Jon Burgerman Talk at Noise Lab Manchester 31st January. Transcript
Key
Barny, the Noise Lab interviewer = NL
Jon Burgerman = JB
Nick Birch = NJB
NL: Were going to do some flexing thing err visually but lets start with your journey?
JB: What on the way in?
NL: No how you started, lets go back to the turn of the century.
JB: Cool this is like therapy or some thing, close my eyes regress, i am wearing shorts, I've just dropped my ice cream, I'm crying and I'm in a sand pit. Err sorry what was your question?
NL: Lets start by talking about the turn of the century.
JB: Oh yeah in 2000, I was studying in Nottingham Trent university and I studied Fine Art err that was but I didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated, but I knew what I didn’t want to, which was have a job, or do to much work, and starve those where my three main goals, and I yeah used to have a part time job I used to travel and go to things, and I went to Doodle Bug day which started in 2001.
NL: I actually started Doodle Bug day in 98, but you came up in 2001.
JB: So I came up to Manchester from Nottingham, and went to this thing called doodle bug which id not really heard of before, I don’t even know how I found out about it to be honest, but it was great because you could come and there were loads of Posca pens, you could draw on stuff and then maybe borrow a few Posca pen to take home with you.
NL: We did give them away.
JB: Oh really, I was just shoveling them in my pocket.
NL: We had a massive concession.
JB: Oh really I feel less guilty about that now, I've been carrying that guilt quite some time.
NL: That’s good, that’s good.
JB, Erm so I started drawing and drawing on the wall, I didn’t know anyone there, every one else were these artist and they all knew each other…..err I did that which was good maybe id like to keep doing stuff like that, but it wasn’t as busy then as I’ve been to Doodle Bug things more recently, there really busy but back then they weren’t as hectic, they were a bit more under the radar.
So I did that and that stop me ill just continue to waffle……. I don’t know when I wasn’t at work I would just make my own work, I mean when I wasn’t being employed, I would be at home in Nottingham be at home drawing emailing people my drawings, and making web sites, contributing to zines and magazines, just any thing any thing I could find, that I could do or be part of, I don’t know just to keep me busy I’m very easily distracted. And err yeah so I just did stuff like that and eventually stuff started to happen, and significantly I got invited, to do some work that I got paid for which was quite good, which made me realize there was a root out of being employed, I was lucky that people like my work so I started to do some stuff for album covers and things, do some record sleeves for some small house labels, in Nottingham, so they started to ask me to do posters for them and all the cd work, err I didn’t know what I was doing, which is a bit bad because they allowed me to do everything, stuff like the layouts, I mean I can draw characters but I didn’t know anything really about laying stuff out, things came back from print with fonts to small, things like that which was kind of embarrassing, I blamed the printer but it was my fault.
But you kind of just learn by just doing, I mean I don’t know are some of you students, art students or design students?
So one of the things I did when I was learning how to make a website, was still a new fangled thing we still only had dial up, back in those day kids yeah and if someone used the phone in the house, a land line, it would kill your internet.You’d be sending a one meg image, and it would be like 99% and some one would phone and it would be like Nooooo, and you would have to start again.
Er yeah so anyway it was a slow process and anytime I got commissioned to do something I really believed that that would be it, like the calls would start, I could quit my job and sit by the phone, which would be ringing off the hook, and I would always go to bed that night thinking this is it, and obviously it never happened but it slowly happened, that’s the thing it’s a slow build, the more work I had out there, I guess the more people saw it and, I had this web site that I built and it was really basic, but I just stared adding all the new work to it.
NL: You then created, was it doodle world, doodle town?
JB: It was a little world.
NL: What was it called doodle land?, Doodleville what was it you called it?
JB: Biro web! Is that what you mean, I can show you that is you like this was a little project that I started, I wanted to make a website, without having to use a computer, er didn’t have a laptop or any thing like that, so I would just draw on anything and I just scanned it in and made a website which is all hand drawn, really low tech and it took no skills to make, you just click on an image and it takes you to the next on, this was a little side project, that I’ve neglected over the years, but if you click through it, you get to the menu, and you’ll get to see some really old pieces of work.
This is really early work, this is the type of stuff I was contributing to zines and stuff. I had no money to get nice pens and things so I just used biro pens and any sort of paper, I guess I kind of continued in that vein just using cheap materials whatever was laying around, recycling is good, that was before the world was heating up and they invented global warming. So yeah there you go that’s biro web.
Those were the early days before the empire.
NL: It just functions in a really simple effective way.
JB: It is good to keep things simple, i'm a simple kind of guy, I like simple things.
JB: Like a cup of tea.
(talks about airport water for 5 min)
NL: So moving on to the designer toys you produced with Kidrobot, how did that come about and how far down the line were you with your practice.
JB: Err well I started doing all this stuff making characters and in the mid 2000’s this whole trend of vinyl toys came out, there these little things that you put on your desk, then put another one next to it, maybe pose it in a rude .. I don't know so any way. It was kind good but a bit unusual because a lot of these things where made in the far east back then, and I think the companies involved, were keen to work with new people, so I used to get emails, but it was always a bit dodge because you didn’t know who people were or what they were doing, they would want to use you characters and pay you in toys.
NL: How did you make that connection. You eventfully build you a relationship after some emails going back and forth, but I worked with a couple of companies, and some time you just knew some times it was just doomed to failure, I worked for a company over a year making these prototypes, and sample of the things and then they never came out. The company disappeared and then the same happened again, and then the company in Hong Kong had I worked with for two years, and I’ve still got the prototype in my house, but they never came out and the company went bust or something, what happened was as the toy world became popular, as I understand it anyway, there started to be an influx of western, American companies, people like kid robot had started up, strange co they started importing toys from china and Japan, but then thought wait a minute, let stop buying toy and importing them to sell them in America, if we make the tots ourselves, we wont have to buy them of the far eastern companies so the went and pinched all the big artists of the far eastern guys. There’s nothing wrong with that I guess, so it went from one side of the world to another.
So then having failed with two companies Kidrobot, came round and said hey we’d like to make toys of your stuff, two years later they eventually came out.
So it was kind of frustrating I had given up hope of it happening to be honest.
NL: Had you had any contact with Pete (Fowler) at all?
JB: Yeah Pete was really good, and quite an inspiration because he was doing it himself, he had already built a fan base with the monsterism stuff. I was really keen, I really had strong ambitions to make toys, by the time they came out I was so fed up with it all I wasn’t that excited, but the anticipation of some thing is often better than the realization of it.
NL: Your work is everywhere in terms of objects, in toy on loads of different products.
JB: We kind of realized that I drew on a lot of things, and I know its always existed but there was a real rebirth of customization, one of the first commercial jobs I ever got was Levi’s they wanted me to customize, a leather pack the kind of thing that you put your belt through at the back of the jeans. They asked quite a lot of different artist to do that for there range. But them other companies thought that hey we don’t have to manufacture new stuff we can just draw on the stuff we already do, like the blank Munny toys and trainer companies started doing it. So I started drawing on a lot of things because I didn’t know any better.
So I guess the next step on is that people saw these things and said that’s kind of nice lets make more of then and then sell them.
Erm so I er I so there were lots of brands lots of companies started doing these little exhibitions when they would ask you to just come and customize some stuff for them. So that was a leg up to do more things and make contacts, because that was still in the early days. But it was just good to work wither its paid or not its just good to have that practice, clients and sending stuff round, that’s was in America so, before id even left Nottingham id had my work all over the world in exhibitions, and stuff.
So yeah I’ve done lots of product thing but generally their always low run, limited edition, low gamble, kind of stuff.
NL: Is it a mixture of them approaching you or you go to them?
JB: Oh yes sometimes but generally they always come to me.
NL: So you never really know what your going to get?
JB: I get a lot of invitations from like sportswear people saying hey we’ve got a new thing, and then its up to you if you want to do it or not. I don’t think you can force people into collaborating, if you have a friend that owns a company that is quite small then yes, but the big companies you have to wait until they come to you.
NL: So where have you just come back from?
JB: I’ve just come from my New York odyssey, which was really great because I had a exhibition in Brooklyn but I had time to see the sights I got to see some Basquiat pieces which I’ve always found really inspiring so er yeah I did a show about being anxious because I’ve done a lot of live drawing but its always makes me feel like a bit of a wally. But it turned out so I guess it was kind of fun. But the work were about all the anxieties I get or used to get I’m less anxious now I’ve chilled out a little bit. Some of the work was like, planes crashes, having no internet, being smelly and not been able to find a toilet when you need a toilet.
NL: Can we talk about the fact that everyone describes you as an illustrator but its not the case?
JB: I have done some illustration its true but I’m not really a illustrator, if I am I’m a really shitty illustrator, I’m really bad, I’m not very, I’ve been commissioned to do some illustrations which is good because you get paid, and some times its interesting but I’ve had many occasions were a client has asked me to draw something very specific, but I’m rubbish at, ill give it a go, but I’ve had many projects cancelled, I’m best left to do my own thing.
NL: Its like with Andy Mr. Scruff, You’ve created your own world and you do what you do and if people want that then…
JB: Yeah Yeah
NL: Basically what I’m trying to say is you’ve come out of your bedroom and took on the world.
JB. Well that’s a very grand way of saying it id think its more like I came out of my bedroom and I went downstairs to make some toast. But I was luck to graduate at the time when the inter net was really taking off so you could get your work seen all over the world and you could send emails to people and try and drum up some work.
NL: Can we open up the floor a bit and see if anyone has any questions? Any body?
NJB: Do you think that the process you use to create you art has any link to automatic drawing that the Surrealists use?
JB: Er yeah maybe, a little bit you asked whether, I don’t know if you all heard that but you asked whether I used an automatic drawing process that the Surrealist’s used, definitely a bit I always start with the vague idea of what I want to draw, but I don’t like see the image or anything, maybe little bits of it, but it changes, as you make it often what you have in your imagination is very different to how it starts to look on a wall, piece of paper I don’t know in my head its just a white weird milky white space, maybe a bit like heaven but made of cardboard, when I start drawing I like to be loose enough to improvise and adapt, to the media your using some times the pen will splert out ink in a different slight subtly different way so there is a million different variables of stuff, does that answer your question at all.
NJB. Yeah that’s great, I just want see if there was a direct link to your work and the subconscious,
JB: What like my mind?
NJB: Just that your not consciously designing each piece as such.
JB: Yeah yeah some times I might do a little rough sketch, but very rarely what I like to think is that each drawing is a design of its self, and if it doesn’t work then ill just do another drawing, so even when I have exhibitions and I have a lot of painting to do, I had an exhibition in Newcastle, and I made like over a hundred pieces of work, but each piece was just like a little practice for the next piece, I didn’t design each one, they just get made and I take things I liked from the last one and tried to integrate that into the next one, so I just kept making them, they all fail, on a certain level, none of then are good or correct or perfect or anything, but there might be a little nugget, a little nugget of goodness in each one, a little nugget of gold. That I might retain and use in the next one, I know a lot of artist that do rough sketches they even practice paintings, but I’m not really like that, to me each one is a little jiggle or skit or melody of its own, and if it doesn’t work I don’t deconstruct it, ill try and capture something else I bit different.
NJB Thank you
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