either of us have had , better than college or university. I'd say once we started picking the brains of fellow printmakers for tricks and watching them work our own printing improved 10 fold in about 8 months time.
How did you develop your unique style???? I guess it is just a whole lot of experimentation right??
The style we have now was a natural evolution over time. If you look at our early work on
gigposters.com, it looks little like what we do today. For us the important thing was to forget about what a poster is *supposed* to look like and start experimenting with form and layout.
This has made our work more personal and more satisfying .
How is a day in the life of Seripop spent? Get up around 9 , check emails , eat , gym , eat , blog , draw draw draw draw , talk to clients , eat , make photocopies , jam , go home , eat, draw draw draw , scan stuff, bed around 2.
' some days the draw draw draw is print print print and sometimes we go see bands and let them sleep on our floor. On those days we make brunch.
I really want to be able to screen print/make music all day/make gig posters,
Do you think it would be possible to make a living in New Zealand off screenprinting?
What I mean is do you get much overseas work? New Zealand is really small, so I would
most probably have to try and get work overseas. I guess the best thing I could do would be to utilize the internet right???? Most of our better paying work comes from the US and the UK . We built up a portfolio locally , doing stuff for friends on the cheap or pro bono and pimped ourselves online. Now we have an illustration agent in London who gets us work , this has been very helpful and allows us to earn a bit of coin to do our absurd art projects.
How do you print with acrylic paint?? Do you mix something with it? I have just been using mainly "Aquasheen" inks and fabric inks on paper and I can't seem to get the colours I want. It would be great if I could print with acrylics.
Yeah we do and we tend to mix most of our colours from scratch using CMYK paints .
How do you get that transparent layer overprint effect? Lots of clear base or acrylic medium. Be sure to let each layer dry very well before printing the next the avoid distortion or buckling.
Your
Derek asks
Hey guys. I, have a question. I am in a band called machinery from Grande Prairie Alberta and me and my band mate are making a 500 copy demo thingy and we are doing the artwork. Now i don't really have a question about how do the artwork but what I'm not sure about is how to size the pictures. Like, I'm not doing the layout and such so I'm just drawing what we like on the cover and back and whatever else were doing and sending the pics to Toronto for them to make up the cases i believe. So if guys could tell me the best way to go about doing this i would be very happy. Or what kind of programs are good for doing this kind of stuff. I'm a totally new at this. If you could tell me the best way to go about making album artwork it would be much appreciated.
Hi Derek ,
The best way to size images is to import it into Photoshop > Image > Image Size.
Elizabeth asks:
I know that you do not only work with print medium, but I have read that printmaking is still your favorite. What makes print your medium of choice? We like to work in editions because it allows our work to be disposable (for sreet postering or installation work) and to be in several places at once. It also allows us to sell our work for affordable prices and have copies to trade and give away.
Music is obviously a primary influence in your work. What type of bands do you like? Our main musical interests are prog , noise rock , psych and noise. We are also into art rock , hardcore , punk , thrash and death metal and garage.Many of the bands we like most bend and toy with genre definitions . In general we like stuff that is heavy and/or weird.
What are your other influences?
We are both heavily influenced by underground comix , Cuban and Polish posters and contemporary art. I give a list of a few of our important influences a few posts up.
What motivates both of you as artists?
Guilt and paranoia. We both feel an overwhelming need to "leave a mark".
And finally, what social and/or political context do you show in your artwork? What issues are important to you as artists. Well , we don't seek to be didactically political in our work. That said , our primary interest in poster making was to do "art" that would be displayed on city streets to be seen by any passerby. Our prints can be had cheaply or even free (for the savvy or those into bartering) and we feel accessibility is important.
I suppose our ideas about the distribution or art is pretty socialist -- make editioned work so that regular people can have it in their homes because everyone should be able to look at and interact with art daily. As people with pretty low incomes ourselves , prints and artists books are 2 things we can afford to buy from others and our apartment is pretty much a shrine/gallery of printmaking.
We also like to support non-profits and charities by doing graphics for them
Omar asks:
I want to know about the beginning.
How did you start with no money? Initially , we saved up a bit of money from our day jobs and bought some screens and a good power washer. We Did lots of contracts ,printing for other people , that allowed us to accumulate some gear and get a small studio.
Where did you get the courage? We just didn't want to spend our lives working at jobs we hated , the prospect terrified us and we saw some of our very talented friends getting old , bitter and quiting creative pursuits cause they were broke , frustrated or too tired after 9-5 in the salt mines.
We wanted a way to see ourselves still involved in D.I.Y for life , without losing touch.
So it was really a matter of being scared of growing old , bitter , lame and going "normal".
How did you convince other people to join in on your master plan and participate? Well we started REALLY small. The 2 of us had been playing in local bands since our mid-teens and when we were 21 we met (99) and started playing together and touring regionally in eastern Canada. On those tours we became friends with other , smallish bands that we'd in turn set up shows for and house in Montreal. Making posters was simply a way to get people out to the shows.
At a certain point the bands we were friends with started asking us to do art for them and it spread pretty quickly. We had promoters in Montreal , Ottawa and Toronto (all of whom we knew from our own band playing around) contacting us to do posters. One of the early posters was for The Hot Snakes and right away we got asked to do a record cover for Rocket From The Crypt , despite our total lack of experience.
We learned a lot doing it and it kinda made us look more legit so jobs starting slowly floating in. Over time , word of mouth spread and a few of the tiny local bands we did stuff for *cough*Arcade Fire*cough* became indie darlings and then international superstars, putting our work on the map.
What is it like for the first couple of years? EXTREMELY hard. In order to create a demand for our work , we churned out HUDREDS of posters in those first few years and even toured with our work. We didn't really know how to promote ourselves other than doing as many prints as possible to increase the amount of folks seeing it.
We often would print until 9 or 10 in the morning to get orders done , and lived off of the worst food ever. We are and had been health food nuts (we're both vegan and try to eat organic) so having to eat ramen for lunch was especially humiliating.
A few times , we'd collect bottles and cans at the rehearsal complex our band jammed at just to buy food and many months rent was paid by credit card.
At the same time , it was VERY satisfying and fun.
We'd go to fests to sell our prints and chat bands up , go to shows all most every night , and always have bands sleep on our floor (and stay up all night talking about art and music and listening to records).
We felt we were doing something worthwhile and that we were creating our own lives , despite the financial hardships and long hours.
I'm glad we laid that foundation and made the friends and connections we did while we where still in our early 20's and full of pep.
How did you manage to pay rent and feed yourselves while doing your art and music?
Hustling (both to sell our prints and to get jobs) , working insanely long hours (to do as many jobs as possible) , calling in favors , living on borrowed money , doing contract printing for other artists and designers and constantly having new prints to flog.
We were tireless self promoters for the simple fact , that it was the only way we could pay the bills.
If we could go back , I'd def. make sure we had more savings before quitting our jobs. I don't really advise anyone to do what we did , we were WAY too close to the brink of disaster , way too many times.
In 2004 , faced with arthritic knees and tendonitis , we had a few bands we were pals with play a benefit for us that allowed us to put a payment down on a used semi-automatic press. Once we had the press running , printing became much faster (and less physically taxing) so we were able to spend more time working on the actual designs , this helped us out BIG time to start to earn something resembling a *decent* living.
Nowadays , most of our time is spent on drawing and laying out work. The printing is relatively easy and fun.We still have months where we worry about covering rent and bills but they seem to get less and less frequent each year.
Did you ever find yourself bored or incapable of completing certain things, or were you able to just focus all day in whatever you needed to do?
Yeah , for sure.we got burnt out a few times.One poster we were doing for US Maple and Sicbay just never got done. We started printing it twice and both times had terrible registration troubles from the paper distorting. We were burnt , frustrated , hungry and BROKE so when our buddy Alden called us to come over for dinner , we just ditched the job half-done . I still feel bad about it , especially cause we're such
Sicbay /
Dazzling Killmen fans and it was Nick Sakes who hired us.
We're much better at pacing ourselves now so we don't get overbooked , I don't think a flakeout has happened in at least 2 years.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hopefully these replies shed some light for all you blog readers. Please feel free to hit me up for round 2.
"I have a question" as your subject line to info at seripop dot com.
xo
Chloe!
