- Wooden Toy Features -

INTERVIEW WITH GARY SEAMAN // Interview by Jay Chapman

You just have to love receiving things by the old (not so) trustworthy snail mail. Especially when its a gift from Gary Seaman! This is what happened to Timba just the other day. and we were so impressed by this we thought we should tell the world! and thats what were doing here today. We had a catch up with the Adelaide based artist/deigner to chat about his art, sneakers and what he's got coming up in the future. And so, without further ado i introduce you to Gary Seaman.

Hello Gary. To get this ride rolling, why dont you tell us a little about yourself and what your favorite pair of shoes are? Ah you shouldn't have started with shoes... I could talk about shoes all day! As far as favourites go, i'm a long-time fan of the classic Nike Dunk. If I owned a pair of the original Nike X Futura 2000 'For the love of Money' Dunks, i'd be a happy boy!

As for me, I'm Adelaide born and bred. I work as a Graphic Designer. I graduated Uni and did almost 2 years in the Visual Pollution Industry - otherwise known as Advertising, and have been working as a Freelance designer for the last year. I've been drawing, painting and making things more this last year and it's something I really want to focus on. If I can get to a point where I don't need to work for the man anymore, that'd be awesome!

How to Win friends and influence people. You recently sent your folio to our art director, Timba in a VERY impressive way. Tell us a little about that and where the idea came from? Who doesn't like to receive packages in the mail? I thought it's easy enough to email a folio of work through, but that'd probably get a quick skim over with the other hundred emails i'm sure Timba gets everyday. So I thought - why not send him something he has to open? And being a fellow fan of wood, I thought he'd get a kick out of something handmade. I made one of my characters into a custom usb drive and made a wood board package for it all to sit nicely together. It must have worked, because here I am, being featured on Wooden Toy Quarterly!

You have an oriental feel to allot of your work. Where does this inspiration come from? Yeah definitely. I've been to Japan a couple of times and love it. Their culture is so different from ours. I love their Architecture and all its handcrafted aspects. Everywhere you look there's intricate details. It all has such a high quality finish too. They have wood carved statues in all the castles and shrines which just make me want to make my own. Also they have hundreds of years of great art history. Ukiyoe wood block prints and drawings. I got to see the largest collection in one place in Okayama Museum last year which was amazing.

Where else do you like to draw your inspiration from? Lots of different things inspire me. I like watching other people draw or paint. During my recent trip to Melbourne I was hanging out with Hiro (Twoone) and hearing him talk about his whole process of working and his approach to each new piece was really inspiring. I love music. When there's some good tunes playing, usually things will happen much easier. I also get out on my bike as much as I can. Its good to get away from my shed set up and just go ride in the hills not far from where I live. Im always inspired by other artists who just do their thing. They don't do it because someone wants them to, they just do it because that's what they do. I also get inspired by people who talk crap - it inspires me not to be like them!

Where is your favorite place on earth? I really couldn't say. I haven't travelled enough to have found it yet I don't think. I choose to hang out with people that inspire me and who I can have a good time with. I think that's always a pretty good place to be.

You had us at WOOD! You work on and with wood. What qualities do you find attractive in using this medium? Wood is good! There's a green dump next to the BMX track that I ride fairly often, and there's always heaps of scrap wood there that I rummage through and bring home. Much to my dads disgust! He's a cabinet maker, so he hates all the old filthy bits of wood and old chairs i bring home to paint on. He helps me out a fair bit when it comes to sourcing the really nice bits of board I use. I just like the texture of wood. I think it started from continually painting over a canvas and getting fed up with it. So I took the canvas off, and used the frame to put a wood panel on. It's pretty much the only thing I paint on now. I like the challenge of finding a really crappy piece and working out what to do with it.

What other mediums do you like using and why? I've been doing lots with just markers and paint lately. I'm pretty happy with the way my stuff comes out on wood, so really just working with that. Have worked with another Adelaide artist Store from The Toy Soldiers Crew, on a large gallery wall which was good fun. I've always played with spray paints, but to do something properly, with some good direction was good. Im keen to do more of it now. Also recently have been toying with a Gocco printer - a neat little screen printer from Japan. Just need some more time to get stuck into that a bit.

Whats the last album you purchased, and what do you think of it? The XX, a band from East London. Heard one of their tracks a while back so I bought the album and haven't stopped listening to it since. I was stoked to hear they're coming out for the Laneway Festival next year. Also the new album from Quantic and his Combo Barbaro has been getting a bit of a thrash lately. Love some good funk and reggae tunes!

You like to work with and around the ideas of toys and figures. Where does this inspiration come from, and where would you like to see it go? Im a Vinyl toy junkie! I have too many of them. They're addictive and it'd be an awesome job to design them. Meeting Tara Mcpherson recently and chatting to her about working with Kidrobot was great. She pretty much gets complete freedom with the design of the figures. I sometimes find it easier to get my ideas out on a 3D figure than drawing it. I don't why that's the case, it just works that way. My uber talented girlfriend made me a plush pillow of one of my characters, and gave it to me as a surprise for my birthday. That was awesome! I'd love for us to experiment with that a bit more. She did a neat job just from a sketch of mine.

Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown has turned up at your door in his DeLorean DMC-12 Time Machine and can take you to any year in the past or the future. Where/When are you going and why? Once I got my shit together after realising Doc and Einstein are at my door, i'd probably head back to the 70's somewhere. People gave me shit at uni for using brown and orange in everything. I think i'm the only one in my family that actually enjoys seeing the funky patterned carpet at my grandparents place. Having a nice collection of funk and soul vinyl makes me want to see what those crazy cats were like back then.

You have developed a very distinct style to you body of work. Has it always been this way? I think my work definately has a look to it that people are starting to recognise as mine, which is a good thing. I still feel like it's developing though. I see something i've done 6 months ago and feel i've already moved on from that. There are elements that I use continually in lots of different pieces of work. I think that's just part of the process at the moment. I have new ideas all the time and just really trying to get a solid body of work together that i'm really happy with.

Your based to the West in Adelaide. Whats the art scene like there at the moment and how has this influenced your work? There's a really good buzz at the moment in Adelaide. Over the last 6 months there's been a whole swagger of exhibitions and events happening. Art exhibitions, pop-up stores, live paintings at bars - there's always something on. A real sense of community has been growing. I think it's been helped along by the guys at Merge magazine. Its a new monthly street magazine that's focus is being a guide to creative living in Adelaide and bringing people together. I think they've had a massive input into the scene. Its been what adelaide has needed. There's been lots of people here that have the attitude 'I need to move to Melbourne to be a successful arty/creative type' when really, you just become a smaller fish in a bigger pond. It's good to see people staying here and do their thing. There's plenty of talent here.

Anyone we should all be looking out for? A favourite of mine is Dan Withey. He's been bashing out some crazy stuff for a while now and is always keeping his work fresh.

What's the strangest thing you have ever eaten? Off the top of my head it'd be Sea Urchin. My sister lives in Japan now, and when I visited her last year some of her friends took us to a nice restaurant. Apparently Sea Urchin is a gourmet food over there!

If you could collaborate with any artist past or present, who would it be? Tough question. Don't really have one in particular. I mean there'd be different people i'd want to work with on different collaborations. I'd love to work with someone like Huck Gee or Supakitch if it were some Vinyl toy project. But then there's plenty of artists I look up to that would be great to work with. Hanging out with Jeff Soto recently was pretty cool and I've always been a fan. So I reckon it'd be good to work with him. Really the list could go on for ages though. That would also include plenty of local artists too... Twoone, Drewfunk, Benzo 376, Ghostpatrol. All those guys are really inspiring.

What's your Power Animal? I really had no idea where this question was going, so im going to say - What the f*ck is YOUR power animal....hmmm?

Your work is very illustrative based. Do you have any formal training in this area or any other? Not really. I mean I did life drawing classes while I was at University, but other than that, i've always just liked to draw.

Got anything in the pipes at the moment you want to tell us about? Yeah i do actually. It's called The Golden Silver Project. It's basically my own range of creative goodness. There's a range of different products including limited run hand screened t-shirts, custom toys, Gocco prints, skatedecks, original artworks and more. It'll be launching a bit closer to christmas with an exhibition style event. Should be good fun! Im really focusing on the handmade element to all of those products too. Each product will have its own unique packaging thats been handmade or customised is some way. The current website still has a bit of work to do, but it'll be up and running for people to purchase everything online after the launch.

Whats your favorite wooden object? Ah too hard to pick! I just bought a new laptop case that's designed by Hunter Gatherer which is pretty damn woody! That's a lie. It's not actual wood, but its an epic woodgrain design all over it!

For more of Gary Seaman head here