Peep your eyes on this: STRONG EYE CONTACT, making it’s way to it’s US debut at CAKE, with the young and the restless CHRISTOPHER ADAMS in tow!
SEC peep — Chris Adams is coming to CAKE!
werd
Thought Privates
CAKE DEBUT: Strong Eye Contact by Christopher Adams
In Christopher Adams’ Strong Eye Contact, the reader is led through a kaleidoscope of crystalline memory fragments. These fragments coalesce into one narrative track, guided by a quixotic, Buster Keaton-like figure. As this unnamed figure tries, with limited success, to be a typical American: using consumer products, failed vacations, fabricated family life, he also attempts to be a successful comic, much like the collection of pages he lives on.
The day to day saga is wet and alive with water colors, crayon, markers, and steady beats of spacious white deluges. Landscapes are populated with mountainous close-ups, cacti, abstracted-patterns, confusion, vast empty spaces, gaps — cartooning as a potent puzzle where the strangest magic happens inside the readers mind.
Christopher Adams was born in the New York Metropolitan Area. He is between 5′ 10″ and 5′ 11″. He does not eat animals. He is an artist and musician. His latest recordings are Baby Hair,Vegetables and Xmas Boogie. His artworks include videos and comic books. His first published comic is Period, released by 2D Cloud in the fall of 2012. CAKE will see the US debut of his first full-length book, Strong Eye Contact. He currently lives and works in Baltimore with his girlfriend and plants.
“Death is not an event of life.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein2D Cloud is a micro-press comics publisher and distributor based in Minneapolis, MN. Since 2007, we have published paper-craft art books, mini comics, and graphic novels by an assortment of both established and new/emerging creatives. Gravitating towards work that balances a distinct vision with narrative elements, we publish artists that both challenge and invite, draw and disturb.
Visit 2D Cloud’s website, and pick up Strong Eye Contact at Table 104 June 15 & 16th!
CHRIS ADAMS, the “ARTIST” of ‘STRONG EYE CONTACT’ will be at CAKE. He’s an interesting dude. Stop by and chat that fella up at the 2DC table.
YES!
Quick sketch of Jordan Shiveley, fellow MPLS micro-pub at Grimalkin.
Punch the clock, fake the flu, call in sick, close the blinds, and double up on the creamy mac and cheese.
Fuck I wish!
submitted some co-worker sketches to mpls zine at a pals nagging. this one didn’t make the cut. seems to be the only way i submit anything to anything. no time & my will power is sapped!
INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST: ELLEN REDSHAW
Could you tell us a little about yourself and your general interests as a cartoonist/artist/creative person?
ER: I have been spending a large portion of the winter/spring in India and
Burma for the last five years. This is a major focus of my life, and
has drastically changed who I am as a person and my creative
interests/aesthetics. When not in Asia, I can be found working manual
labor jobs in the rural midwest, taking part in weird plays and movies
with my wonderful friends and reading about traditional crafts and
esoteric/ecstatic religious experience and systems. I have always
loved to draw and it is an art form that fits well with my transient
lifestyle. I am primarily interested in narrative art and like to
portray travel experiences and my own life through a mystic and
surreal filter.Was there something in particular that interested you enough to be involved in the comic anthology Little Heart?
ER: I have known Raighne since high school and it was exciting to be part
of one of his projects.Why is marriage equality important to you?
ER: I think that freedom to choose one’s partner(s) and live in the way
that one chooses; be this marriage, a nonmonogamous lifestyle,
polygamy/andry or anything else that is consensual is a human right. I
think it’s insane that there are people in this world who think that
they have the right to say what lifestyle is right for another person;
a person they don’t even know.
The time that I have spent in other cultures, such as India where
arranged marriage is quite common (and from an outsider’s perspective
seems to work quite well for many people); and where there is a myriad
of different marriage systems has broadened my mind in regards to
relationship structures. There are traditions of one woman marrying
brothers among certain groups, tribal groups that are completely
matrilineal to the point where the woman’s male sexual partner does
not live in her family’s home but her brother is considered the
primary male caregiver of her child; and people who are married to
gods/spririts instead of or in addition to an earthly spouse.
I think that for a person or government to force their definition of
marriage or an intimate relationship on another person is very wrong.Are there any non-profit fueled anthologies of note that have sparked your interest in the past?
ER: No other nonprofit anthologies that I can think of.
Could you tell us a bit about your comic, how you approached the project, the tools or medium used in its creation, or what it means to you?
ER: My comic is a series of narrative stills from intimate relationships I
have had. I enjoyed expressing my desires through drawing. I used a
mystic/esoteric framework to show scenes from my own life.
I had been procrastinating on making the comic and decided the best
way to get it done was to do nothing else until I finished it, so I
got a room at a cheap guesthouse in Jodhpur, India and would work all
day long on the comic, using pan watercolors, micron pens, mechanical
pencils and some really crappy colored pencils. I had the general plan
of using a series of vignettes for the comic but I wasn’t sure about
what exactly I would do until it was done. One drawing fed off of
another. I always draw out a loose sketch in pencil, neaten it up in
more pencil, work in the color and then do finishing ink linework on
top of the color. I draw the main subjects before adding in background
such as garbage, trees and buildings or decorations. This is how I
have always drawn since I was a little girl although I didn’t like to
draw garbage then.Finally, what are you working on now (comics or otherwise)? Anything readers can look forward to?
ER: I am working on a group of 8 1/2 by 11 drawings in the same medium as
my comic Bachelorette. Each drawing is a different portion of my year,
but it isn’t a literal interpretation of it. The drawing I am in the
middle of now is a scene of bored workers at a sugar factory just
barely keeping the machinery running while pursuing their own
interests of reading, smoking, drinking booze or tea, looking at
themselves in a mirror etc.
There are also going to be several drawings from the time I’ve spent
in India in the past year including one about the nontraditional
relationship I was in there.
Snack sized interview I did with Ellen Redshaw per Little Heart earlier in the year.
