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Sarah Romano-Diehl
1.6k Plays1 year ago
Sarah Romano Diehl is a comic artist based in Seattle, WA. Her work is published in Seattle Magazine, The Stranger, and Scarff Comics Newspaper. Sarah has been publishing her minicomics and collabing with other comix artists and writers for around ten years.
She loves being outside and near water.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
00:00:16
Speaker
We're already fast friends, we know that. Yes, yes.
Chinatown Movie Discussion
00:00:20
Speaker
We are talking with Sarah Romano-Deal and I'm very excited to be talking with you. And we were just chatting before we popped on here. We both like movies and I was kind of interrogating you about, you know, you appeared on a podcast and you had mentioned you talked about Chinatown. Tell us, tell us, tell us your take and what do we need to know or why Chinatown.
00:00:46
Speaker
Well, I do love the noir kind of look, but it's like warm 70s noir. And the Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway are just like, just captivating, you know. That's the word. That's the word. Captivating in that role, in those roles. But yeah, it's serious, but I love the humor and Jack Nicholson.
00:01:17
Speaker
Sin is so great. Um, just like his grumpiness and, uh, uh, pessimism, but, um, you can just laugh at the situations that he gets into and like half the movie, he has like the bandage on his nose. Yeah. That is funny. That detail is so funny, right? Yeah. You're not supposed to do that and make him the film. Um,
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, but then it's it's also very serious heavy like that reveal at the end and like the twist is just like really guts you
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's shattering. I that that the landscape right particular of those who've seen it that that L.A. or a particular type of L.A. Do you think that landscapes related to Lynch's L.A. David Lynch is L.A. Does it look like it feels like it to me? It feels like it. It feels like it to me. But do you do you feel that's the same place? Yes, definitely.
00:02:23
Speaker
it has the it's beautiful and you know there's the cheery side with the palm trees but then it's also so dark there's you know the money the extreme excess and the underside of that
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, like a type of territory you feel like anybody can just be rubbed out and die if they're a problem, you know, like, it's like somehow like the justice is like, whoa, you better figure out how to navigate these lands. Right.
Meet Sarah: Comic Artist Journey
00:02:56
Speaker
So Sarah, I'm going to tell everybody who you are from from from your from your blurb, because
00:03:04
Speaker
So Sarah is a comic book artist based in Seattle who I met in Portland at permanent damage, which we'll talk about show and had a great chat works published in Seattle magazine, the stranger scarf comics newspaper.
00:03:21
Speaker
And Sarah has been publishing her own mini comics and collabing with other comics artists for about 10 years. You say you love being outside and near water. I like both things. What kind of what kind of what's your favorite body of water? Oh, the ocean. The Pacific Ocean. I was born in Rhode Island, which is called the ocean state. So yeah, yeah, he can't be more than like
00:03:49
Speaker
I don't know, 45 minutes, which is a long ass drive in Rhode Island. From one side to the other. From the ocean. It was like, I'll do that trip in the summer, right? Yeah. Like, I won't. So tell us. So that is where I, oh, sorry. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. I just wanted to say Rhode Island's where I learned to love the ocean, because my mom's from Rhode Island, and that's where we go visit in the summers, and that's the first ocean I've seen is the beaches there.
00:04:18
Speaker
So lovely. I lived in Narragansett. I went to university. It's such a lovely place. I lived studying philosophy. Go figure. Philosophy and Lit at the University of Rhode Island. It's a really cool story.
00:04:36
Speaker
So for folks who don't know, Narragansett around the time, maybe part of Newport's heyday, was an area which was kind of like a cheaper rich man's Newport. And so there's gambling stations and things like that over there by the ocean. But one really fascinating piece is there was this subdivided apartment I lived there my last maybe year and a half at the university.
00:05:03
Speaker
and Amelia Earhart had stayed there and it was called it was called Tally Ho like that like the home had a name and I was just like that idea camped myself in my head because like for me I was always around the ghost of Amelia Earhart or something like that in my head and it was such a kind of
Drawing Comics: Inspirations and Beginnings
00:05:25
Speaker
wild thing all right all right all right tell us about uh tell us about um the comics you do and uh i i was interested pulled in by everything i saw so i got lost in the universe but tell other tell other folks out there kind of what you do and your approach to uh doing your art um yeah i began uh drawing comics really at
00:05:54
Speaker
as this kind of socially in Seattle. I met friends who were drawing comics. It's not something that I ever thought that I would do because it seems like such a lot of work. And I was avoiding that, but I realized I needed to do it because it was the type of art that I was looking for. I wanted to do something narrative and I wanted to have the freedom to do anything.
00:06:23
Speaker
I hadn't realized that you could even do that in comics, just like make a story about whatever, it could be funny, it could be awful and grotesque. I mean, I just started learning about all these underground comics and things and just local artists stuff they were doing. So I just started experimenting with that and trying to think of different characters. And also I exercised
00:06:53
Speaker
some of those muscles by writing a story that was based off of my life when I was a pizza delivery driver. And have those books at my table when you were there, because I have sold out of them now. But I made a series called crest and I worked with a bunch of characters at the pizza place. So I was kind of using them to like learn how to show character and situational humor and things like that. So
00:07:18
Speaker
but I really do like adding some humor into my stories and just like people stuff, things that hopefully ring true, like little quirks that characters have and stuff like that. Yeah. No, I, I, I really liked that. I gotta have to check out a cross because there's something, there's nothing that intrigues me more. You know, when I've worked retail and I've worked around people, I could not be,
00:07:47
Speaker
I don't know if the dark fascination at times, because retail fucking sucks, like nothing else sucks. And sometimes it's the coolest job. And sometimes you don't know which, like sometimes it's been like, I want to go work, hang around my friends, do some shit, get paid and go home.
Artistic Identity and Perceptions
00:08:02
Speaker
And other times it'd be like, I truly feel that I'm being dominated right now in the workplace. Yeah, I've definitely had all of those types of retail experiences. Um, luckily,
00:08:18
Speaker
I mean, this job I got, it was like one of those things where it just like landed and I needed a job. I was literally just walking down the street and some girl, a woman just pulls over and she was like, Hey, you know, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm looking for a job. I've got my resume and she's like, Oh, you should work at where I work the pizza place. I just got the job and it was like a great environment. Just like the boss was just like,
00:08:43
Speaker
You guys just run it, you know, the customer's not always right. You, you guys do what you want. You know, I don't know. It's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I, um.
00:08:54
Speaker
I, one of the jobs I had, and I want to tell you, it was a travel language in a bookstore outside of Washington, D.C. Yeah, it was pretty cool, except I'm a working class punk at heart. And these, you know, with the folks going in, some of the rich folks, right? Condescension and all these types of things, but they didn't know.
00:09:24
Speaker
that I knew the content of the travel guide. And I knew what type of lodging, which would be suggested to them. So if you were being a real prick, I'd be like, okay.
00:09:37
Speaker
Mr. Fancy Pants, the Harvard Let's Go College Guide is your way to get through Czechoslovakia. And when you get there, you have nothing but hostel listings, pre-internet, everything. Come in contact with the people that you need. Now, that was only reserved for a select few, it was a long time ago, but you would have a different travel experience for your lack of respect.
00:10:06
Speaker
They needed to learn some things. That was my idea. Retail can be fun, not only for those reasons. Sarah, really interested to hear about coming into contact when you're talking about with art and the narrative way to express. With all that, when did you see yourself as an artist? When you're talking to people,
00:10:34
Speaker
like, I'm an artist and I do this, like, when did that happen? Well, I feel like it happened. At some point in my childhood, it wasn't immediate, like, I always was encouraged to make art because my mom's an artist and art teacher, music teacher, my dad's like, mentally and emotionally an artist, like he's really into cool stuff. And
00:11:00
Speaker
And I always was drawing, but I don't think I thought about the, like, I'm an artist. It just was like something that we did at our house all the time. It was like, again, a social activity kind of. So I think I started thinking of myself as an artist once I was in school and other kids would be like, oh, that's cool, you know? And then, or teachers would be like, hey, this is really good. And, you know, and then I started to think that,
00:11:30
Speaker
other people saw me as an artist. And I was like, oh, yeah, I am. Yeah, you know, kind of. Yeah. Well, I find it because, you know, I can even ask the question.
00:11:40
Speaker
And I could get an answer where folks are like tripping on it. They're like, well, I'm not really an artist. And of course, I mean, but for me, they would be easily seen as such. But with the way people view certain acts of creativity, whether they're art or not, they might not have that. So that's why
00:12:01
Speaker
Uh, I can be like so surprised and sometimes maybe not even assuming or assuming you are because of people calling you that like a nickname. It's like, yeah. All right. Yeah. I'm the drawing person, you know? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like that's the person who draws stuff. Yeah. Um, I know some people really feel like so much weight with that title, I think. And they're like, Oh, I can't, I can't call myself that or whatever. But I think of course everybody's an artist. So.
00:12:33
Speaker
The term means a lot to me for a very different reason. I find that I'm so interested in the trickster element or alternate identity or that I'm saying something an artist and there's
00:12:51
Speaker
an attitude of being like, this is an artist thing. And like, I really don't give a shit. No, I'm not trying to offend anybody. No, no. But just, you know, or maybe offend somebody. I don't know, you know, but just in the sense of like, I have that edge. Yes, I'm a human, but I'm an artist doing this type of thing. And then people are like, oh, that's a wild artist, something like that. But I find that I need that. And I talked to a lot of people who need to be like,
00:13:19
Speaker
doing it that way. Do you have a similar feeling towards it or? I, I think I know what you mean. Like as in a way of life, as in a way, like a path or like it's, yeah, I know what you mean. Um, definitely. And I do view like each day I want to, I want to be seeing my life as
00:13:46
Speaker
The art that I like just it is who it is life, you know, so um, it gives meaning I think And I think i'm sorry to interrupt go ahead. Oh, no, um It can be a resistance and it can also be a Surrender too. Yeah Um in your art, uh
00:14:16
Speaker
and the feminism within there, the idea of, not the idea, the action of having the art to tell these stories.
Comics as Activism and Communication
00:14:29
Speaker
And that's one of the things I love about comics or narrative form, underground zines. I wanna know what's happening. I don't need the three layers to give me the digestible bit.
00:14:45
Speaker
what's happening. And I view it as such a great communication tool. Embedding activism within the art for yourself, not as an artificial process, but what is the relationship for you in jumping maybe towards the role of art and expressing what you need to express and looking outside at the world and saying, this is completely messed up and let's have a go at it. How do you do it? Yeah.
00:15:15
Speaker
Well, yeah, another reason was like choosing to practice making comics and being a part of this larger way of communicating. I feel like, you know, I chose it. One reason is because, you know, the fine art world to me felt so there's so much pretense and inaccessibility to just like
00:15:45
Speaker
regular people. And I felt like when I found out that, you know, there's all these people, you know, you can communicate and express ideas so much easier and excessively with comics. And, you know, people can buy a zine or a comic or you can give them for free or trade them. And then there's this exchange that happens just like it just spreads, you know, and
00:16:15
Speaker
I've just met so many more like minded people and it's just, it is kind of like an FU to some just the established like people who just think they know what's up, but they don't, you know. Yeah. There's like a direct communication. I get so excited. You think about like, I don't like music culture and things like that where you can see,
00:16:41
Speaker
I mean, you could see this type of communication. You don't see another place. And I think comics, a lot of times, have been like that. So people with the comics, it's particular. But they know, if they're sensitive to how those worlds are created with color and the story, and they drop into that, then that's those sci-fi mags are dropping into different type of information where you
00:17:08
Speaker
You're I mean i'm tapping into a vibe of like inhabiting like that type of place and even um With the ideas that are communicating in scenes of like, you know like different types of history or like just um, uh self-protection like around a neighborhood like six pages to be like here's some helpful hints, you know, like of doing this and that and it's so It's important like it's not trivial or like oh we're
00:17:38
Speaker
Let me just say one piece on this. Years ago, I would always, because I wasn't attuned, I really wouldn't look at small press. I really wouldn't dig into there and look at the, I just didn't know what was there, but I was also, I think, influenced by
00:18:01
Speaker
you know, like maybe university thinking or hierarchy. And it's like, of course I'm going to read like Karlover, you know, Knausgaard and not the, like, I'm going to, you know, um, yeah, there's a place for that too. But once I popped into it, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is where all the breathing is for me. It was like, and the, and the respiration did you, and within that world, is that, that, that vitality you find in it? Yeah. Um,
00:18:32
Speaker
And not to say that there's not an importance of like, sometimes gatekeeping in a way, like with publishers and things like that, that can be good. And they have like standards that they are, you know, they're like, this is our standard. This is what we do. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's great. But yeah, with more alternative scene and stuff, it is, it's like breathing.
00:19:03
Speaker
There's just much more yeah, like a taking in giving out and I've learned a lot from That community So yeah We're up in the Pacific Northwest.
David Lynch Films: Identity and Multiverse
00:19:22
Speaker
We both like Twin Peaks. Yes both really into like
00:19:29
Speaker
I was chatting about, and we'll get into this, like, identity and multiverse. And I just wanted to, like, let's just chat about it. The other piece was monsters, too, and thinking about monsters. But for me, I wanted to just start with the hard take. And because this is a show we're creating, we can talk about David Lynch and we can talk about Twin Peaks. We can just riff on this.
00:19:57
Speaker
So for me, in talking about identities and doubles and triple characters in Lynch, I think it's always been there throughout the works. But for me, the first time I saw him really, really attempted as part of the main narrative was in Lost Highway. And what I'm talking about is where characters resemble each other or characters are
00:20:26
Speaker
It's the same body, but they're behaving differently. And for me, you seem this theme predominant, Mahalan Drive in Twin Peaks season three. And now you have doubles and this type of thing. But I found it to be this development to be so fantastic and amazing of an idea of how to tell the story because
00:20:53
Speaker
You're always trying to figure out what's a real copy, what's a copy of a copy, and this whole identity.
00:21:03
Speaker
switch. When I talk to you and we communicate in a bit, you're talking about the idea of like stories and as a multiverse or these layers or different ways of approach. I wanted to hear some thoughts from you about like identity and your thoughts behind that concept. Yeah.
00:21:32
Speaker
Well, yeah, I was just thinking like how every story that's created or every work of art is just adding to the universe in itself or even creating portals, you know, to other places that you can go. And every person that perceives that is creating a separate, different universe because they
00:21:58
Speaker
it's different to them the way that they're perceiving it. So I don't know, I just feel like it's infinite. And like the connection just goes, it's spreading in all the time right now. Just like crazy. It just blows my mind.
00:22:13
Speaker
I I think the well thinking about organizing and spreading idea or trying to spread it like a decent idea too Even when we're talking about, you know our activism lack of separation I think like even not to be jumpy buddy like even on the podcast format like there's like this unknown about something going out somewhere and it's like six people happened to have bumped into this and our lists in there chatting about philosophy in a bar in Dublin and
00:22:43
Speaker
You know, like what has, you know, like there's this, uh, this rippling or something that, that, that, that I feel or with totally. And like, with like, uh, coincidences, sometimes they feel like when, or like, you know, sometimes you feel like you read somebody's mind or like something just happens, just that kind of, um,
00:23:12
Speaker
What do people call that? I don't know serendipitous. That's serendipitous. How about this? How about this for being strange? So I recently released the Sadie Dupuis episode of the band, Speedy Ortiz, Sad Dirt. Yes, I love them. Oh my gosh. They're so good. Oh, thanks. It was such a wonderful thing.
00:23:37
Speaker
working with them but you know there's a story in there about the new album just released September 1st, 2023 called Rabbit Rabbit and I'll tell you it's it's it's you notice things and there's these sayings and fortune and luck and who knows how it all works out but I'll tell you this I woke up during the night and it just I was just awake for a little bit just walking around it was early in the morning
00:24:00
Speaker
And I laid down on the couch and there was a Lego rabbit that I didn't put together. I would have put together if somebody did it before me. But a Lego rabbit with a Lego carrot. And my head's tilted back and I'm looking diagonally. Now, we have a house rabbit named Bunny Fufu. Oh, okay. Right? And so...
00:24:23
Speaker
I put out Bunny Fufu because I was like four in the morning, I'm like, uh, rabbit, you need to be able to, you know, create some space, put up the barrier. I put down the barrier and Fufu was just like hammering it, like, you know, battering ram, like.
00:24:38
Speaker
Nope, I'm out in the house and I'm laying down like in and out of it. And I'm like, this rabbit's going to come barreling. No word of a lie. Like I'm looking down and I saw the Lego rabbit. She runs by rabbit and I'm like, okay, rabbit, rabbit. Um, that, that, that expression. I'm like, it's four o'clock in the morning here in good Valley, uh, uh, Oregon, but coincidence and like that, like that shouldn't have happened. Like, that's too weird. That is weird.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, even it's kind of just a small thing and it's, uh, and, and it's just, it's like something that you had a moment to yourself and you recognized it. It's weird. It's like some, a communication, you know, it's not from somewhere or something just like to tell you like, yeah.
Art, Knowledge, and Emotional Impact
00:25:31
Speaker
Does deja vu happen to you?
00:25:33
Speaker
Yes. Does it? Yes, it has so much deja vu. Strong, strong, strong experiences of it. Yeah. Your whole life. Yeah. Definitely. I get a weird story related to deja vu.
00:25:48
Speaker
I used to have intense experience, and I'd describe them to people, and I'd annoy my friends, right? You might know the experience. They're like, oh, it's deja vu again. If they don't have the experience, it's like, oh, they drifted somewhere else again. Wait a second. Wait, what deja vu? Right? And they're like, OK, fine. We lost her for a second. But here's the strange piece. The incidents in my experience of them now,
00:26:18
Speaker
is so diminished compared to, I'm 51 now, but it's so diminished to like from 15, 20 years ago. So it's like, I almost want more deja vu. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of nice because it does make you feel like some you're being told something or like, you know, I feel grounded because I've lived the moment already. Yeah.
00:26:44
Speaker
I know that's like not the best. Like, no, you're still so much living the moment ahead of you. Hey, I'm halfway through. No, I'm not getting. Yeah, I'm not going down on that on that tip. Listen to too much. Listen to too much goth music about how lately I get a, you know, lighten up, lighten up. So. So haven't asked you yet. Sarah is part of the reason for having you on the show. What the heck is art?
00:27:15
Speaker
Oh, I think that art is an uncovering and a sharing of some kind of knowledge or if you're releasing it and you might not even know
00:27:43
Speaker
what it is until it's like outside of you. But it's just it's some kind of a knowledge and knowledge and communication of that. But it's like fluid in it. It's different to anybody who has their own lens. But I think if it's really good art, there's some kind of a truth there.
00:28:11
Speaker
Folks answer, they don't always say that. It's not a right or wrong answer. But when you talk about knowledge, you start thinking about truth. I think about the ideas sometimes, right? Because we have a conceptual conversation about this. It's a philosophy show. But there's also, if you look at a great painting,
00:28:33
Speaker
great painting. One of which where you're looking up if you're sensitive to it and you're up at the painting and you're as close as you can get and you're looking at all the different angles and then you see or maybe you feel the suffering of the subject that's on that and you
00:28:50
Speaker
I don't know, embody it or experience or whatever. I think there's an idea of truth or knowledge in there, right? So in arguing this at the university, you're saying, my experience was transcendent. I'm not trying to put it down, but you're trying to, or did I get direct knowledge or did I share emotionally and what that painter was trying to convey? And if the knowledge is that way, at least it feels like that way. Sometimes like a transmission, like you're saying, you have that experience. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:21
Speaker
Definitely, like all the time. We're surrounded by art. So, you know. What about paint? Are you sensitive to painting in that type of way? And have that experience with a particular painter that evokes that more often than others? Yeah, I do love painting. I was a drawing and painting major in college. I'm sure you were.
00:29:51
Speaker
So I love oil painting and stuff, but I don't do it very often anymore. But yeah, I really feel like I felt really emotional when I see I like figurative stuff a lot. So like you go in Chile.
00:30:08
Speaker
I don't know if you know his work. I was talking about ego and she lay in a conversation last night. So yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. I got a good story connected to it. No, tell me. Tell me the ego and she lay stuff for me and I'll tell you the the actually kind of funny story related to ego and she laid. But tell me. Yeah. Well, I love the the exaggeration of the body. Like you can almost feel it in yourself. Like, you know, and the expressiveness of like the hands and the eyes and
00:30:37
Speaker
the color usage and the looseness of the way the paint is put down. I feel like I can see that he was feeling when he was painting, and you see it in every brush stroke. So I really love that kind of work. You can, the bodies, talking about the painter, Igo and Shilei here, the bodies,
00:31:02
Speaker
you could feel the bodies. You can, you can, it's some of the process she's described, I think, that's there, how to paint looks and that the body, for some people is way too contorted, way too agonized for them to experience. Yeah, it is pretty intense. Some of them are pretty gross looking and some of them are very beautiful, but it's definitely, it makes you feel something.
00:31:30
Speaker
The experience I had is I've been lucky in my life to be able to travel, to save up and travel at times. And one of the places I went to was where they had a small, maybe a more prominent Eagle and Chile Museum in Chesky, Krumlov, in the Czech Republic.
00:31:49
Speaker
I was at a point I was long time ago, I didn't really I wasn't really familiar. I've always been interested in painting, but I was not I didn't know all the Sheila stuff at that time. And what was so cool about it was this was and it was summer and it was warm in on this river and
00:32:05
Speaker
literally Bohemia, right? Yeah. There's the Egon Shillem Museum. And there's images and stuff like so I'm like acquining myself with that. And on the other side, you have like a mix of kind of like young European travelers, and everybody's naked and jumping and jumping into this room. So like,
00:32:26
Speaker
like I'm like the body's like the body's over there and I'm like I'm just like becoming acquainted it's like what is strange experience because obviously it's like
00:32:37
Speaker
enthralling, right? I'm in my 20s and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm in Europe and people, like, women are jumping into the water and rivers here, like a movie I saw one time, but they actually do it. And everybody was all genders. And, but there was the Sheila thing. And so I just had it, just burned into my mind about the bodies, like the bodies were moving there in, in, in Chile. And so when you mentioned that, it's like,
00:33:07
Speaker
Like the transmission of something, of pain, suffering, joy, entanglement in those bodies in Shilei is... Yeah, like a real feeling, like you could feel it in your body when you look at it, you know? That kind of response or something. We could do, maybe we'll have to do a separate episode, do some more studying of Shilei and then just like,
00:33:37
Speaker
do this she lay uh... uh... episode uh... within in it we chatted just a bit about it but uh... to formally connected to the question of art is the role of art i heard in your your your answer as far as the the communication of some things we're we're talking about as one here like in the you know as far as what you think of uh... the role of art and uh... a wrinkle add about it lately
00:34:04
Speaker
Because the way the world feels for many, 2023, rising temperatures, social issues, political tensions, is the role of art different now than it was before? I don't think so. I think it's the same and every day it's more and more important.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's so important. But it does, it feels like there's more pressure and more, well, in some ways, in some ways, there's more obstacles that being an artist and just feels like it's just harder and harder to just fight against the machine. I don't know, the US just seems like really depressing kind of in so many ways and just like,
00:35:02
Speaker
the reality of trying to like survive and you know Get through your your days and take care of what you need to take care of but um in other ways though, I mean there are more forms of uh More ways we can reach out to each other and talk and like this like the podcast and the internet and you know all these ways that people are influencing each other and I find a lot of hope in that
00:35:32
Speaker
but I think it's always more and more important that people are just, again, yeah, like expressing themselves and sharing and to be fearless and not conform to a way of expressing themselves because they think that's what someone wants to hear or what is going to make the money, you know,
00:36:03
Speaker
I think there's something about that because one of my experiences in doing the show is strange. Think about it's a bunch of work, but it's different. I'm able to, the way my mind is, I'm just intensely curious and I'll be so forever.
00:36:25
Speaker
the idea that I can drop into areas that interest me and I might have deeper knowledge than might be expected or I might not know anything. And to try to establish like when I'm going up to invite you and other folks, it's like,
00:36:39
Speaker
Why are you inviting me? Well, I want to talk to you. I want to drop in. You're going to allow me to drop in and look at it in a particular way. An example, I've had a little bit more interviews with playwrights lately. Oh, nice. And the last interview I had with two, Paul Adams and Caitha Gentis, I was asking questions like,
Creative Processes: Plays and Comics
00:37:07
Speaker
You're saying you're workshopping this and you do it twice a day. You do it for a month and shorter. Like, what is, like, what is that? Like, like, how are you making the plate? Like, literally, like, are you rewriting lines? Do actors start yelling at, like, it was so fascinating to be able to ask that question. You know, like, what's your world like? Like, what does that even mean? Cause I don't know. And it's fun.
00:37:35
Speaker
I love that. I love the collaborative aspect of like it seems like theater and plays and stuff like that. I always thought it'd be so fun to somehow mix comics and acting or I mean, I guess people do. It's basically a movie or a play. It's just like in real life. But yeah, I don't know. It's cool. It was so interesting because
00:38:00
Speaker
with this episode. Kate DeGentis has done some, produced some big films, you know, in Hollywood, but
00:38:10
Speaker
This newer play that she's done is called Sex Works, Sex Play. And it's very provocative, just as far as the characters and stuff there. So I learned a little bit about it. And on the other side, what was so cool, Paul Adams, who's run this repertory and helps bring in a lot of new works, is doing a play on Doris Day.
00:38:34
Speaker
which you think is kind of like this more like super traditional songs, American sweetheart type of thing. And when I'm doing this, I'm like, holy shit, like how the hell did I get like, I had help pulling it together, but it was just kind of like how it worked and how things were working together. And I'm like, well, this is pretty darn cool to do this and learn about plays. So I think that part about it is fun and the energies that you were talking about.
00:39:03
Speaker
What's it like? I Met you and my partner Jenny Met you at the the permanent damage right next to floating world comics. Yeah in the Lloyd Center There's a tattoo shop mortal emblem at the end Ice rink downstairs all these great things and you were there
00:39:28
Speaker
tabling next to a show friend T. Edward Bach, which is great. Great guy. Great guy. Hang with him. And so, take us in. Tabling an event. Yeah. I haven't done it, but I know it's a diverse experience for the diverse creators that table. Tell us about being there last week, the permanent damage show, and just your experience.
00:39:58
Speaker
Yeah, it was so rad. I was really excited to be there. There was many artists that I look up to there and it's fun to be in Portland. You know, I of course have done more events in Seattle and some other places, but Portland has so many great creators and there was people from other areas of the US too. But it was so punk and like also felt just like
00:40:28
Speaker
you know, like grounded and like just like friendship, friendship. It was so nice. Good feelings. Um, a lot of people feeling like themselves a little bit more maybe. Yeah. Like, you know, I always get a little nervous. Uh, I feel like I'll be like, Oh,
00:40:51
Speaker
maybe people are going to be like, she doesn't belong here. Why is she here? You know, and then and then it's always really nice and affirming to just go and do the thing and realize that everybody is just like super cool and nonjudgmental for the most part, you know, just like wanting to just talk and look at each other's stuff and just exchange that. And the people that came in to buy comics, too, are just lovely.
00:41:21
Speaker
You know, just some people that didn't know anything about comics, too. It's always fun to kind of just like see people who are discovering this world. Like they have so many questions like, how does this exist? How did I never know this? What's going on?
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah, I could see I could see that sometimes I think like if you take a look at a zine, I remember like if it's, you know, something that really strikes you is like, I can't believe that somebody wrote about this exact super weird idiosyncratic thing that I thought for years in front of me. And I didn't know
00:42:03
Speaker
that I could purchase it for $3 and then cheer. And, you know, Tails O'Conan, the barbarian in my own head of a particular way, or Red Sonja, and whatever it is. And I love the variety of stuff, you know, and I know what's cool too is I like,
00:42:28
Speaker
I like where you end up in the strangest conversations and if there's a comfort, like, cause I was looking at, and I'm forgetting the artist's name, but there were these photo, you know, photo zines, weird photo zines, right? And this was a,
00:42:47
Speaker
kind of weird looking animatronics and then the other one was like super exaggerated sex animatronics figures and having this conversation but I realized I was in a very quickly what was a normal conversation that I really didn't
00:43:07
Speaker
Like, you know, didn't expect I didn't know what I didn't know or or wanted to know and um Uh at the there as well. I don't know why i'm leading from that story to mark palm. Sorry mark palm A lot of mark palm. I don't sorry. I I don't know one left another but there you go. Uh, love love his art Uh, and um, I ran into him randomly last night. Actually. Sorry go on another story
00:43:32
Speaker
Okay, is there a story related? I'm not jumping over that if there's something decent for the show. No. Okay. Well, we just saw each other at a show.
00:43:41
Speaker
that he randomly just walked into. Shout out to Mark Palm. Sometimes he's said that I'm a number one fan, and I would say not in the misery way, not in the Stephen King misery way, number one fan. But I did, it didn't make it to two Mark show events, the UFO Festival in Burien. And then down there at Lloyd Center. So I didn't make two events, Mark Palm events.
00:44:08
Speaker
Most importantly, I made it to one Sarah Romano deal event next to T. Edward Bach as well. So it was cool. I feel when I was at that event or Comic-Cons or being around Floating World,
00:44:25
Speaker
When you get to comics, you've been into comics a lot or underground art. I feel that I'm breathing here that is different but feels made for me. Another time I experienced that is I'm a big doom metal guy. Like a live doom metal. Like my favorite style of music live is
00:44:46
Speaker
is doom at all. It satisfies my spirit. And so being sensitive, I think it's so fun to be around events that are like that and to be like
00:45:00
Speaker
This person's a discreet genius. Look at this wonderful type of thing and to bounce around it and to do it for two or three bucks to get in, to get in the door. Do you have some coming up this fall like events that you're excited about or something popping up? Yeah. Well, I know, uh,
00:45:21
Speaker
I think October 31st, Halloween. I think that's when there's the Portland Zienfest, which I don't remember if I'm tabling, but if not, I'll try to attend it. And so it's good time. We'll figure it out soon. Yeah. And I'm going to be at Short Run Small Press Fest, which is November 4th in Seattle at the Fisher Pavilion. It's fantastic. It's big.
00:45:49
Speaker
full of lots of more great art. So yeah, those are the two events I have coming up before the new year that I know of.
00:45:57
Speaker
That's really exciting. We're chatting here early September, 2023. I've talked to a bunch of folks and there's like a, I felt like a weird deep vibe for like early Halloween or like people dropping into horror movies or like thinking fall. And I can't explain all that or maybe around the folks that I am. And I like being able to do that. And so I started to drop into,
00:46:26
Speaker
horror movies and thinking about horror, one of the, you being a Lynch fan for me and thinking about Twin Peaks, for me, a lot about it has been horror and, you know, this glory in the show and these stories, but of a horror,
Horror and Sadness in Lynch's Work
00:46:54
Speaker
and of monsters. So, you know, we're chatting about different creative ideas, talking about monsters and killer Bob. Like that we say, that's a monster. It's not, it's not human. It's not like a monster or this demon. Um, I think, yeah, that to me is like true horror is the non-human evil
00:47:24
Speaker
you know, it's something that we can't really put our finger on because we can't know anything other than what is human really. But if there's this feeling that there's some kind of like, evil, you know, it's that's so scary. But what do you think about what do you Yeah, tell me about it. Oh, well, I was just gonna say I, I love it. And like, with David Lynch, he does that stuff so well, because
00:47:50
Speaker
It's like the contrast to all the goodness and the tension between that, the goodness and like the humor and the sweetness. And then you have that extreme bad that it really, really makes you, I don't know, edgy a little bit.
00:48:20
Speaker
You know, you feel that I've, uh, a season three, um, you know, famous episode eight, uh, done in black and white origin of evil basing behind it. Um, let's say the inception or shown to be an exception of the.
00:48:41
Speaker
nuclear tests in the southwest Oppenheimer and people are talking about a lot of these type of things. But yeah, I found that, you know, that episode for me to be such a profound, a profound vision and tie to an underpinning of the horror of the nuclear of the monster of the overpowering of the
00:49:07
Speaker
toxic radioactive in the activation of evil, like on some cosmic like breaking level.
00:49:16
Speaker
And so, hey, like super profound themes. And I was so affected overall by that episode and thinking about good and evil. But I think, and there's no spoilers here, just generally speaking, the saddest end of anything I've ever seen in my frigging life was the end of Twin Peaks season three. It's like, I could watch it and it's beautiful and it's profound. And it's like, I can't believe I'm like,
00:49:45
Speaker
This is so sad. Yeah. I know. Have you seen the Elephant Man? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, not to change it from Twin Peaks, but that was the first day of religion thing that I ever saw. I was like eight years old. Same here. Same thing. But quickly released 80, 81.
00:50:13
Speaker
Not sure. It's early, early eighties. I was eight, nine, 10. Cause I watched it a little bit after it came out. So yeah. Yeah. So elephant man. Uh, he also, I feel like David Lynch shows, well, he shows how evil and monstrous people can be. That movie like, like broke me open emotionally. Um, I feel like it changed my life in some ways, like just
00:50:43
Speaker
Like people are treating, what's his name, John? John Merrick. John Merrick. Like he's a monster, but he's so, he's not. You know, it's just like that, the tragedy of, he was like a beautiful person and just the fact that he could stay beautiful with all the ugliness that was like thrown at him and, you know, feeling like, you know, what his outside is.
00:51:13
Speaker
looks like. And beautiful. Yeah, beautiful film. I had a being at the film, I you know, I see, I see Lynch predominant art form in this, it's strange to say, but you know, painting, like I see, obviously, is the photography high, of course, he's a filmmaker. But there's these paintings that show up in his films. And I was just watching them
00:51:41
Speaker
Barry Linden by Stanley Kubrick. And I'd always seen, been thinking about Kubrick in the terms of individual photographs run together, like these incredible stills, the photographer eye. But then I watched Barry Linden and it's, I think it's a series of paintings done in like particular motifs. Cause as I was watching, I'm like, I've never seen it before like this. It was like, there was a Manet, there was Caravaggio.
00:52:10
Speaker
There was Rembrandt. There was a whole bunch of painters. I'm like, he's holding the scene for this amount to show. I don't know. So I was, I had my mind blown of thinking like painting and photography.
Philosophical Reflections and Recommendations
00:52:26
Speaker
And, um, what about, uh, Lynch's, uh, painting and other type of arts? Have you experienced that and have thoughts of, you know, whether it's painting and maybe short film and stuff like that?
00:52:37
Speaker
I've seen, I think I've seen some of the paintings and I've listened to like, some of his music, like, I don't know, it's just different. You know, I think he's having fun and it's great. I don't know, it's just different. One of the
00:52:56
Speaker
One of the funniest tricks, you know, Lynch had done this biography. I'm not sure if you've read it. Name's escaping me. It's Holmes in the title, and I'll put it in the show notes. But the setup is that there is a biographer, but Lynch has the response to each chapter that the biographer has written. That's so good.
00:53:27
Speaker
It gets better. If you listen to it on audio, the voice for the other author and David Lynch does the voice for the response chapters. And so you never quite know what he's going to take. And it tends to be funny and telling a story to tell a story for a long time to make the point. It's his chapter in response.
00:53:55
Speaker
And there's one, and I'm paraphrasing here, is this kind of exposition where the author is doing the biography of his high school and all this, you know, doing this whole type of thing. And the response chapters have been along, but she does the high school one and it basically goes back to when it was like, I fucking hated high school. Now it's a chapter. And I'm like, I'm like, you are,
00:54:23
Speaker
You are from heaven or some other place. How can you think of doing that? That's brilliant. One of the best chapters ever written. Faulkner had my mother was a fish and we have... I fucking hated high school. I apologize to everybody and to David Lynch for any details that are messed up. That's a gist of the story.
00:54:50
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah. So Sarah always remember, no matter what biography deal you end up with, negotiate your own response chapters, throw, throw away the other details. You're like, I don't care. Let me negotiate my response chapters and we've got a deal for it. Right. Um,
00:55:13
Speaker
All right. So tell me, uh, you had some ideas, um, uh, and thinking, uh, philosophy and the formal question is, uh, why is there something rather than nothing? Oh yeah. Uh, because I think nothing's impossible because there is something, I can't really obviously prove it, but I think it's already proved.
00:55:42
Speaker
that's that as a reflection of reality no uh the one of the reasons i i studied philosophy is because um we chuckle because i think you and i can admit that on some level of experience some of the questions are either annoying or stupid right
00:56:04
Speaker
Like they trip you up, right? And this is like one that is like that. Like one of the things I enjoy talking about philosophy is like when you're trying to talk about all seriously and somebody busts out laughing because they're like, like, are we kind of playing here? Like, is anybody going to call the question? Did anybody overhear that? We're doing this for work. Be careful.
00:56:30
Speaker
You got a good thing going on, you know, so. Well, I love that. That's something that I love about humor, too. And like being able to laugh is that's like you. You hit on something true and then you just want to laugh about it. You want to keep going. Yeah. You like you like stand up. Yeah, I do. Yeah. What's your what kind of stand up you like? What's what do you like? Well, I don't know. I like
00:56:58
Speaker
a lot of like local people that I've seen here. And yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll watch pretty much anything but I don't know some kind of like, I love it when people have like a really ridiculous kind of like abstract kind of humor, but somehow they manage to get it right. So people aren't just like clueless, like you
00:57:28
Speaker
Get it, but it's still kind of just like what you know, I think Eddie Izzard Yeah, Eddie Eddie Eddie Izzard you might you might might dig on that because um kind of like brilliant profound like Like historical knowledge and such and this kind of like trickery with language so he's talking about something huge and then I'll bring it down and Really made it
00:57:56
Speaker
early on in British stand-up. One of Isard's sets, Dressed to Kill, is the one. Okay, I'm writing that down. Dressed to Kill hits, but no, it's fun to talk about the... I like comedy and I like the part in philosophy.
00:58:18
Speaker
there's a few books about a history of philosophy through jokes. Like the only method, the only method that they really employ is always joking about the topic. And it ends up being like super funny and disruptive and makes you feel good because just laughing like helps your body. Right. Well, I have such a, your,
00:58:47
Speaker
You're unguarded when you're laughing, you know? Yeah!
00:58:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's evocative. All right, so you were talking about the different type of events you have. I wanted to talk loosely before maybe asking a couple other things just to
Closing Thoughts and Future Projects
00:59:12
Speaker
make sure. Where do folks find your stuff? Where do they look? Where it shows regularly and your website and all that type of stuff? How do people interact with your art? Yeah.
00:59:23
Speaker
I mean, I put like things happening on Instagram. And I try to keep it up with like some new art or like, you know, sometimes with sketches, sometimes books that I've got coming out events and all that kind of stuff. And my website, definitely.
00:59:45
Speaker
And I do sometimes, I mean, I sell stuff online through Etsy, but not as much. I like to just put my work into the local bookshops and then also at shows whenever I table. Yeah.
00:59:59
Speaker
Yeah. You point a personal privilege. You mentioned your connection to Rhode Island and your mom. What are your impressions? You're a West Coast, or what kind of feel? It evokes a response in general. I find my home state. What did you get from it? From Rhode Island? Yeah. Oh.
01:00:25
Speaker
have so much warm memories from it because my grandparents lived there. They were in Greenwich, and my mom grew up there with her four brothers. So I like a lot of uncles and, and aunts because they all got married and have families and they're kind of scattered around the East Coast now. But I do have an aunt and uncle that still live, they live in there against at bay, actually. And yeah, my aunt is an artist and she's
01:00:53
Speaker
oil paint are like really awesome that lives in Narragansett Bay. I love this small feeling, the ocean feeling of Rhode Island, the Del's Lemonade. Del's, aha, you get points from that one, Del's Lemonade shout out. Frozen lemonade treat very particular to Rhode Island, wonderful. Lemons are the best in general, so.
01:01:22
Speaker
We get the coffee the coffee. Yes the coffee syrup. Yes the coffee syrup. My mom gave us that when we were kids I have it in my fridge right now in Albany, Oregon Wow, do you order it or do you have to go there you bring it back with you? I order it from a dishonorable retailer. I Think I know but I get my clock I get my coffee syrups. Yeah, I
01:01:49
Speaker
And shout out to Rhode Island Coffee. There's a few folks who it's becoming their favorite beverage out here in the woods of Oregon. So who knows? I tell them I used to be able, when I was a kid and go to the milk line, you could get chocolate, regular milk, or coffee milk. At school? Yeah.
01:02:16
Speaker
That is so Rhode Island. No other state. That's amazing. Somebody checked the books on this, but think about it. If you're technically a kindergartner, so you're in public school, and where I went to school, everybody got free lunch even way back in the day, and you go in there and you have your freaking
01:02:40
Speaker
milk token and you go to the milk lady and she got the white milk, the brown milk and the black milk, the chocolate coffee and the white milk. And yes, so you could get jacked up on coffee milk back in Rhode Island in the day as a kid.
01:02:59
Speaker
Obviously had no effect on me, right? Sarah, I mean... No, I mean... That's why you're so great, maybe. That's one of the good things. Charged. Charged up. Hey, maybe there's a dietary thing there, but... No, I love that. Well, you like your donkeys? You like the Dunkin' Donuts or...? I know everyone just loves the coffee. Everyone's like, Dunkin' Donuts coffee, but it's okay.
01:03:25
Speaker
The let's let me let me be I can be real from I'm talking wrote down Look, I'm out on the west coast now. Yeah, the coffee ain't all that that's all okay. Yeah, we have good coffee here It's a beverage that I have a lot of positive Associations with and like to stop in at donkeys to see somebody I might know and to get like a English muffin and
01:03:53
Speaker
donkeys in but it is not it's not gourmet no it's like coffee coffee like you know it's wicked good it's wicked good it's it's it's it's not gourmet um no it's it's it's great to chat uh it's chat uh chat about road island and you know i i reminisce from time to time i haven't been out there in a little while and um
01:04:21
Speaker
You know, the ocean and the particular pieces are being out there in the water and those associations. It's a really wonderful place. A lot of people in a small amount of space, which
01:04:38
Speaker
Out West I like to be able to breathe and stretch out my arms a little bit more So they're very it feels very different very different that way a couple ideas you got going on for upcoming projects even if you don't do them things that have been like you're like I want to develop this idea or Work you're gonna be pointing out to develop something that's going on in your head now. Yeah, I have a
01:05:06
Speaker
a story that I've been working on, like, you know, I've got the plans summarized. And I put out a little like sneak peek that I think maybe you got it. I had titled it Oh, Joy. Yeah, and it's about like a grumpy teenager that moves to a very eccentric town. I mean, I'm basically getting some ideas from when I had like I moved to Colorado when I was a 12 year old. And it was a
01:05:35
Speaker
Speaking of East Coast, it was just a stark contrast compared to living in the East Coast and then moving to this Colorado town, such a different vibe. But it's not serious, it's going to be ridiculous. I'm just going to exaggerate the people that she runs into and
01:06:03
Speaker
have some funny situational humor. And also, the town that we moved to with my parents is called Manitou Springs. And there's spring water everywhere, like really cool fountains and things. So that's one thing I am going to have in the story with the town. It's the the water is going to be sort of like, like, really important piece of kind of tying certain things together. But
01:06:32
Speaker
I haven't figured out the whole story. I haven't figured out how it's gonna end. No, thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for chatting about that. Like, yeah, the, the, you know, the peek into it. Um, uh, you know, I really, I really enjoyed, um, uh, your work. I, I, there's, um, I've seen a couple images, um, and I'll just describe the feeling nothing technical, but, um,
01:06:57
Speaker
there's so much energy like even coming through the panel like that was kinetic that I was able to pick up on because whenever I'm starved or I'm not quite on
01:07:10
Speaker
Imbalanced in an art way. I always need like a surge of connection to kinetic energy and it might be like yeah thrashing metal or whether it's something like with movement with that but I would say like with the couple panels that I saw like I even felt it like in the image so I love that Thank you so much for saying that because again Yeah, like with like when we're talking about you got chili and the bodies and stuff like that. That's what I want. I love
01:07:38
Speaker
that kinetic energy in art. I love that in cartooning, you can exaggerate so much to feel it. There's people who do it so well, like Anya Davidson and stuff, she has great kinetic drawings. I love that you say that. Well, I even think of the Chile thing and it's just like a convergence where I had that memory last night. When you had mentioned that,
01:08:07
Speaker
So the first thing I think, and I paint, but my relationship is different, it's representing or showing the thing. I can't, not yet, I can't do that. So if I want to see the thing that I'm talking about, but I immediately thought about that scene I was describing to you, because it's all bodies, like Igo and Shilei, and I could see almost in the painting,
01:08:33
Speaker
Like somehow, like, you know, I'll have somebody do it or show up somehow that those bodies are, you know, maybe the rocks are exaggerated or the height or something like that. But like, they haven't reflect upon me what I saw. Like, how was I in a situation where my first contact with Igo and Shilei and the images that they were up there on the bank and how was it that bodies, which were so like attractive and fascinating, like in this movie, like in the painting, like in capture that and look at that.
01:09:02
Speaker
That's the painting where you're staring at because you're living there for a while. Not towards madness. It's been so great to chat with you. So great to talk to you too. Thank you so much for having me. There's a couple things. I got to send you a copy of We've Had Trouble Kicking Out.
01:09:33
Speaker
being busy in such a, the zine, but there is an issue of the something rather than nothing zine that I can, uh, that I can email you and yeah, there's more on the way, but, um, just kind of fun stuff. Um, I think it's been cool to connect with what zines are doing in my, uh, organizer mind mindset.
01:09:56
Speaker
You know now at this point in my life of being like tapping into the vein of what you can do and I know some because I've seen in your work, I know I know that you're out there in front and and and fighting for and fighting for women and fighting for what's right. So I want to recognize that as well. Thank you.
01:10:18
Speaker
Yeah, and uh, I love the zines final point one of the ways i've been able to try to understand, uh art Uh east coast west coast is and I don't understand it all yet, but it's true Two people one is kathy acker. Oh, yeah Uh-huh. Um, did you see the book that uh That larry, um
01:10:46
Speaker
published about Kathy Acker recently? Yeah. Yes. Okay, cool.
01:10:52
Speaker
that East Coast, New York, punk, everything that's Kathy Acker. We don't have, you know, adore Kathy Acker for what she does within writing and everything. But I never knew or so connected to the East Coast part of it. I didn't know all the Seattle stuff, Kathy Acker in Seattle. And I was like, and I found a book, it was actually Kathy Acker in Seattle. So it was like a deep dive for like people like maybe you or I would be like, what did she do in Seattle? It really helped me,
01:11:23
Speaker
trying to travel through her brain trying to understand like this neat cool and punk was going on. Yeah. Yeah, I heard that. Yeah, you did. So good. Uh-huh.
01:11:35
Speaker
There's some really amazing stuff. There's actually a couple of mind-blowing essays there towards the end that were just incredible. The other piece too is I was talking to somebody, not to linger here, but I was talking to somebody and they're talking about politics right now. And sometimes when things are tough, you end up relying on thinkers or who do you go back to to just
01:11:59
Speaker
Like help me get it or level me out and so this month Hunter s Thompson and his political acuity of his analysis of what's going on on the ground up in the campaigns fair and loathing on the campaign trail 72 like I found myself going to be like cuz it's it is wild out there politically a lot of us who are active know that it is
01:12:27
Speaker
Wild, but yeah to read that there are trends and currents and these weird ass shit Where I'm reading. I was like, okay, this ain't the same but Some of it kind of is the same. Yeah Yeah, that's helped. Yes, that does help doesn't it? Yeah, Kathy Acker and Hunter s Thompson. Where's that leave me Sarah? Where does it lead you? Hmm
01:12:55
Speaker
Crazy Town, no. No, no, no. Very sane. We'll do part two. We'll do part two. I think the point is to go in further to become more sane and try to reflect what's going on. Super cool to talk with you. We both get excited about these things and thinking of what the activist mindset and creative mindset. I think it's fun to collaborate and do art stuff and
01:13:26
Speaker
Be a liaison to like a artist friend or some of you know in the art community in Seattle who like excites you and like introduce them to the show so we can do our going north, like, you know, organizing things. So, you know, that's, that's, that's what we're up to, I think. Right, Sarah? That's cool. That's cool. Totally.
01:13:57
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.
01:14:27
Speaker
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01:14:55
Speaker
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