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Creating is something that started early: "My parents," Zacks says, "were always showing me the wonders of posters, animation, movies, books and writings." But the prospect of creating professionally came while interning as an illustrator for the Miami Herald. Then, after graduating from Brown (with a bunch of classes at its across the street neighbor, The Rhode Island School of Design), Zacks was swept up in the Web boom where she was art director for a couple of start-ups culminating in a four year stint as design director at VH1.com before breaking out on her own. Among her varied works, Zacks is big into making one-of-a-kind books. One of her books, nycSOULcity, she describes as a visual urban diary. She began the project by taking photos with disposable cameras, then scribbling words and thoughts on top of the images. This was an atypical approach for Zacks, who normally begins her projects with words. "When I attack a project I usually scrutinize a word and take it apart," Zacks says. "I look through the thesaurus and rhyming dictionaries. I guess nycSOUL city is kind of reversed because I had all of the pictures first." Her work has been recognized by design websites around the globe, such as Design is Kinky, Newstoday, k10k, Creative Behavior, Fecal Face, and Icelandic National Team. Zacks spoke to altpick.com from her Brooklyn Studio.
I definitely want to be known as both an illustrator and a fine artist, although for me the definitions get a bit blurred. What does being a fine artist mean to you? To make it as a fine artist I think is the ultimate profession: building up a vocabulary, a style, an approach that is unique, and having a life commitment to that search, that evolution of a voice - it seems to be the purest art form. It's just you in a room, a mad scientist in your world of ideas. It's the artist's battle with his or her insides to get 'it' out again and again and again. As a fine artist it's fascinating to look at a body of work and to know that it hasn't been toyed with, unraveled, changed or whatever by an art director or client. Your clients become collectors. And illustration? Illustration, in some ways, can also be kind of pure; but that's when there is an understanding between artist and client -when they ask the artist to 'Do what you do,' and give a lot of creative freedom to interpret it in their vocabulary. Of course your art becomes associated with a brand. Often the brand is bigger than the art and kind of swallows it, and you may not totally believe in the brand. With fine art the artist IS the brand.
I don't really know. I've got one foot in the design world and one in the illustration world, and I'm working on getting one foot in the fine arts world. I just want to get my work, however you may define it, seen by all different kinds of people. I'm happiest churning out ideas in a visual way, with a spattering of words, paint, whatever I can find. But to be known as a thinker who has important ideas that are hard-hitting and unique is good enough for me. How would you describe your philosophy towards the work? I like to think of my work as little documentaries, little nuggets of truth captured in book form, or painting or writing or photography-whatever I can grab that's closest at that moment. The process is kind of messy, kind of scribbly, but always bubbling beneath the surface. The idea as everything, the words are of utmost importance, and the medium secondary. I like it raw, immediate, not fussed over and ironed. I like the mistakes. The journey is the destination, so to speak. I like the challenge of difficult, meaty topics that make your brain grind and churn. Do you have trouble getting jobs because your work-in an illustrative, design sense-is not traditional?I definitely think people try to fit you into a category. The more I can find the people who understand me, and once I can collect those people, it will be easier for me. I am still in the process of finding those people. I am not your mainstream illustrator so the answer would probably be yes. Although once I find someone who really gets me then he or she usually comes back for more oomph.
It was a collection of work from the hottest female painters and illustrators from around the world. They also put a book out. So slowly I am getting my name out there. I was also selected to be in the Semi Permanent Design Conference book which was exciting. Where did the name extra-oomph come from? I'm in love with words. I'm sure I was looking through the thesaurus at one of oomph's zesty neighbors and oomph just stuck: liveliness, bounce, energy, enthusiasm, passion, pep, soul, sparkle, spirit, verve, vibrancy, vitality, zest, zing, nerve... And then I thought: everybody needs a little extra-oomph! - Contributed by Mary-Beth Holland >> See more work from Linda Zacks >> See other member spotlights on the member spotlight index >> Find out more on how to become an altpick.com member |
