Interview With Cristy C. Road

You’ve probably seen her work already, but if you haven’t, you’re missing out. Trust me. She is my new favorite artist and a totally brain-melting creative mind. Originally from Florida but now calling NYC her home, the lovely and talented Cristy C. Road and I recently got a chance to sit down and discuss, among other things, Ben Weasel and the nefarious conspiracy behind art supplies.

“New Year’s Day” (2007)

I’m in Burritoville with Cristy Road, so give us a brief introduction.

I’m Cristy Road, I’m an illustrator, a writer, and I’m eating some fucking nachos and tacos for fuel.

OK, so how long have you been doing art?

I feel like I’ve always just been drawing since I was like, in kindergarten. And I feel like I started taking it seriously when I was a zine writer, when I was 14 or 15. ‘Cause as a kid I always made magazines for fun, I didn’t really like popular culture that kids liked, I liked making brochures for made-up hotels and things like that (laughs) and then I got involved in the punk rock scene when I was like 13 or 14, and I’m not to like things or do things as an onlooker. And I play music but like, I suck and I like writing songs, but apparently that wasn’t enough for bands in Miami, to have a singer that doesn’t play any instruments, but yeah, I started writing zines and I started kind of doing what I’ve always done but like for my own weird interests, writing stories and illustrating them, and that was when I was around 14 or 15 and it was kinda like a natural progression. It was never like “oh I wanna write a novel”, it was always like lots of baby steps. And right now, I’m writing a novel but it’s like I never thought I ever really would, I thought I’d write zines forever.

Nothing wrong with that. So, how long have you, in a “professional” sense, been working as an illustrator and general artist? I mean, you’ve been turning up more and more these days I’ve noticed, you did the cover of the latest issue of Razorcake, which I’ve been carrying around for weeks.

I guess when I was like 15 or 16 I would do CD covers for my friends, and I do consider that legitimate art, and I started doing things for people that I didn’t know who saw my art from zines and stuff like that when I was about 18 or 19 and it was mostly for bands and other zines. Yeah, I can’t remember who the first person who paid me for art was. But I guess magazines that I started working for were uhm, more political magazines like Bitch magazine, and Venus, they were the first people I ever did stuff did with. And I still mostly live off of stuff that I’m connected to, culturally or subculturally or politically. Like right now I did a cover for Left Turn, it’s this radical magazine with contributors from all over and it was a cover on like, US policies on Africa. And I feel I mostly used to do a lot of things for organizations like Insight and CIW. I feel like when I started doing art for organizations and punk rock bands, the two subcultures that I’m coming from as an artist, yeah uhm, I was asked to some art for this band called Latterman from here and what’s another band that I feel like I did the art for?

You did a tour poster for an Unlovables tour, which I remember because I love that band.

Yeah. Dude, I’m really fried. I don’t remember anything I do whenever people ask me.

Well I didn’t go out yesterday, I actually sat home and researched for this.

(Laughs) Yeah well, I’m just trying to remember CD covers I did that were the most memorable. I did a Ben Weasel CD that was like pretty widespread, and people saw it because it’s Ben Weasel…

Yeah.

So for the last couple of years I feel like in regards to art I’ve been doing for other people it’s been relatively steady. Like I did art for this Green Day documentary and I did art for Jane Magazine and Spin and, I mean, I love Green Day but like, Jane and Spin? That’s the stuff that pays and gives you notoriety among mainstream people and alternative mainstream cultures and like, it’s rad that some totally suburban girl, not exposed to any radical culture sees my shit and looks me up and goes “Oh look, this girl has all these drawings of like, dildos, and that’s cool.”

That’s the best stuff!

Yeah! So I like that about accessibility, but otherwise I feel like my progress as an artist is mostly in my personal projects, like Indestructible, this book I put out, and then this book that I’m working on now, and then before that my zine that I worked on.

You have a pretty unique style. When I first started looking at your stuff, suddenly I was seeing it everywhere, and now that you mentioned the Ben Weasel CD, the last one, These Ones Are Bitter (Mendota 2007), which was only released online…

Yeah yeah, exactly.

And you did the last Latterman CD (…We Are Still Alive, Deep Elm 2006), when I saw ‘em I was like, “that looks really familiar.” A friend of mine, who’s a huge fan, has told me “there’s no way that’s just paint, just the most out-there crap”.

I’m really, technique-wise, like, it depends on what I’m doing the art for. I draw everything first with microns and sharpies. For my books I use Pantone markers. I hate paint, I think it’s terrible, and it’s so hard to use. I like painting nice gradients, in a lot of my drawings you’ll notice the sky’s a painting and the drawing is black and white, watercolor, marker, really simple black and white valuing but the sky will be a weird painting, the sky looks like it’d be a painting in your mom’s living room of like a pasture. But the way that I impose that is by scanning it and then putting it together. And then I have two pieces that I just did that I glued the drawing onto the panel I painted.

Oh so it’s like a literal collage.

It’s kind of like a collage, but not really. But like if I’m doing a CD cover, like Ben Weasel wanted the image digitally, so I made it for it to make more sense digitally. I made a painting for the background, I scanned it, I made a drawing of a window, I scanned that, and then the background is like a marker drawing, which is actually, if you see it it looks like a 10-year old did it. It’s really small, a little ski slope and a tree. Then I scan it all and put it together on Photoshop. And I’m just using Ben Weasel as an example but like everyone wants digital files.

It’s that kind of day and age.

Yeah, there’s not one band that has been like “oh send us a 12×12 cardboard with the image on it.” The book I’m working on now, I’m using a lot of templates I’ve made like I’m using a wall template a lot, just reusing it by scanning it, or a sky template. But they’re all drawings. I’m basically doing a comic so the wallpaper of the room is always gonna be the same. But it’s hard to explain sometimes how I do my work because sometimes it depends on the piece itself.

It’s funny that you said that about a comic because that’s the first thing that came to mind, sort of like a webcomic. You know Questionable Content? Jeph Jacques, the creator, has said he uses templates for backgrounds like, for rooms and that the hardest part is doing a new one because it takes so much time.

Yeah, it would be annoying to draw a little damask pattern like 8 fucking times. But yeah, and then a lot of my pieces I color them on Photoshop. Like the new Left Turn cover, it’s colored on Photoshop and I don’t really know how to use those programs that well, I basically just got one of those tablets with the pens, the Wacom tablets, make a transparent cover over the line drawing and just color it in like a fucking coloring book. Someone was like “Oh don’t you use Illustrator and vectors?” and I’m like “I don’t know what a vector is” and I mean, it’d be fun to learn, but like for now, you know. And using the pencil is like using the marker except it doesn’t cost $3 a color.

So you’ve described that you’ve be constantly working on zines and these books and it’s interesting because people can look at you and think of you more as an artist but you’re like a one-person industry. And it’s something you’re seeing more these days like Scott Sinclair, aka SINC, who did all the Hot Water Music art.

Yeah yeah, I forget his name but I totally know who he is.

He’s sort of set this standard. Like HWM fans know who SINC is because of his art’s connection to the band. And nowadays there’s people like you, and like Mitch Clem from Nothing Nice To Say, who’s done comics and now does artwork for bands, and it’s sort of a trend of a closer mix of artists and music. Do you see that? Or is it all just a coincidence?

I see it. The artists you named, they’re definitely part of the same subculture and I feel that, especially in music, bands within the same subcultures are gonna have mutual bands they go on tour with, just like they’re gonna have mutual artists do their CD covers. I feel it’s about what artists can represent a subculture and style of music and if the artist isn’t into that style of music then it’s gonna be hard for them to pull it off. So I feel that in the end it really is a subcultural thing. I feel that the best example of what you’re talking about is, in Gainesville FL at the upcoming Fest, which is happening in like two weeks I think.

Yeah.

Yeah, we’re gonna have this show called Music Minded. It’s Horse Bites Design, who does a lot of posters, and Heather Hannoura and Steak Mtn.

So, you said you’re working on a new novel?

Yeah, I’m working on a book called Bad Habits. It’s about refurbishing your soul after having a really destructive year and within that theme there are several love stories. It kind of has to do with double standards and sexuality.

Those seem to be big themes that you deal with.

Like being a promiscuous girl, like that fucking dance song, it’s a consistent theme because I feel like it’s always has a role. I mean, this book particularly, it’s not really about that, it just so happens that the lead character is a woman, and she gets it on with lots of people. It is based on events from my life and stuff, like drugs, a lot of destructive behavior, how a lot of that behavior comes to fruition and how we heal from it or how we change from it, and that’s mostly what the book is about, and it’s about moving to New York, something I’ve done, so it’s like a constant metaphor between the development of New York, mostly with the destruction of Coney Island and the destruction of the human soul. It’s a lot about mental health, but also about doing acid and gettng chased into the ocean.

“Scandalous Excerpts from BAD HABITS” (2007)

You heard they’re saving Coney Island for another year, right?

Yeah! So it was like I didn’t want the book to end with this bleak, “Oh Coney Island is going to be destroyed, all our souls are going to be destroyed.” So now at least it’s good, now I can kind of make up my own ending, and not really make it “damn, Coney Island was destroyed and I was right, everything is terrible.”

So you’re gonna be at the Fest?

Tomorrow actually I leave for Chicago. Some friends of mine were like “Oh we’re playing Ladyfest, you should too” and I was like “OK” and now I’m playing Ladyfest. Then I realized it was going to be a three-day event and I’ve never been to Chicago, I should figure out housing and be there a few days and in the meantime try to set up a show. So I did and I met these kids who have a space called South Union Arts and it’s rad because the last show there was Steak Mtn and Horse Bites and Heather.

Small world.

Yeah but it’s gonna be so redundant from people going (to the Fest) from Chicago, because it’s like their prints are still up in the space and I’m just going to put my stuff up and I feel like the exact same show is gonna go on at the Fest but it’s cool, whatever. I’m stoked to have stuff up there. And then I’m gonna go down to Gainesville for the Fest and hang out and get wasted.

You got any tips for aspiring artists and zinesters? You’ve got an impressive bulk of work behind you, I’m sure you’ve got advice from your own war stories.

I feel like it would have been nice for me when I was younger, to not take differences so personally. It kind of limits your voice. And I feel now, I say the most things that I truly feel, without feeling like “oh someone’s gonna think this isn’t PC or something isn’t gonna think this” or whatever, but I feel I’m receiving the best feedback and when I did hold back, holding back made me write very unclear sentences and just be all over the place. And I’m sorta like that as a person but still, I think that if you’re not ready to say something that’s fine but if you are, say it. If you feel it and it’s honest, the turnout should be good. Art-wise or writing-wise. Keep it real.

So, what you listening to a lot these days?

I listen to a lot of Tom Waits. I’ve been listening to a lot of Small Arms Dealer from New York. I’m trying to think of new things that I’m listening to now. I listen to a lot of old shit like PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, the Breeders, and the new Tim Armstrong album I really like but now it’s too cold to listen to that.

I do the same thing; there are certain albums for certain kinds of weather, like now in the winter I listen to lots of hardcore and metal.

Yeah yeah, I’ve been listening to At The Gates a lot, winter jams.

Ska and reggae is for summer.

Yeah well a week ago when it was 90 degrees and now it’s like 4, but I was listening to Toots & The Maytals, Ken Boothe, old rocksteady, and now I’m just kind of like, I wanna listen to Tom Waits or metal, the Distillers, I like them too. My musical tastes are kind of all over. Broadway musicals too.

You got any parting words?

(Cristy chews with her mouth open, which she asked me to make sure was noted – Costa) Well, I chew with my mouth open and it’s all right, everything’s OK. I’m really bad with dramatic last words.

You can find Cristy and other great artists displaying at The Fest, October 25th at the Atlantic in Gainesville. She’s got a website where you can check out her incredible artwork, and she’s also on Myspace.