Rocky IV

Join Darcy and Huck as they dive into the physical challenges of creating large-scale art. Huck shares his journey of tackling monumental woodcut blocks at 54, reflecting on how time has impacted his process. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Do I sound alright? Sound good. Good. Okay. I think we're ready.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

I think we're ready. Fucking finally.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Welcome back to the Evil Prince podcast. Hi, it's been a while. A little bit. We've been busy. We got pretty busy there.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

And for the last, what, six weeks? I I feel like it's been a lot longer than that. I mean, seriously, since like New York. But what so what are we talking about? I think since January, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

I mean, it's been intense. There's been tons of stuff, which is good. This is better than being a bum.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Exactly. Nobody wants to be a bum.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

And we've got a lot of secret stuff going on.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

That we can't talk about yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

We can't talk about it just yet, but it is why we are so tardy on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

We're very tardy. I don't feel tardy. I feel tired. You didn't get that. It's a Van Halen reference. I don't feel tardy on Hot for Teacher, but never mind. You're too young.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Do you know tardy to the party?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

I don't know that one. Well, that's your loss. So, all right. So, what are we talking about today? Okay. Now that we're back. Now that we're back and slightly focused. And you and I have talked about kind of what we're going to talk about on multiple fronts on for multiple episodes in the future. So you're just going to give me something.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yes. And uh what I want to hear about, because I actually know almost nothing about this, but have just seen it in the background a couple times. This new print that you're drawing on right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Oh. Rocky four. It's not Rocky. No. I explained to you, you're using the They know it's not the print state. You're using an analogy that I brought up to you. Explain the analogy and why. The analogy was Rocky IV when I was explaining doing this new block. And I've said this to a few friends of mine in explaining this. So basically, I've started the center panel for the next big triptych. I have the two side panels done. That's unusual for me because it started out as a diptych, and then I decided to expand it to a triptych and to be one of my big projects. So I'm working on the center panel last, which is unusual for me. It's I don't think I've ever done that. So it's just the order, it's just a natural order that I did it. I've done it for years. You do the center panel first, and then you do the outer panels and the predella, which is a lower image, if if there is one. This one, there is no predella. So I'm working on a new big triptych. And I'm on, I'm about ready. A few weeks ago, I was knew I was going to be starting the center panel, right? Well, the center panel of this, this one, I went through all the normal preparation that I usually go through over months and months and months of drawing in my sketchbook. No stone is left unturned for the most part in terms of what the theme is going to be, what the concept is going to be, and a very good general to slightly specific idea of what the imagery is going to be. There are things that I leave to chance, like when you draw a thumbnail sketch and you blow it up to a large, you redraw it on a large scale, it exposes compositional weaknesses. And so then you're the happy thing there is that you have to come up with some new visual information to fill space in an interesting way to help with the composition. And that's a cool thing. So I had to get a U-Haul, I had to drive two hours to the hardwood store because I was almost out of wood, and got the wood, brought it home, they cut it down for me. This block is six feet tall by three and a half feet wide. Okay. The morning came. I had the block ready to go, and I walk into the studio for a normal day's work. And I started drawing the pencil drawing, which is an underdrawing, before I go in with the pen and ink with Sharpies and microns and magic mark. And I'm looking at my sketchbook and I'm drawing on the big block, right? And I had for this, I had to have a step stool. Okay. And I've done that before. I've climbed around on ladders, I've been on chairs, I've done all the. I even had a scaffolding one time built. You may remember that. JT built me this giant weird loft thing when I was working on electric baloney land. Electric baloney land is the last you could call it jumbo block that I have done. With Monkey Mountain Chronicle, I could sit and carve that whole thing. It was four feet tall, but that's shorter than me. So I got on the footstool. I was drawing in pencil, and I'm drawing fast with the pencil. I'm roughing it all in, right? Glancing back and forth to my sketchbook. No problem. No problem. And then it came time, you know, I did that for a day or two, but I was like, something was off. Something was off. And then it comes time to ink it with the Sharpies and Magic Marker to do the pen and ink drawing. That's more intense. I started on the third day. That block working that large was kicking my ass. And it occurred to me that I have not worked that large for 10 years. Even though, like Baloneyland, that was shown in 2017. I haven't drawn or carved on a block that big in almost 10 years to repeat. And I, my arms were above my head to draw intensely. You're moving around a lot more when you're drawing large like that with your gestural pencil drawing. So it was in and it was quick, it was fast. But when you're drawing with pen and ink, your arm is in a arms and neck and eyes. A lot more tension. Knees, elbows are in a fixed position for longer. You're concentrating on up close work. I haven't done that in 10 years. I've done it on smaller blocks. And it kicked my ass. It literally, like, I had to stop. I was like, oh my God, my eyes were fucked up. I needed a new prescription. My shoulders were killing me. And what it occurred to me, I took a break. I went outside and I sat at our on our deck down by the studio looking at the trees and the sky and wondering if I'm done working large like this. Because 10 years I was 44 years old when I finished Bologneland. I'm now 54 trying to do a giganto block again. And wild. That time did not occur to me. It didn't, it doesn't seem it seems like 10 years in the abstract sense, but in the day-to-day, when you're just working, I've been working on smaller stuff for the last two years. Well, and smaller, but not small, all of that. Well, the Bonnie and Clyde project, those are 10 by 13.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

You've also been throwing in, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

The mid, you know, the Dolly Parton is typically for me, most people would say, oh my God, that's huge. That's a mid-sized block. But that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

To me. For the average person, you're still not exactly working small for most of the biggest. Well, what I realized. What I realized.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

What I realized is that I had one of those moments where I was like, this is the first time this has ever happened. How in the fuck did I make those big blocks? Because I and I went all the way back. All of my projects are always these cataclysmic, bombastic, let's make print history. How am I going to do something different with this traditional old, old, old school medium kind of thing? And my way of doing things from an early age was make them big because I figured, hey, I don't want, you know, Doer did big prints. Those the apocalypse, those things were huge in their day when they came out. They were called full sheet woodcuts because up until that time, you know, there'd be a Virgin and Mary, up until the time of Doer, there'd be a Virgin, Mary, and child, little woodcut that's probably an inch and a half by an inch and a half. And they just use that same image repeated, the same image, because it was such a new novelty thing to be able to repeat an image with text. Okay. Well, when Doer came along, he figured out that you could do big stuff. Well, when I was a kid, and I was like, well, Doer didn't have plywood. I have plywood. And if he would have had plywood, he'd be working humongaloid. Okay. So I figured I'm gonna do what Door did. I'm gonna work huge for today in terms of woodcut. So I started doing that. Well, when I started doing those gigantic blocks, I mean, even the two weeks in August set, those were 26 by 30 woodcuts. To people, most people, those were big. Yeah. For those were big woodcuts. They weren't Leonard Baskin size, but you know, for a lot of people weren't most people weren't working like that at the time in the late 90s. Okay. But gradually I decided to get bigger and bigger and bigger because your ideas get bigger and bigger and bigger. And if you're growing, so you take a print like the transformation of Brandy Baghead, that's a huge print. And I was able to do that. I was just full of piss and vinegar, and yeah, I'm gonna set the world on fire. I'm gonna do this gigantic woodcut about a chicken woman, you know, and just shock people. And I'm doing, but I was 30 or 35. There's a big difference between 35 years old and 54, and I didn't, I had not thought ever, up until the those three last three days of working on this new print, how physical those blocks are. And I am not an athlete. If you look at me, I'm a fat little fuck. Okay, I am not in great shape. But I I don't know. I I don't know how it it's kind of mind fucked me a little bit. Pardon my French. I'm a little freaked out. And so it occurred to me, I was talking to Dennis McNett about it, and he was laughing. He's like, Because when you talk to Dennis, he's like, We're not gonna be alive much longer, man. He's the he's the glass half empty guy. And I'm always telling him, Shut up, man. He goes, What do we got? What have I got? Like five more years or something. I'm like, man, I can't think like that. Shut up, Dennis. And then he'll laugh about it. But a little bit of Dennis's attitude started to creep in there, and I started thinking what what it reminded me of was the movie Rocky IV, where Apollo came out of retirement and fought this huge monster Russian guy who was what's his name? I forget it. Ivan Drago was the character. Dolph Lundgren. Dolph Lundgren is the guy who played the Russian guy. It's a very 80s like America versus the Soviets. It's the Soviets, not the Russians, right? And Apollo gets in the ring. Rocky's managing him. Okay? And Apollo, and it's an exhibition. It doesn't count toward anything. And Apollo's doing his normal shit. He's dancing around, dressed like Uncle Sam. Cool. Cool. Taunting the Russian, pointing at him, and James Brown music's playing when he comes in, and the Russians just stand there staring at him, staring at him. Then the bell rings. And then Apollo gets hit by this Russian. And Apollo, you and there's this there's this feeling. Apollo has this feeling, and the coin his corner, it's like, we have a problem here. This is a different era, and this is a different level of athleticism. He's probably on steroids, and Apollo's 10 years older. Okay, the block was the Russian. And I was like, okay, I've got to go back to your training. To use the boxing metaphor. Okay, I'm an old pro at this now. And Tyson, old bro. Old bro. And Mike Tys to use the boxing metaphor. Mike Tyson has this great quote. And I don't remember what the interview context was. But he was like, he basically the answer to the question was everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

I love that. Because it's true. If you've ever been punched in the face, you know that's true.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Okay. I got punched in the face by that block with my normal plans.

unknown 15:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Of a ther of a 44-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Those plans don't work for a 55-year-old. No, you just gave me a year. Well, that is a good one.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

You just gave you no, you you added a year. I'm 54, not 55 yet. I got a few more months. Sorry about that. December. So what I had to do was sit there outside, have another cup of coffee, put on my big boy pants, and figure out how to do this as a 54-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

How much Tai Chi did it encourage?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I need to start. I tried doing Tai Chi and I stopped because it just, you know, I I need to go hard. I need to go back to doing it. It's not that it's hard, it's time.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

No, it's hard to get yourself to do something when you've yeah, when you feel rushed.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Because I'm like in the studio, I still, okay, I probably need to start doing stretches. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

I probably need to eat better. One of those Japanese, you know, they have like a certain morning stretch. You should probably be doing that. Yeah. Yeah. You got to take the 54-year-old route now.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

And the 54, see, the problem is I'm still 25 in my head. I still am firing on the same creative cylinders that I was since I since I was in my early 20s. And that's not the physical part of it. And so what I'm having to do, what I did was, I haven't started the stretching yet, but I kind of told myself to slow it down. Don't try and crank this drawing out in your normal two weeks that it usually takes, or three or a month. It's going to come out when it comes out. So I took some pressure off of myself and I slowed it down and I started focusing in on small areas to draw. I started in chunks that aren't at the top of the block. Where I'm at the mid where I can sit and get it going, right? That's what I did. I slowed it down even more, if you can possibly imagine such a thing. Right. Because I'm slow anyway. So I'm in the I've got it going now. And it's underway and it's coming together, but I have I've got to start working physically a little bit different. Because they're not just physical, those big blocks. Something like electric ballooning, and that is a mental exercise as well. Oh yeah. And so I'm I'm in that realization mode of, oh my God, okay. All right, you know, here we go. And I've got probably nine, five to nine more big triptychs in my head. Better start stretching. And if they and if they eat and if they each take four years, what is that? 30 that's 20 years. That's 20 years. Well, hopefully. But I don't know, man. I don't know now. I don't know. And it's it's weird. It it's I've got, you know, things that aren't triptychs planned, too, that are smaller. And part of the reason that I've been working on this Bonnie and Clyde project was to give myself a break from the big stuff. After Monkey Mountain Chronicle, that was a different kind of that was in monumental in scope, not necessarily scale, even though it's huge. Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie and Clyde is a scope. It's monumental in scope, but they're small pieces. And those are I noticed my eyes were different there too. I needed more, I have to wear reading glasses when I draw on those small blocks.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

You gotta think about this too, Huck. Even when you work small, you still work highly detailed. So some of that, you know, is harder on your eyes to be looking at and working at a smaller detail level as well. This is it's you're gonna just keep aging your body with every project. What a joy. What a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

I don't know how I know that this has happened to everybody that does this. Okay. There's also this thing in me where you don't complain about the situation when it comes to making this stuff. Because it's already impossible to do this. Right. You're moving mountains every day to get work done in a field that no one, especially in prints, that they're cheaper and nobody needs them to survive. So you're just being able to be still be doing this is a miracle, okay, after 30 years. Okay. I have a picture by in every studio I've had for a long time, by my work area, and it's a picture of Frida Kahlo. You've seen this. Okay. She dealt with adversity, physical adversity, okay, on a level that I'm sitting here complaining about me not being able to raise my arms above my my head for a long time. Okay, she had metal reconstructed spinal shit from a terrible tram accident when she was a teenager, and it affected her. She died, basically died from it for the most part. And there's a bit the picture that I have up on the wall is her in a freaking body cast in bed painting on the body cast. That's a quit your bitchin' and get to work picture. I like it. I see that, right? I have that every day. I see it. So there's an element of me that I have to figure this out because 54 years old is is it's not a spring chicken, but it's not 80. No. So I'm gonna have to start stretching. I'm gonna have to got I hate it. I hate exercise. I don't like eating healthy food. I will. I mean, I like some healthy food, but fuck man, I like cheeseburgers. I like sweet cereals, I like sugar smacks and cap and crumbs. Especially hot dogs and I love that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Tuna casserole. Tuna casserole is good, man.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

But that sodium's going to be a good thing. I used to be, I know. I used to be able to just run into the studio and do it. Now my dad, whenever I was a kid, my dad was is a what is a retired chiropractor. And that's a physical job. Oh yeah. They're physical guys. And he was a small town doctor/slash chiropractor, right? And he worked long hours with five kids in an area that's depressed.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

It's a very depressed area of the United States, Washington County. My dad was a trust, was a trusted town doctor. And I remember in the morning, like we would have I'd have to walk through the part of a common room, and their bedroom would be right there. And then to get to the bathroom, the shared bathroom of five kids, right? It was a mess. And I would be up earlier because I've I guess I've kind of always been that way. And I'd see dad. I'd catch him sometimes in the morning, and he had just gotten up, and he would just sit up and he would be sitting on the side of the bed. And he would be groaning like, oh. And he was in his fucking late 30s at this point, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Five kids. I got that problem, man. Not five kids, just waking up groaning in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

And a couple of times he would be sitting there and he'd be going, and then he'd say, he'd go, another day in the salt mines. All right, now here's the thing, right? I am like, I am not the kind of person. I don't have a job like regular people have to have. I don't have to work on an assembly line. I'm not lifting and doing real gut-wrenching hard labor work like most people have to do in this life. I'm very fortunate. So there's that part of me too where, hey, I need to figure this out. Because this is like not hard labor here, and I need to quit quit bitching and quit complaining and figure out how to make this work better. Now, I know I'm gonna get a bunch of emails and I'm gonna get a bunch of suggestions from everybody, which is cool and great. And the only reason that I'm talking about this is because number one, we need content. But number two, this is really going on. Yeah, and and it's it's kind of a it's kind of putting this out there.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

I bet there's other people that are dealing with this. We we just were with another printmaker who's in his 80s, a master printer in stone lithography, and we we were in his shop a few months back, and it was just funny.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Lawrence Lithography Workshop.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yes, Lawrence Lithography Workshop, and just moving stuff around. And he he was very honest about the fact he goes, you know, carrying and moving these big stones for decades, my back is pretty wrecked. He's gone. His shoulders are shot. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

And you know, Steve Campbell, Steve's saying what Steve's coming to teach at boot camp. Steve is like I guess we're gonna call this podcast aging. Aging out in printmaking. Aging out in printmaking. Because I see, those guys are master printers. That's a lot harder work than what I do. Especially when you're doing okay, production printing is different than oh, teaching a lithography class once a year. Right. Okay, when you're standing there, tin color stones, serious runs, production printing in the big shops is a different thing. It wears on you. I don't do that, but my work is daily and hard mentally, number one, and now the physical has caught up. So I'm like to repeat to repeat, I have to make some adjustments. Well, like see Apollo you change his tra his training routine? He didn't make the adjustments, he got killed in that fight.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

The Russian killed him. Literally? Yes. I've never seen it, obviously. What is wrong with you? I'm just busy, man.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

That came out in 1985.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

I've been busy for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

You weren't even born yet.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

You're right, I wasn't. You're right, I wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

No, Rocky 4. Yeah, Apollo, I was telling I used that example to to Dennis, and Dennis knew exactly what we were talking about. And he's and he goes, he goes, Yeah, yeah, the Russian killed his ass. Killed him. Well, so if I don't want to get killed by the block, I'm gonna have to be smart. Apollo wasn't smart. And for those of you that don't know this reference, this pop culture reference, you should go check it out. It's a very nice mid-80s movie where US versus the Soviets worked out and it's cheesy, but it's there's some We're all familiar with Rocky.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah. I just haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

The best one is Rocky II. Really? Where he wins. Actually, I love I love the first two. Don't spoil it. It's very it's very gritty. It's very gritty. That first Rocky movie is low budget. It won Oscars, but it was low budget and rough. It was a gritty movie about Philadelphia and the 70s, you know. But all I know about Rocky is Adrian! Yo, Adrian. That's it. I remember telling Jen, I was sitting up on the porch, I'm like, hey, I am out of I'm out of block shape. Big time.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

You know, that's uh an interesting touch point of life. Just honestly, no matter what you do at a certain age, your activities of daily life are gonna catch up to you. If you're working at a computer for if you've been doing it for long enough for years and years on end, you're probably gonna have a messed up neck and shoulder if you don't start doing some mobility and other things. But it is it's interesting to hear like what the printmaking version of that is. Oh, my eyes is such yes, my eyes okay now.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

When I started printmaking, I had to up my glasses because I started my my eyes with like while I I will wear wear readers from time to time when I'm prescription. Well, for a while, I here's the thing. I only started wearing readers in the last like two or three years. I let it go almost four years before I changed my prescription. Yeah, this these this pair of glasses that I'm holding right now, I've had them for four days. And I I got a new prescription, and the eye doctor had my old prescription, and he was like, hey, hey, this is not good. My distance was completely fucked. I watch baseball at night. I'm a Yankee fan, and I watch Yankee, I pay for the Yankee games, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

In St. Louis, yes, don't monster.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

I know. I I like them because of the bad guys. The Yankees are the bad guys. I've always been that way. And there are pictures of me in Yankee hats when I was a teenager, so it's not just a fly by night thing. So, but I like the Cardinals too, but I go for the Yanks. So when I'm watching baseball, Jim would come walking through, and she noticed like I'm I've got my head pitched all the way back, like I'm throwing my head back, looking squint forward, squinting, looking low. Oh, and and it and it started messing with my neck, and I didn't realize I was doing that because I had bifocals already. So and I was not when I was working small with small blocks. It's different because it's up closer to you, and my near was kind of okay for for a while, but now I've got these new glasses. So I got the glasses that came in the mail and I put it on, and I thought I was gonna have a stroke. How bad the prescription was before my I was out of date. The new ones, it took me four days to be able to walk with them on. That's how bad my prescription is. And it's from constant years and 30 years of eye strain. I made the adjustments for my hands about five or six years ago. I wear gloves now. I wear therapeutic copper fit or wrestling gloves to help with the lengths, carving hours. I don't know, man. I'm gonna have to take it easy here, and it's like my work's gonna slow down even more because I I don't I just I don't know how, and this is probably a good place to wind this one up. I don't know how I did all that work for like 30 years. I was on a freaking angry prove it to the world high or something. I mean, but it's that's kind of still there. It's kind of still there. I still got a lot to prove, and maybe there's still fuel in there, but my body's catching up with me.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

So I've got to ask, because we didn't actually say, I don't think. This center panel that was a diptych became triptych. Yeah. Is this for Clement?

SPEAKER_01 32:59

It originally was a commission for two panels.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Was this the one global warming? Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

It's called the Big Melt Up. And it's what I'm working on now.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

I didn't realize the center panel was gonna be this big.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Well, neither did Jen. And Jen walked in and she's like, before I'd started the drawing, Jen was like, My wife, Jen, she was like, Oh, oh no. Because you know what? People haven't seen me work that large in a while.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Well, so, and just since it's been a minute, let's recap. The diptych was a commission. And those are those two pieces that are completed that are now side panels.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Those are four feet high. Right. By 24 inches wide. Yes. Okay, that is a you can sit, because I carve upright. You can sit, and your arms are not above your head when you're carving or drawing. You can lower the block in a relative, you can lower it, you can turn it on its side if when during carving. I've done that. I'll turn the block on its side, a big block. Right. You can do that. It's more, those are manageable. They're still ass kickers at this point. But I went, I was Apollo. I went from not doing he was probably Apollo was probably still working out in the gym, which is comparable to me just doing the smaller Bonnie and Clydes. That's just that's easier day-to-day you can produce work, and it's not challenging physically at all.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Okay. I went from there straight into Thunderdump with the like uh 10 years of not doing large stuff. So that's where I'm at. And maybe it's this is a to be continued. Maybe we'll come back with another episode of how did it go? Did you finish it? Yeah, I limped. I'm gonna be limping and sore. So when are we gonna get to see it? Oh, this one, this block will not be ready to print until next summer. Okay. It's gonna be a year of of working on this. It's that big. All right, yeah. So, and especially since I've decided to to calm it down. Now I've got smaller stuff that I'm gonna be still doing, but there you go. We'll see. To be continued, I'm falling apart.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Falling apart, but still kicking.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Still kicking. All right, cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

All right, that's it. We'll come back later.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Done.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Bye.