Catching Up with John Kascht (2012)

Article Transcript

John Kascht is a consummate professional, as well as a joy to talk to. Fortunately for our readers, he was kind enough to take time out of his VERY busy schedule to answer some questions for EF. Prepare to be entertained as he shares with us some details of his life and accomplishments.

It’s been 12 years since your last stint as Guest Speaker for ISCA. What do you remember most about the 2000 Convention in San Diego?
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. It was inspiring and I had a great time. I’m looking forward to doing it again in November. I know that the current ISCA has some insanely talented artists.

And we are excited to have you back! Can you tell us a bit about your background. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, which was a sleepy little town back then. Les Paul (the inventor of the electric guitar) grew up in 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 with nothing 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.

So, were you the stereotypical troublemaker who sat in the back of the classroom drawin’ pitchers” in school?
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.

What else helped shape your art early on?
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.

Did he teach you about anatomy?
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 all hacked apart and we had all lost our appetites.

Sounds like your family helped shape your sense of humor. What is your definition of “funny”?
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 widow in that situation. She brought the house down. I guess “funny” has a lot to do with surprise.

When did you first discover that art could make money?
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. What is your typical reaction upon meeting someone who might raise an eyebrow when you tell them what you do for a living? 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.

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?
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 a lot of our own food. We’re only two hours from New York, so it’s close enough for a culture fix or a meeting. I used to race into the city to deliver originals when I missed FedEx. Thank god for digital files.

How long do you usually spend on each of your assignments?
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.

Sounds like you are busy. Do you get a lot of downtime in between jobs?
Before publications started shrinking and the economy tanked, I was turning away more assignments than I took on. The volume of print assignments coming in is much less than it used to be, but I don’t have much downtime. There are always long-term projects that slide onto the front burner when my schedule opens up.

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?
I sketch in pencil on vellum, transfer the finished sketch on a light table and paint in a combination of Peerless 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.

Have any of your other techniques, tools or methods changed or evolved over the years? If so, how?
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’ve become very interested in digital media for its presentation possibilities. The iPad in particular. It’s a blank slate that you can really make your own. When I create something for Web or iPad, 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, Times Magazine, Newsweek, Fast Company, Reader’s Digest and others. Some publications budget well for original iPad 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.

What would you describe as the main differences between what you do in your studio and drawing live caricatures at parties or at retail?
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. I’ve never carved out time to explore the subjects that I most want to do, on my own terms. I’m pursuing funding for a new body of work that does that. It’s exciting.

You’ve had opportunities to meet several of your celebrity subjects. Which of them has impressed you the most?
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. I promised Steve Hearn that one of my presentations in San Antonio will be heavy on the celebrity anecdotes. I’ve got some good stories. You mentioned that you’ve been assigned to draw certain celebrities numerous times. Who are some of your favorite faces to tackle? 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.

Who is your kryptonite?
Tom Hanks.

Anyone else you’d rather not see again?
Jay Leno. He’s simple to caricature. I’d just rather not.

Is there any one person — famous or not — whose caricature you’ve never drawn but always wanted to?
A local farmer who goes by the name “Chicken.” Seriously, the greatest face I have ever seen.

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?
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 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.

How did your work come to be on display in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.? Is there a lengthy selection process?
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 invite me to come in with a pile of drawings and paintings for consideration. Their acquisition process is mysterious. I have something in the works with them now but can’t say much about it.

What does it feel like to have some of your pieces hanging alongside those of Hirschfeld and Levine?
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.

Which artists — living or dead — do you admire the most, or have influenced you the most?
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.

Please tell us a little bit about the genesis of your iPad app.
The app was created by the Joe Zeff Design studio, as part of a series of interactive iPad books called “Above & Beyond” about creative people, their art and the stories behind it.

I worked with Joe Zeff Design on a project a few years ago ― turning Justin Timberlake into a yellow M&M for an ad campaign. Zeff is a fan of my work, and after seeing my Smithsonian film about Conan, he decided I was a good candidate for the “Above and Beyond” series. Last spring, he and one of his designers came roaring up the dirt road to my house on their Harleys with an invitation to make the app. They drove from New York and got lost on rural routes that don’t show up on GPS. It was an over-the-top way to make a pitch. I had seen the “Above & Beyond” iPad app on National Geographic photographer George Steinmetz and really loved it. I was honored to be asked and excited to learn about interactive design from some of the best in the business. I jumped on it. The project, not the Harley.

How long did it take to create it?
Four months from the handshake to the iTunes store. Most of the work took place in 10 weeks. Very ambitious. There was a huge learning curve on my end, but Zeff wanted to debut the app at a publishing event in New York, so we had a deadline. Always a deadline.

Did the finished product turn out exactly the way you imagined it would?
It evolved into something different from what each of us envisioned. We lobbed the framework back and forth and kept throwing curves into the mix, up until the end. It was an intense creative collaboration.

Because iPad is so dimensional, each part of the app consists of parts which are made up of other parts. The user can choose to skim the surface or tap deeper into successive layers. To design it, every layer and every possible navigation route had to be considered from all angles. Everyone involved had overlapping duties, but basically: I mapped out the interactive portfolio and recorded audio clips. Photographer Greg Raymond and I produced the films, photos and 360-degree panoramas of my studio. Joe Zeff Design composed and programmed the app, did the CG and wrote all of the copy. Wendy Reeves of the National Portrait Gallery contributed a terrific audio essay about my work.

It was an amazingly happy collaboration, with the only friction coming up around the biographical features. The “glimpse into John’s world” stuff makes me cringe. But I understood that they were interested in telling a larger story. I made my points and drew certain lines of privacy, but in the end I let the designers have final say because they are great at what they do. They knew the market we were aiming for. And they were picking up the tab.

I’m proud of the quality of the finished product. My favorite thing about it is just the fact of it — it’s an interactive iPad ode to traditional materials.

In addition to your website (www.johnkascht.com) and your app for iPad (Above & Beyond: John Kascht), what other ways can our readers get a heavy dose of John Kascht?
Well, we could all get together in San Antonio in November.

You do a GREAT Katharine Hepburn impression! Can people attending this year’s convention look forward to any more celebrity impersonations in San Antonio?
It’s inevitable. The voices need to be let out.

Learn even more about John by visiting his website at http://www.johnkascht.com

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