White Buffalo Gazette
ISSUE # "Evil men secretly creating deadly new germs."
MAY 27 1995
OBSCURO SPOTLIGHT / BLAIR WILSON by Gary Usher
Surely all WBG readers have come across one of Blair Wilson's publications or one of his many contributions to zines, this article will give a little background on both the person and his art.
Blair Wilson was born an May 5, 1967 in Yakima, Washington, the youngest of three brothers. He has lived in the Pacific Northwest his entire life: Blackfoot, Idaho; Pendelton, Oregon; Monmouth, Oregon; and currently Seattle, Washington. He grew up in Pendelton reading Marvel Comics and eventually discovered Underground comix with art by some of his early influences, Robert Williams and S. Clay Wilson. His interest in art continued through high school where, through a contest at Western Oregon State College, he received a partial scholarship to that institution. He graduated from Western Oregon four years later, in 1989, with a B.A. in Art. "I did study art at college and I am self taught. My college experience was more of an introduction to conceptual and technical matters," is how Blair explained his education in a mail interview (1-20-1995).
The artist lists many influences on his current work be it fine art (dada, surrealism, expressionism), music (punk rock, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Bad Brains, X), cartoonists (Dr. Seuss, Charles Burns), literature (Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, William Blake, Poe) and various other individual artists (Dali, Munch, Beardsley, Miro). However, one major influence is "Mark Tobey, an artist from the Northwest who was inspired by oriental art and calligraphy to create a meditative form of painting.
Blair Wilson entered the small press network relatively early in it's existence, by way of the first issues of FACTSHEET FIVE in 1986 (then but a "xeroxed-digest sized zine"). He says in the previously quoted mail interview, "I sent them originals of drawings in trade for FACTSHEET FIVE-snowballed from there." It seems college studies curtailed heavy involvement in the small press network since Blair didn't start contributing to zines until 1989, with self-publishing starting two years later in 1991. That year also coincides with the first two biographical pieces on the artist, both used as references for this article, Cathy Adair's extensive biography "From the Studio of Blair Wilson" and an interview in LOLA FISH #11 (published in France!).
Blair Wilson's drawings and comic strips have appeared in dozens and dozens of publications worldwide. Here is as many titles as he could recall appearing in with a couple additions, most of these would probably be from the 90's: AMANITA (France); APPEARANCES; ARTE ARTE (Italy); ARTE POSTALE (Italy); ARTERIAL; BABY SUE; BACKLASH; BACKWOODS; BAKERS DOZEN; BEET; CITY LIMITS GAZETTE (McCleary); COMIC RELEASE; CULTURE CONCRETE; DBN; DIS; DISCORDER (Canada); DISCOTEXT (Canada); ENDING THE BEGIN; FACTSHEET FIVE; FARM PULP; FAT FREE; FORBIDDEN LINES; FRITZ; GYPSY; HALF TRUTH; HANGY THING; HEADPUMP; HEATHENZINE; HEMP; IGUANAGILA; JOURNAL OF SISTER MOON; LOLA-FISH (France); LOONACY; LO STRANTERO (Italy): MAXIMUM TRAFFIC; NORTHWEST OF HELL; NUTHING SACRED; ONE EYE OPEN, ONE EYE CLOSED; PEACE AND FREEDOM (England); RADIO VOID; RANDOM ENTRY COMIX; RANT; THE RAVEN; THE ROCKET; ROTTEN FRUIT; SALON; SCHMAGA; SHATTERED WIG REVIEW; SHOCKBOX; SHORT FUSE; SHRINK WRAP; SILVULLINEN (Finland); SNICKER; THE STRANGER; SUBCONCIOUS SOUP; TRANSMOG; UNO MAS; untitled; URBANUS; THE VILLAGE IDIOT; WAFFLE; XIB; YELLO SUBMARINE; ZEN MYSTIC.
Blair Wilson has self-published 21 books of his drawings and strips which stand out because of high printing quality. Many of them present adaptations of these poets works, Sparrow, Hal Sirowitz, Paul Weinman. Here is a list of titles in roughly chronological order ... PARALLELS & REBUTTALS; YOUR NOSE KNOWS; DRAWINGS: BLAIR WILSON; THAT'S COOL; ART=+START; WHITE BOY WONDERS ABOUT SEX; ME, 1967-1992; PUBLICATION CREDITS; GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER; MY DEAD GOLDFISH; TREED PROOFEE; FROM HELL TO BREAKFAST Number one; ASPHALT ANEURYSM; FROM HELL TO BREAKFAST Book Two; and a one-hour video "The Art and Life of Blair Wilson". Blair's current project is to produce 2 paintings, 12 cartoon drawings, 24 copies of a chapbook containing those 12 cartoons and a color cover for the book. This is a $7500 commission from the Seattle Arts Commission, as a part of their Seattle Artists 1995 Visual Arts Program. He was selected for this honor from a field of 200 applicants.
This writer thinks the reason for Blair Wilson's continued popularity is the sheer variety of work his creativity produces, following are some comments an samples of his myriad styles: "Treed" by Paul Weinman (TREED PHOOFEE) depicts a truly twisted courtship between a tempted man and a woman with unusual abilities such as making a tomato slice go in and out of her mouth while her pet mouse appears in one eye and then the other, a lot of other artists couldn't keep up with wild imagery like that, but Blair manages to make all the mystic goings-on believable (look for the winged penises in panel two).
I have two examples of Blair's paintings both similar in form but conjuring very different images, C#72 looks like some transparent vivid creature floating through a sea of black and white plankton, while C#94 is a mass of squirming beautifully colored organisms each one different from the one next to it. These pieces are very appealing, but near impossible to classify or describe.
Blair is probably best known for his illustration work which is very widely published (see above listings), and incredibly varied. First, there are the conte crayon and charcoal nudes displayed in DRAWINGS and PARALLELS AND REBUTTALS; Second, there are the instantly recognizable "dot-pattern' distorted caricatures, in the two volumes of FROM HELL TO BREAKFAST you can see drawings from 1991 to present, this reviewer is amazed at some illustrations where the artist's painting and illustration techniques seem to merge which produce some amazing pen and ink effects (check out FROM HELL TO BREAKFAST #2 pages 6 and 16).
If you are interested in trying some of these publications most of them are only a $1.00 each from: Blair Wilson, P.O. Box 45654, Seattle WA 98145-0654.
