Catching Up with John Kascht
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| Author | Lorin Bernsen |
|---|---|
| Subject | John Kascht |
| Genre | Article, Interview |
| Published | EF Issue 2019.3 |
Publication date | Summer 2019 |
| Media type | Digital |
| Pages | 25-29 |
| Website | caricature |
| This is an updated version of the interview that originally ran in EF 2012.?. Enjoy! | |
John Kascht is a consummate professional, as well as a joy to talk to. Fortunately for our readers, he was kind enough to answer some questions for EF. Prepare to be entertained as he shares with us some details of his life and accomplishments.
Article Transcript
Q: You were a guest speaker at the ISCA conventions in 2000 and 2012. What do you remember most about the experience?
A:My very first impression of the convention was of meeting a lot of grownups with names like Kid, Mikey, Bippy, Bambi, Debbo and Tad. The next impression was of how friendly and welcoming everyone was. Most of all, I remember being impressed by the quality of the work being done. ISCA has some insanely talented artists.
Q: Tell us a bit about your background. Where did you grow up?
A: I grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, which was a sleepy little town back then. Les Paul (the inventor of the electric guitar) is also from Waukesha, and he made the first electric guitar prototypes there as a teenager. The joke around town was always, “Well of course Les invented rock ’n’ roll here. What ELSE was there to do?” As a creative kid, I related to that. Growing up in a sedate, small town was probably a kind of motivation. I had an incredible urge to create all the time, and since there wasn’t much else to do, nothing got in the way of that. I made puppets, cameras, motorized monsters, huge corrugated cardboard houses, comic books about my family and, every Christmas, a marionette show that took months to prepare.
Q: So, were you the stereotypical troublemaker who sat in the back of the classroom “drawin’ pitchers” in school?
A: Pretty much. I was a good student and the teachers liked me, but I was irreverent and a wicked instigator. I went to Catholic schools. They provided great material. I made pinup calendars featuring nude drawings of the nuns. Also, a comic book about mutant clergy ... a “Sound of Music” meets “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” sort of thing. Totally juvenile stuff but an inevitable reaction to the repressive environment. Catholic school definitely helped me develop my satirical chops at an early age. At some point, I had the revelation that drawing caricatures was a way of being a smartass without getting punished. Even better, people rewarded it.
Q: What else helped shape your art early on?
A: My dad was a pathologist. Sometimes, on weekends, I’d go to the hospital lab and watch him work. Seeing cells under the microscope and watching him dissect lab rats or human body parts was mind-blowing. That forensic mindset of pulling things apart and saying “OK, what do we have here?” was a huge influence on my development as a caricaturist.
Q: Did he teach you about anatomy?
A: At the dinner table! Sometimes, meals became autopsies. He’d be cutting up a chicken or a roast and get all excited about the muscle sheathing and point out where muscles became tendons. About the time he’d say “OK, now this part is really interesting ...” our dinner is hacked apart and we had all lost our appetites.
Q: Sounds like your family helped shape your sense of humor. What is your definition of “funny”?
A: I suppose humor is part celebration, part armor. Hard to define, though. I find a lot of things funny. I love irreverent humor. At my dad’s funeral, people were filing past his casket and stopping to express condolences to my mother. It’s an awkward situation for most people. It’s all very heartfelt, but no one really knows what to say. One person after another said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, it’s so hard to lose your husband, I’m sorry for your loss,” and my mom started to giggle. She turned to me and said — too loudly — “We didn’t lose him. It’s not like we can’t find him. He died.” It was so jarring, so unexpected, coming from an 82-year-old in that situation. She brought the house down. I guess “funny” has a lot to do with surprise.
Q: When did you first discover that art could make money?
A: At 14 or 15. I started drawing political cartoons for the local paper for $25 a pop. Eventually, the price went up to $50. I did a few a month.
Q: What is your typical reaction upon meeting someone who might raise an eyebrow when you tell them what you do for a living?
A: It’s an unusual profession, so people always want to hear about it. I’m flattered when someone shows interest in what I do. Privately, I have my doubts that making exaggerated pictures of people is the best use of my brief time on earth.
Q: What made you decide to operate out of a small town in Pennsylvania, rather than New York City, which seems to be the illustrator’s mecca?
A:Hey, there’s nothing like waking up in the middle of the night to chase bears away from the trash can! Living in the country was a quality-of-life decision. I’ve always stayed a little under the radar so it fits my temperament to live away from the action. My wife is a beekeeper, and we grow some of our own food. We’re only two hours from New York, so it’s close enough for a culture fix or a meeting.
Q: How long do you usually spend on one of your caricatures?
A: Hard to say. Every job is unique, but from sketch to finish, probably an average of 20 hours. The truth is that I’ll spend as much time as I have. My shortest turnaround is two hours for New York Times opinion/editorial pieces. Lead time doesn’t always matter. I just finished a poster that was commissioned three months ago, and it ended up being a deadline job anyway, because every assignment that came in over the next three months took priority. I started it the week it was due. The time it takes to do a piece can cut all different ways. Al Hirschfeld had a funny take on this subject. He said something like, “I can do a complicated drawing if you need it soon, but if you want something simple it will take longer.” The ideal amount of time for me is little enough that I feel adrenaline but not so little that I can’t do it justice. Until recently I scheduled my life around deadlines. Entertainment Weekly due on Monday morning, GQ due Thursday. Newsweek due Friday night. That’s exciting – and I’ve been very fortunate to have had success as an illustrator – bu at a certain point I realized that if I didn’t make time for my own projects soon, I never would. I’ve pulled back from deadline work to focus on two book projects that are evolving in their own time, which is sloooowly. I’m having a blast. I’ve reconnected with the creative fire I had as a kid when I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited to get up and continue make stuff. After so many years of chasing deadlines it’s strange and kind of scary to be pouring myself into stuff that won’t be seen for a while, and that may or may not be profitable.
Q: I noticed in one of your films that you were using tracing paper. Do you tend to rely heavily on traditional art materials, as opposed to more modern, digital media?
A:I sketch in pencil on vellum, transfer the finished sketch on a light table, then paint with tube and cake watercolors, and diluted fountain pen inks. I use Photoshop to piece my scans together and touch them up, but I don’t create the work digitally. When I was up and coming, digital media was just on the horizon. It took a long time for the bugs to be worked out of digital painting tools and even longer for it to become mainstream. By then, I was well established and getting a lot of work. I had no desire to reinvent myself as a digital artist, and since art directors wanted my particular style, it wouldn’t have been a smart business move. I’m a dinosaur, but I have decades of original art, and they sell for more than digital prints!
Q: Have any of your other techniques, tools or methods changed or evolved over the years? If so, how?
A:My career solidified during a newspaper and magazine boom that is hard to imagine these days. In the ’80s and ’90s, there were lots of fat, healthy publications devoted to politics and celebrity culture. They couldn’t keep running photographs of the same people over and over, so a big market opened up for caricature. It led to a revival of the art form in print, and a relatively small group of caricaturists were everywhere at once: Philip Burke, Steve Brodner, Stephen Kroninger, Eric Palma, David Cowles, Anita Kunz, Robert Risko, Drew Friedman, Dan Adel ― I shouldn’t have started listing names because I’ll inevitably leave out some obvious ones — but a group of us appeared on the scene around that same time. None of today’s huge online communities existed, but a kind of dialogue took place in print. Some of us had never met but we knew one another’s work and there was a definite sense that we were building something together. I feel fortunate to have played my small part in that.
My style of working hasn’t changed much over the years. As I said, I don’t work digitally but I am interested in the presentation possibilities of digital media. iPad in particular. It’s a blank slate that you can really make your own. When I create something for Web or tablet, I’m usually given a freedom that is unusual in print these days. As of yet, there aren’t many sheriffs on the digital frontier. I’ve created multimedia pieces that combine traditional print content with film and animation for The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Fast Company, Reader’s Digest and others. Some places budget well for tablet features, some don’t. As new outlets continue to develop, illustrators as a group have to demand fair payment for high-quality content. That’s an uphill battle.
Q: What would you describe as the main differences between what you do in your studio and drawing live caricatures at parties or at retail?
A: I’ve never done event or retail caricature and respect anyone who can work under those conditions. I suppose the main difference has to do with the immediacy of live caricature as opposed to the artificial nature of studio work. In the studio, I assemble photos and video to make up for the fact that I don’t have a flesh-and-blood subject in front of me. I often wish I did, if only to soak up that sense of personality you can only get in someone’s presence. Unfortunately, it’s rarely part of caricature-as-illustration. Live caricaturists probably wish they were in a studio with nobody staring back at them!
I know that live caricaturists envy the amount of time that illustrators have for an assignment. But any illustration job can turn into a sprint to the finish line. There is always some conceptual back-and-forth and, depending on the client, there might be several people who have to sign off. That’s usually the case with advertising jobs. Theater posters are insane. They require an OK from the agency art directors, management, the producers of a show and, finally, the stars. When I’ve finished any piece, it never represents my best work ― it’s the best I was able to do under the circumstances. I don’t really even know what my best work looks like. My portfolio contains some good stuff, but it’s all inherently compromised work. I’m sure that live caricaturists can relate to that completely. My caricature work has always been created in response to what other people need. In the past couple of years I’ve finally carved out time to explore the subjects that I most want to do, on my own terms. It’s exciting.
Q: You’ve had opportunities to meet several of your celebrity subjects. Which of them has impressed you the most?
A: Katharine Hepburn was the most memorable by far. I spent quite a bit of time with her and have some very funny and poignant memories. She was sweet and cranky and completely lovely. Conan O’Brien is a favorite too. He’s about as down to earth as a celebrity can be. Very thoughtful, and funny of course. While I was sketching him one time he started riffing on what a disaster I’d be as a witness to a crime. He put on a newscaster voice and said “Police are looking for a suspect with an oversized head, a tiny body and and a nine foot pompadour.”
Q: You mentioned that you’ve been assigned to draw certain celebrities numerous times. Who are some of your favorite faces to tackle?
A: It’s inevitable that certain figures get assigned over and over. Nicholson, Bill Murray, Letterman, Barbra Streisand, Mick Jagger and Bill Gates are faces I’m always happy to revisit. A random one I’ve been assigned to draw over and over is Kevin Costner. He’s not somebody you see caricatured that often, so I have no clue why I’ve drawn him a dozen times. One of my favorite illustrators, John Cuneo, made me beam with pride when he said that he hated me because I nailed Costner’s likeness. Costner has one of those faces that’s kryptonite for a lot of caricaturists, but he’s never given me trouble.
Q: Who is your kryptonite?
A: Tom Hanks.
Q: Anyone else you’d rather not see again?
A: Jay Leno. He’s simple to caricature. I’d just rather not.
Q: Is there any one person — famous or not — whose caricature you’ve never drawn but always wanted to?
A: A local farmer who goes by the name “Chicken.” Seriously, the greatest face I have ever seen.
Q: Your short film “Funny Bones” features a great deal of narration from you, along with several shots of you at work. When did you discover you were comfortable being in front of the camera?
A: If I seem comfortable on camera, I guess there’s some acting involved. After a few days with camera and lights around, you do get used to it, but it’s all so unnatural. Being filmed can make it tough to do good work. The overhead shots in “Funny Bones” were especially tough. Whenever I tried to forget the film setup and just get lost in work, my head would drift in front of the camera. The videographer watching the monitor would yell “SKUNK!” which became the running joke when I stunk up the shot with my skunk-like ponytail. So he set up a barrier over my desk to keep me out of the frame. It solved the problem, but I had to work at an angle. The lights couldn’t be moved once we started filming, and I kept getting reflections off of the paper and the watercolor washes. There were several sequences where I literally couldn’t see what I was drawing or painting. The sequence was supposed to show this great process, and I’m drawing sideways, blind, struggling like crazy. The final soundtrack is voiceover with nice music. The live soundtrack is me swearing. In spite of that sort of challenge, working in film is so much fun. It’s a return to the raw spark that I felt as a kid just creating for the joy of it. Film structure comes naturally to me and I love to write, so it brings several of my strengths together.
Q: How did your work come to be on display in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.? Is there a lengthy selection process?
A: The Portrait Gallery began collecting my work in 1990. As unlikely as it sounds, one of the curators just called me one day. She was interested in a caricature of Katharine Hepburn that I had done for the Kennedy Center. The piece went through their acquisition process, and in the end they decided against it. But ― a couple of the curators and historians became interested in my work and kept in contact. Every few years, they invited me to come in with a pile of drawings and paintings for consideration. Their acquisition process is mysterious.
Q: What does it feel like to have some of your pieces hanging alongside those of Hirschfeld and Levine?
A: Seeing my work hanging at the Portrait Gallery is always a bit of an out-of-body experience. It just doesn’t make any kind of sense to me. It’s humbling.
Q: Which artists — living or dead — do you admire the most, or have influenced you the most?
A: Man, that is an impossible question. So many — most have no obvious influence on my own work, but they move me. I tend to be drawn to work that is expressive or elemental ... Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Edward Hopper, the abstract expressionists. Paul Klee. I also really love aboriginal art, and Navajo rug patterns. Van Gogh may be my favorite artist. I’m in awe of his work and even more, his spirit, his connection to life. I’m sure he was a disastrous person to know, but as an artist he was an inferno. He just consumed the world around him. As for caricature artists who influenced me early on ... Hirschfeld, Levine, Mort Drucker, Ralph Steadman and to some extent Pat Oliphant. When I was growing up, caricature had waned in popularity. It was much less prevalent than it is today. Those artists and a few others were the main ones carrying the torch, and I gravitated to it. I remember being so excited by their work. Something in me was getting activated.
Q: Please tell us a bit about the retrospective show of your work traveling around the country.
A: It’s a selection of my favorite caricatures from 35 years of work. I edited a pile of two thousand down to 90! This is the first solo exhibition I’ve ever had, and it makes me laugh to think that my first major show is a retrospective which basically means you’re getting old. It was important to me that the show be more than a collection of greatest hits. I wanted to share the process behind the pictures, so it includes step-by step displays and a huge wall of pencil sketches. The text for the walls and labels digs into caricature from a lot of different angles. The show has been traveling for a year and a half already and there are some great venues coming up.
Catalogs from the show are available through my website at http://www.johnkascht.com. 88 pages for $25. I’ll keep my eyes open for ISCA members at the opening events. Please come and say hello!
See Also
External Links
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