Don't You Love What You Do?: Casting a Cynical Eye on Retail Caricature
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| Author | Sam Klemke |
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| Published | EF Issue 2009.2 |
Publication date | Spring 2009 |
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| Pages | 12-13 |
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Article Description. Should include author, brief description, issue number and page number(s).
Article Transcript
Okay, I’ve finally accepted my fate... I am a baby draw-er. I make my bread and butter on the stroller crowd, and I will admit it, I’ve actually become quite good at it.
The marketplace dictates all, and when you take your skill into the marketplace over a lifetime, you find out what sells. You find out whether it’s the safe, protected environment of the amusement parks and casinos, or the hard, flea-bitten fair and carnival life of a road junkie.
Contrary to what my friends and family believe, not every retail caricaturist is a roaming gypsy like me. I’m one of the “Free Agents” like Huf, Mikey Shields, Harold Wirk, and Owen Richardson who work full time, completely for themselves, who is out there on his own, no fellow artists to commiserate with, no one else to help absorb the losses of a particularly bad event...You’re truly out there on the frontlines alone.
Every morning I wake up in my van (the infamous “Womb on Wheels”) and say to myself; “It’s showtime!!” When people have to pay, they want to dictate the terms of their fun. As a survival mechanism, I’ve learned to cope with rudeness and ignorance through my own policies:
- Everyone pays up front. After that ugliness is over, then we can have FUN!
- I use a prominent sign that reads: “Absolutely No Refunds!” Keeps the dubious away.
- No peeking till it’s done! (Keeps the suspense building)
- I never show or give the finished drawing to a seated customer. You MUST “Stand Up and Come Take a Look”... (this discourages customers from sitting there and just staring at it, oblivious to others waiting in line. Time is money!)
- If I have to take a potty break, everyone must wait for me.
- No changing your babies diapers in my booth! Strollers must move out before drawing is done.
Then there is the constant justifying of my prices. Oy, don’t get me started on,”Oh, it’s per face...! But we wanna do all 12 of us on one page!”
If I sense someone is nervous about “getting done”, (teenage girls are notorious for this: “we want it, but we don’t want to look weird”) I immediately discourage them from getting one: “Yes, I AM going to make you look dopey, fat, ridiculous, funny, etc”...This usually challenges them to go ahead and take a chance.
Then there are a myriad of other problems to deal with, like your fellow vendors. I almost NEVER have a smooth fair or festival experience. It seems like I’m always going to war with some neighbor about them sticking their display outside their booth, blocking mine.
Usually the problem is noise. We visual artists have learned the hard way that noise can be a huge obstacle to overcome. Noise will always trump visual in vying for the public’s attention. I’m a “sit-down comedian” giving a silent performance, usually saving my big punch lines for the end. Concentration is our real tool of trade, and in the same way that a fine piece of music can get you into a splendid groove artistically, an insidious, pushy, aggressive thug with a microphone spouting repetitious schtick to all the fairgoers can ruin your precious stream of consciousness and make you consider breaking a commandment or two.
I once was across the aisle from a guy making homemade ice cream. He would eye me working and wait till I had a good crowd watching me draw, then he’d turn on his loudspeaker and announce, “Hey Everyone, Free Ice Cream!!”, which quickly dissipated all my potential customers.
Working in a mall has its own challenges. Malls are hangouts for bored teenagers and I’ve learned ways of dealing with them. When a gaggle of 13 year old boys starts taunting me to see if they can mess with me, I just look bored at them and point off in the distance and say to their leader, “Excuse me gentlemen, can I get you to please stand over there?”, pointing to an object 100 feet away, to which the leader will usually say, “come on guys, lets get outta here...”
In my defense, I could never be satisfied with drawing conventional, generic faces, so I’ve learned to enjoy the daunting ordeal of a long, busy Saturday working at a hot booth surrounded by crass shallow petty behavior by pushing myself to capture all kinds of facial expressions. (it’s all in the mouth, lids and eyebrows) ...and, by deploying my “Artistic Agenda”; a method I use to size people up quickly and gently satirize them, (sometimes not so gently). Caricature allows you to fudge the truth a bit, which begs the question, what the devil IS “the truth?” If I get a sitter who wants to look tough, hard and bad: “Don’t make me smile”, then I will often show them as the frightened, conventional conformist they truly are...It’s often “Time Released” so the full force of the satire won’t be fully absorbed until days later, long after I’ve left town.
Bimbos, airheads, gangstas, rednecks, teenage mothers; they are all rife for my nasty-ish pen. Conversely, I get so few truly interesting people sitting for a caricature (lets not analyze that one) that I actually encourage eccentrics, lunatics, iconoclasts and smart people in general by gushing over them for sitting in the first place and flattering the phooey right outta them.
But hey, I’m not bitter. It’s the life of a retail caricaturist: it’s not just a hobby; it’s what I do for a living!
See Also
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