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It’s 2001. I’m a graduate art student and I’m meeting with the eminent lino-cut artist Bill Fick (my professor at the time). We are going to meet the legendary printmaker Richard Mock. We meet up and get on the G train heading out to a sketchy neighborhood in Brooklyn, near the Nevins stop. Bill looks me dead in the eyes and says, “This guy is the real deal.” We walk up to his building, which was at one time an SPCA, right next to the projects. We get buzzed into the building. Richard greets us at the door. He is a giant. Just a bear of a man, but with the warmest, most sincere smile I’ve ever seen. When we get up to his place, the first thing I notice are tons and tons of lino-cut blocks. |
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Tribal Art – Dennis McNett
It’s 2001. I’m a graduate art student and I’m meeting with the eminent lino-cut artist Bill Fick (my professor at the time). We are going to meet the legendary printmaker Richard Mock. We meet up and get on the G train heading out to a sketchy neighborhood in Brooklyn, near the Nevins stop. Bill looks me dead in the eyes and says, “This guy is the real deal.” We walk up to his building, which was at one time an SPCA, right next to the projects. We get buzzed into the building. Richard greets us at the door. He is a giant. Just a bear of a man, but with the warmest, most sincere smile I’ve ever seen. When we get up to his place, the first thing I notice are tons and tons of lino-cut blocks. There are stacks of the damn things everywhere and it was clear from the live/work space that being an artist could involve making some sacrifices. Richard did politically charged prints for the New York Times for 18 years.
He showed us prints and gave me tons of info and folks to try to talk to about my work. He was just really generous with his time, especially considering that he was weak from dialysis just then. One thing that stuck with me that day was when Richard stopped talking, looked me dead in the eyes—just as Bill had done earlier—and said to me, “It’s very important to find your tribe, your people.” When he said that, chill bumps shot through me. Being there, with those two, was the first time since I had been in New York that I felt a connection with anyone. I felt encouraged and inspired. I was with part of my tribe, my pack.
That day really made me think of who my people were and where my influences came from. I didn’t pick up an art history book until I was 18 and I had been making things long before then; my influences were not out of the select stock of artist chosen by the historians. My early encouragement came from my blind great grandfather, who would look towards my drawings when I was four or five years old, pretend he could see them and flood me with compliments.
Later influences came from skateboarding. When I was 13 years old, there was a freedom of expression that you could only get from kicking hard as hell to build up speed and try a grind across a freshly painted concrete curb. The graphics on the bottoms of the boards were of unsavory characters and lots of skulls. Graphics like Courtland Johnson’s early 80s Powell Peralta boards and Pusheads Zorlac boards are burned into my grey matter.
The aesthetic of Thrasher Magazine at that time had the same dissatisfied, aggressive feel. Punk rock music and the album covers had the same flavor as the board graphics, the grinds and the whole damn scene. Later, I came across German Expressionist woodcut prints, which had the raw, energetic nature of everything previously mentioned. Naturally, I was drawn to them and I later chose relief printmaking as my medium.
I moved to New York six years ago to do exactly what Richard had told me to do: find my tribe. Since my move here, I have been able to do skateboard graphics for Anti-Hero (a skateboard company). I can’t tell you what a compliment it is to see someone riding my board and knowing they picked it out from so many others. I have also met very inspirational and positive people like Swoon, Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston from Cannonball Press, Kathy Caraccio, Bill Fick and of coarse, Richard. These people make me want to continue making things and to shoot for something bigger.
When my time is up, if I can look back and see that I’ve encouraged someone in the way my great grandfather, Bill Fick or Richard Mock did, or all the people who contributed to the skate and punk rock scene—if I can keep someone from giving up—I will be truly grateful.
