Get to know the staff at Gothic Funk Press! Elisabeth Blair was part of the original Gothic Funk movement that started in 2004. This past month she agreed to take some time out of her very busy schedule and talk about her work at Gothic Funk Press and other exciting projects in the arts.
Gothic Funk Press: So I’ve known you for over ten years now, and throughout that time I’ve been struck by your extreme versatility as an artist. What do you think are some of your significant projects over that time period?
Elisabeth: Wow. Well, ha. I feel like I only began real production when I began singing. Much of those 10 years have been preparation for projects, I guess. But I guess I could list some things: 6 or 7 years now of NaNoWrimo has produced about 2 neat novels-in-progress. I wrote and recorded Country of Origin, and the two mini albums. I’ve written a ton of poetry, which I’ll be organizing a lot in two weeks when we have a sort of writing/submission weekend here. Any of my publications I would consider significant (on my site under ‘writing‘). An unreleased album of songs recorded on the fly and improvised. Improvisation in general, the informal study of it. Painting and drawing, which began in earnest about 2009 and which has now led to this awesome artist residency I’ve just been awarded, and hopefully more in future, which I’m applying for (but also for music, and poetry).
Basically, I see my goal in life as this: I want to tell stories. Fictional stories by me and others, and stories of dreams I or others have had, and stories from the elderly (I’ve got a small catalog of recorded interviews with the elderly, which I’ll soon be adding to, through the Rogers Park Historical Society), stories based on fact but embellished through art. Stories of the subconscious. Maybe, you could say, I devote myself to telling all the stories on the fringes of storyland. The ones that would get overlooked otherwise.
I have a huge collection of antique snapshots which i’m proud of, and which I’ve written a ton of poetry about, unreleased stuff. And then my recent forays back into photography (my degree) through animation, which I’ve made up as I go along, and have stubbornly really not looked up much in the way of instruction.
Golly, even I am impressing myself with this litany.
GFP: I like this list so far. It was a bit like you had trouble getting started, but then kept thinking of more and more.
Elisabeth: Funny thing is, I think of myself as eternally behind, always behind, forever battling the desire to watch 12 seasons of Battlestar Galactica or fall asleep or get caught in bad relationships or whatever. I don’t think of myself as very productive until recently, I guess.
I’ve started composing! I am working through exercises in a book which give you some parameters for each piece. I’m SUPER excited about that, as it’s like learning to read and write again.
GFP: Do you mind if I mention a couple other things as well?
Elisabeth: Goodness, what else is there?
GFP: When I first met you, your focus was photography, which captivated me… although even at that time (2002) you were branching out to focus more closely on poetry. Also, I would like for people to know that your prolific work has not come at the expense of craft, because your work has always struck me as having a delicacy and control.
Elisabeth: I remember showing you the whiteboard pieces, which to me, again, are like the fringes of stories that were told and that can’t be gotten back, but the evidence is there to be documented.
GFP: Maybe control isn’t quite the best word. Rigor. There were photographs of you drawing tracers of light… something about “machines” while you were sitting at a typewriter.
And those enticing early chapters of [your novels] The Keep and The Situation (which would have made enigmatic Kafkaesque pieces in their own right.) And, of course, your tireless advocacy in favor of your friends in the arts.
But I really liked the way you said “telling a story,” because that does seem to be a common element to all of your work. What are you working on right now, or what have you recently finished, that people who are reading this could go and check out right now?
Elisabeth: I just had 2.5 of my video animations published on Palooka‘s multimedia page. The .5 is because Peter really did the third one and I just photographed it and scored it (with the accordion part to Circles, the song I wrote for Hungry Rats).
Then I have recently released a fun album (Dear Kid) of songs based on old photos and postcards I found in the Traverse City Historical Archives, which can be downloaded for free, and also my halloween album (Happy Halloween) can be downloaded for free. (NOTE: Elisabeth also has a Soundcloud profile here.)
Next week, a blog post describing my project for the Chicago Detours artist residency will be up along with many hitherto unpublished drawings. (NOTE: It has been posted here.)
In October an animation of mine will be part of a Kickstarter for the awesome project The Big Idea, a series of science shows for kids.
GFP: Most of your work seems to have some experimental — which I’m interpreting as a non-realist or non-representational — element or aesthetic. Does this sound right to you? Do you consider your work to be chiefly experimental? Does that rebound from or interact with (or is it incidental to) your desire to simply tell stories? Or is it something else entirely?
Elisabeth: Well, I’m actually, I’ve actually always struggled first and foremost to find the means and the mediums that will reach “the common people” which in my brain is just, people who aren’t necessarily seeking out experimental art, from photography to poetry to novels to drawings and paintings to songs to animations. I’m always feeling out something that even a child and even an 85 year old farmer would enjoy, but that still has depth and curiosity, something for the ol’ art historians to chew on. It’s an ongoing attempt to connect people with art by making it easy. I think pop music is a great example, when at its best, it does just that. Or comic books when they’re at their best.
It’s an ongoing search. I sometimes hit upon it… in music I feel like I really found moments of connection, and it seems like with my drawings and animations I am connecting too. I am working on ways to make my poetry accessible. For instance, singing it, or, writing about an image (an antique snapshot) and putting them side by side (a project I’m putting together). I’m interested in encasing deep, complex things in simple boxes. Lures, maybe. But this is a hard task.
GFP: That makes sense. I’m still curious about the use of stylization, though. And the examples you gave — pop music and comic books — can be highly stylized, even if critics don’t always realize this. But for all that, I still think that most of your work is, in the end result, highly stylized.
Do you think, perhaps, that a certain flair or theatricality is a mode that is “accessible” to people… that the gritty realism which seems to command critical respect isn’t the most direct route to an audience’s mind and heart? Or am I projecting?
Elisabeth: Well, what do you mean by stylized? Just that I have a certain style?
GFP: I think that the most conventional aesthetic in a lot of American art — especially Midwestern art — in photography, poetry, etc. today is “realistic” “psychologically terse” “representational.” Whereas your songs, as an example, use larger-than-life lyrics and melodies to express larger-than-life emotions. [Your] “Joan of Arc” song (“Virgin“) is a good example. Or the photographs we’re talking about. Or the stop-motion animations, which have a relentlessly surreal aesthetic.
Elisabeth: Interesting. How is “Virgin” surreal, exactly? Or you just mean, larger-than-life Epic, kind of?
GFP: Epic. The juxtaposition of instrumentation and subject matter has always struck me as theatrical (in a very positive way).
[The Musical you wrote is] also an interesting example. You took a story of a man who nobody knew — who told his own story — in a book that was forgotten — and used it as an inspiration for one of the most theatrical dramatic formats today.
Elisabeth: Well, I think maybe the surreal or stylization you are describing, might be a result of the stuff I choose to illustrate – exactly. It might just come with the subject matter. Antique photographs with no context (people with strange expressions and untold stories); forgotten autobiographies; archived postcards; hypnogogic statements; dreams; overheard conversations. I pick out all the stuff that has no one speaking for it, and I speak for it, and inevitably I think that will mean I make up a ton of context, and my brain then gets involved, and my brain is goofy, so it gets surreal and stylized.
GFP: Well I definitely think that’s a big part of the artistic affinity I feel for your work. At the very least, it’s a provocative and challenging body of work.
Now, you’ve been doing stuff with Gothic Funk since 2004. I remember the early party where we were doing Tarot readings, and you were illustrating the interpretations as they were explained.
Today you’re working as an Editor for Gothic Funk Press.
What do you look at and look for when you are editing a manuscript?
Elisabeth: Well, I’m very nitpicky, so can get caught up in the mechanics of how something is written. Not exactly the grammar, as I’m not the most grammatically correct person, but more, the style of sentence structure, etc. I think I tend to be very episodic, if that’s the word. I put a lot of importance on, and find a lot of interest in, the smaller sections that make up a large piece. So, I guess what I look for, is whether the smaller sections are interesting in their own right or whether they are just serving to make the big piece work. Maybe like fractals. How deep can you go, how small can you get, and still find it interesting/beautiful?
GFP: So a piece needs to be vital/interesting/compelling on an elemental level in order for it to work at greater complexity?
Elisabeth: No, it can work fine without that… but I guess what I look for in general, in all art and writing, is that elemental vitality… I have a really high bar! Maybe Shakespeare is a good example, an obvious and easy example. His freakin’ couplets are AMAZING and the plays themselves are amazing, and so I have a huge reverence and respect for his stuff
GFP: That makes sense!
What sort of work would you like to see us receive and publish at Gothic Funk Press?
Elisabeth: Well, I really like what you and [a participating artist] have been discussing, the darkness without hopelessness. Not that something must be dark but I think it’s something I really enjoy, when work explores really emotional or scary or intense or hilarious territory, but comes out of it unjaded or wounded but not mortally. Or tired but not asleep… tired but reveling in it.
“Virgin” is a good example, maybe. I’m telling a really sad and hopeless story… she had such a hard time and was burned alive, but I try to tell the story with the darkness but also with a sense of reveling in the life of it, in the existence of it, and some kind of hope that stems from some vague (religious?) belief that such lives or such stories somehow contribute positive things to the progression of mankind.
BONUS! MORE BY ELISABETH BLAIR:
Elisabeth is a folk vocalist and songwriter. She’s released one homemade demo album, Country of Origin. It includes songs inspired by the Halifax Explosion of 1917, the martyrdom of Joan of Arc and the Futurist movement, among other bits and pieces. She also writes music for artists who perform in theatre, puppetry, art and magic.
In addition to her own songs, Elisabeth has performed classical, bluegrass, and traditional folk music, and co-formed a folk noir band called House & Bird (2007-08) who put out a 5-song EP, what do words know. She has performed as lead vocalist in several performance art pieces in venues such as The Chicago Cultural Center and Chicago’s Links Hall. From 06-07 she was a guest vocalist for many live shows and on the debut album of Chicago-based eco-bluegrass group The Giving Tree Band. In 2008 she co-wrote and performed an historically-based musical, A Soldier Of Three Wars at the Peter Jones Gallery.
Her influences include Andrew Bird, Fleet Foxes, Hans Zimmer, Chris Bathgate, Bob Dylan, Björk, John Williams, Yann Tierson, Sandy Denny, Leonard Cohen, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Yma Sumac, M. Ward, Great Lake Swimmers, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Billie Holiday, Iron & Wine, Tom Waits, Jeff Buckley, Cloud Cult, Sufjan Stevens, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and her very talented friends:
Vocalist/songwriter/guitarist Krystee Wylder,
Will and his band Teenage Rage
Vocalist/songwriter/pianist Jessica Fogle.
Interview conducted by Connor Coyne.