Interview

Warning: This interview may contain images with partial nudity.

Francesco D’Isa, Scene 360: You learnt how to draw in a Parisian bookstore. Then you drew in Morocco and Kurdistan, and once in a Turkish jail. I’d like to know more about your adventurous start as an artist.

Molly Crabapple: I grew up obsessively reading about Richard Francis Burton and Anais Nin. Being a weird and isolated girl, there was very little difference between books and reality for me. So at my first chance, I ran away to Europe!

"Octopus," pen, and ink finalized digitally. By Molly Crabapple.

Have computers and the Internet been an influence in your work?

I colour my commercial work digitally. And man, sans Internet, I have no idea if I would have had a career.

It is a challenge to make a living as an artist. It may require having a second job to make ends meet. Is being a model, lecturer, and owner of an art school an attempt to follow an artistic path? Is being an artist your top career choice?

When I was in college, I worked as a rather dubious naked model to pay the bills. You’re right art is a brutal business to get into, and while I can now pay the bills from my commercial and gallery work, it’s a wonderful thing to have the cushion of Dr. Sketchy’s and speaking fees.

Do you have any suggestions for young starving artists trying to make it in the industry?

Develop a distinct style. Move to a large city. Network your hindquarters off with writers, artists, curators, press. Be constantly on the lookout for opportunities and take every one you can get. Court the media. Have a slamming web presence. Don’t be a jerk.

"Stormy," pen, ink and gouache.

Is Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School a franchise or do you run the full business?

Dr. Sketchy’s is a licensed art event. Artists from around the world contact me seeking to start events, and, if we have similar visions, I help them set up Dr. Sketchy’s branches in their home towns. There are certain rules that a branch must follow to use our name, but I also allow a high degree of local diversity. I don’t want to be McDonald’s.The underground art scene is different in Singapore than it is in San Fransisco–and Dr Sketchy’s reflects based on this.

What’s your opinion about Burlesque being revived in the Western culture? (Do you think it is a symptom of another post-modern nostalgia, or maybe just a reaction to explicit eroticism on the Internet, in advertising and in art?

Man, I’m not sure for the larger reasons for it, but I can tell you why I started dancing. I wanted to perform, to wear glorious spangled clothing and live out some Toulouse Lautrec fantasies. I wasn’t a classically trained dancer, so there was no way I was going to be on Broadway. I also didn’t want to do 8-hour-shifts in heels or deal with stage fees, so I was never going to work in a gentlemen’s club. Burlesque provided a safe space to explore performance, costume, exhibitionism and a sort of exaggerated sexuality. I was never the best burlesque dancer in the world, but damn, did I have fun and tap into a brilliant community.

"Mocca Art Festival," pen, and ink finalized digitally.

“Scarlett Takes Manhattan” (2009) is the second book that you’ve collaborated with an artist, this time with John Leavitt. What was the process like working together? Who does what?

Me and Leavitt have been best friends and co-conspirators since college. He’s a brilliant writer, gifted cartoonist, and absolute bad influence. When we work on a comics project, we get together over booze and hookah and plot it out. Then, Leavitt retreats to his lair. He scripts the beast, with me contributing some lines, then makes a stick figure storyboard. I turn that into the finished art

I can see that your illustration style is influenced from European artists from the 1800s, especially British ones, such as Aubrey Vincent Beardsley and Kate Greenaway, and old comics from Winsor McKay’s Little Nemo. Who else has influenced your work?

Beardsley, Brueghal, Toulouse Lautrec. In terms of contemporary artists, I adore Zoetica Ebb, Travis Louie, Clayton Cubitt, and my man Fred Harper.

"Dorian Deconstructed," pen, ink and gouache.

You have an original, recognizable, and peculiar style as an artist and as a model. I read about your fascination with social, psychological masks. Are you or trying to seek beyond a “mask” or attempting to create a new and resistant “mask” through your artwork?

Back when I modeled, I was so aware of my own mask. I’d walk into a shoot feeling like a sleek, impermeable money machine. I’d laquer on the makeup, laquer up the ‘o, arch my back into some improbably pose. These days, I’d usually wearing a t-shirt with my hair fucked up, and I leave my artifice-fetish to my paintings.

Let’s talk about the annoying difference between illustration and art. I’ve never been in NYC, but it seems that the art scene has prejudice towards illustrators. And the West Coast with pop surrealist galleries, looks to be more friendly.

Definition of Illustration (from Wikipedia):

An illustration is a visualization such as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that stresses subject more than form.

I personally work consider your work as “art” and not illustration. What is your opinion about this?

Man, annoying is the right word for it. Most artists pre-19th century were really illustrators–including Michelangelo. They did paintings for patrons based on themes of their patrons choosing. Most fine artists now are really just illustrators with a single client: their gallery, who would have them pick one painting that sells the best and churn out increasingly polished copies until they die.

Photo of Molly Crabapple.

Your art is powerful with dominant, sarcastic women. You look like you portray some of these qualities, you are a confident person. These aspects are present in many women today living in the current century, i.e. they are more independent. This kind of reminds me of the movies of “Kill Bill” saga, women taking on dominant roles. Do you think there will also be a role change for men? Are men confused by all of what is happening with women?

I like manly men. I like guys with muscles and tattoos who can build stuff. Masculinity rocks. I don’t think a powerful woman should necessitate a weak man. How about Cary Grant and wisecracking Jane Russel of His Gal Friday as a model for the genders?

Lastly, do you have any upcoming events?

Besides Dr. Sketchy every two weeks for the rest of my life? Well, I’ll be speaking at “Pixel Art Show” in Brazil about my work. It’s my first time in South America, and I’m very excited! I always have a few secret projects up my sleeve.

Credits
Artwork Images © Molly Crabapple