U-Direct     #2     1995     Batya Goldman     Chicago, IL Blair Wilson     "Encino the Clown"      #355 -------------------------------------------- 1995 04 18 U Direct BW issue 2 & 3 $3 news/reviews/interviews/the official zine of the upc BLAIR WILSON / AFTER AN IN THE NIGHT PHONE CALL an interview by Michael Basinski ... its old Seattle of the fog, old Seattle the City in the shroud, old Seattle I'd read about as a kid in phantom detective books and I'd read about in Blue Books for Men all about the old days a hundred men breaking into the embalmer's collar and drinking embalming fluid and all dying, and being Shanghaied to China that way, and flats- Little shacks with seagulls Girls! footprints in the sand -Old mossy pile Jack Kerouac from Desolation Angels Deep in the Seattle night, every might in his studio beets, beats the soul, throbbing brain. heart beats the, blood of the poet beets, liquid bodies dancing like sugar plumbs. Seattle's Blair Wilson in his studio. Paint cans here. Drawing table. Age 28. For the last 8 or 10 years Wilson for each day, daily, con- stantly draws, paints, makes art. "I became an artist in high school," he says. "My drawings have appeared in hundreds of magazines. I can't begin to name them all. There are too many. I began sending out art years ago. I found out about Fact Sheet 5, I mean, way before Fact Sheet 5 became vogue or zines were popularized. I was attracted to them. I sent some work to Gunderloy, and he said he would publish my art work. I would scour each issue of Fact Sheet 5 and send drawings out relentlessly. I love zines. They are unorthodox and non commercial. I had as a goal to get my work out. I wanted to be a professional artist. And I like the zine medium. It's my way of showing my art work. The zine underground was accessible to me and a friendly place to publish. And I published." On the work, the art that Blair Wilson creates: "I do cartooning and also what I call illowork, that is illustrations for magazines and books. About 50 percent of the art that I do is black and white work. It's figurative, the work that readers see in zines. That is my illo-muse work. That's all figurative. But I also paint, and my painting is abstract. I call this component of my art: squigglism. My painting has an organic form of development." Those that recognize Blair Wilson's cartooning from his zine publications know that it is often highly charged erotic art. "Certainly," he says, "there is an erotic theme to my work. The figures describe sexual excitement. And they are also playful images. They are also transcendent." He recalls when he was in art school when he made drawing of a woman holding her breasts. He recalls with amusement that there were those that were offended and upset with his creation. "Certainly," he states, "my cartooning is not pornographic. As social criticism it is a statement of the banality of society." The zine underground often critiques the banal in American society. Wilson's work is in line with this fundamental philosophy. His zine art work is often blatantly sexual as an affront to the overt selling of sex of in our society. Therefore, his highly erotic work is at one point super-sexual as well as anti-sexual (antisexual as a affront to the selling of sex in America). And who are your influences?"The Surrealists and Dadaist. I remember being thirteen and seeing the work of Salvador Dali. Surrealistic ideas have been with me ever since." The Surrealists of course had a political agenda as well as an artistic one. And, as Wilson notes, there was a often more than just a small sexual innuendo in their work. Like the Dadaists and the Surrealists, Wilson joins philosophical art with the appeal of popular art. About small presses and large presses? "The small press is a constantly growing movement which is at war with larger presses but without lines or a line between them." How do you survive? "I am a dish washer. I do other restaurant work Friends help me." About your connection with Paul Weinman? -well, Paul wrote to me so I packaged up a pile of drawing and sent them off to him and he did the rest." The rest includes publications like Good Moming, Sweetie, Just Sampfing, and Your Nose Knows. What about the future?"Well, I'm in line, presently recognized, and waiting for this to be confirmed, for a Seattle Arts Award. For my painting! So, hopefully this year I'll be under contract with the City of Seattle to create art for Seattle's art collection. Amusingly, the nominating committee came down to my studio to see my work and one of the committee members recognized my cartoons. So I might be doing a cartoon or making a zine for the City of Seattle." And publishing?"Well, I started networking again after a layoff. I mean I network as much as my funds will allow. I'm working on a collaboration with Sparrow which I expect to be published in a rather large run, some thing like 1000, sometime in the next few months. This I'm excited about. The publication will first appear in New York City. And then here in Seattle, I'm working on a project I call Vitreal Anathema. How do you spell that'? I looked it up in the dictionary and I couldn't find it. This will also be published soon." So then deep in the Seattle night, after this phone call, Blair Wilson sinks into his liquid imagination and the erotic and the paint begin to flicker and then fire and Seattle's erupts and bums. "A night in Seattle." - Jack Kerouac. U-Direct, Publisher Mary Kuntz Press Editor: Batya Goldman Associate Ed.: Tim W. Brown Art Director Ashley Parker Owens Cover/inside Art: Blair Wilson Cover Design: Batya Goldman Office Manager: Alexis Carter Computer Guy: Anthony Shy De Paul Intem: Rachel Webster Send your comments, articles, artwork, comix, letters, reviews, review material (zines, film, music, literature, etc.) to Mary Kuntz Press, P 0 Box 476617. Chicago, IL 60647-6617. Reprints accepted with permission. SASE required for reply. Copyright reverts to owner. Zines