As I strolled down London’s Dundas Street to local artist James Kirkpatrick’s apartment, fellow artist Jamie Q, the one I had yet to meet, rode by me on her bike. I'd known James since high school and had followed his various pursuits for years since, but I had never heard of Jamie Q before. Unknowingly of each other she went up ahead to Jame's apartment. I waited outside for our resident photographer's (Scott Pilgrim) arrival. James came out to let us inside and so we flew up a flight of stairs, past a vacant space, and into his high-ceilinged third-floor loft apartment.
Upon entering the kitchen I noticed a loft bed built on top of the stairwell behind me, and then I recognized several pieces of art by local artists on the walls. I was there to talk to the artists (James and Jamie) about their new graphic collaboration: A Journey Through Time & Shapes with Dusty Peas. The book is comprised of numerous collaborations the artists worked on over the course of a month. The pair showed me several zines they had already created that one could tell served as the inspiration for the current book.
Their work began with a lot of marker drawings. They say they “decided to use four colors for most of the silkscreened images in the book”. Employing acrylic dollar-store paint and some gouache, they developed the works further. All works were colour separated to make into stencils ready for screen-printing and some of the original color schemes were changed to fit cohesively within the larger collection.
At the time of the interview, James and Jamie were about to leave for Halifax to do a residence at the Anchor Archive Zine Library. James raves about the Roberts Streets Social Centre, where the Zine Library is housed. It’s in "a really cool neighborhood, kind of like east London — definitely activist-like." Both artists have a lot of work ahead of them. “We’re doing one hundred copies [of the book and the assemble-it-yourself sculpture]. We have five screens and 1700 pulls to make 100 copies.”
The artists show me what looks like a round disc and cone cutout that, as they describe, will be separate from the actual booklet. Cut the pictures out, follow the directions, and you can make your own Unidentifiable Flying Object and projected light beam. Browsing through most pages in the book you won’t notice any shapes as distinct or identifiable as the Unidentifiable Flying Object. The flying saucer became the theme of the book after they came up with the title, “A Journey Through Time & Shapes”. They liked the title because it “gave us total freedom, anything we make will be shapes.”
The book is definitely crammed with all sorts of outrageous shapes and you can see some of the inspiration the artists share. James Kirkpatrick, who is London-born and raised, is a bit of a local celebrity, both as a musician and visual artist. Some of James’ prominent roots stem out of the local hip-hop, graffiti, and break-dance scene that had been quite vibrant in London in the ‘90s. But James’ notoriety and fame has radiated from the presence he commands both as an MC, having collaborated with producers from around the world, and a visual artist, his work having been shown in art galleries across Canada and internationally.
Jamie Q, who studied at the Alberta College of Art & Design, as well as at the Canberra School of Art in Australia, is currently doing her MFA at The University of Western Ontario. Jamie is from Edmonton originally, and has called Calgary and Montreal home, amongst other cities. Montreal was one of the first places that the artists’ paths crossed. They met through Peter Thompson, a long-time friend and collaborator of James, whose work has been published through Drawn & Quarterly, a Montreal bookstore and publisher. Jamie had worked as a publicist for the Montreal publishing house. However it was not until Jamie was in London that she met James.
Although their collective artwork covers a wide array of mediums and styles I found a shared vein in their projects involving alterations to found objects. Both artists began using found objects in a similar fashion prior to meeting one another and in a way this provides a bridge for their collaboration. James’ taste for painting found objects began with his knack for spray-painting buildings. I remember one notable work I saw awhile back that, as he described at the time, involved a piece of wood found at a train-yard that he painted for several days while it lay there undisturbed. “It's a transition from graffiti to gallery.” James says that his work often “happens to be illegal. Everything I did was in an illegal place, working on stuff in a burnt down house and then taking them.” With his found materials in tow, James would sometimes hitchhike with the likes of Other (Derek). Jamie Q starting utilizing found objects while working odd jobs, applying (often found) paint to scrap metal and industrial objects such as plumping fixtures.
In discussing the ‘foundness’ of their work I recognized the shared politics that were lying underneath their aesthetic choices. Anyone familiar with James’ alter ego Thesis Sahib will be aware of the political nature of his lyricism. Jamie Q has also explicitly politicized her work. At Jamie Q’s Free Ideas exhibition which accompanied a talk she gave at the graduate conference I Don't Care to Discuss It: Art, Media, and the State in a Globalized Economy, held at UWO, she sold all of her work according to a $14 per hour wage, making most sculpture prices around fifty dollars. Jamie has said that her talk, Manufacturing Content, “was about creative labor,” and that for the exhibit the “materials didn’t really factor in, they were found materials.”
For both artists the desire to remove excessive value from their artwork is critically important. To James, the notion of creative labor “erases [the idea that] this art is expensive for a reason.” As he puts it, “Why is this painting a million dollars when you go down the street and can buy a similar painting for 200 bucks?” James then proclaims that he lives “off of nothing” as if to say that he thinks art ought not to be about profit margins. Jamie Q also notes that they “make art that anybody can have.” Like the books, which will be priced at thirty-five dollars, they’re making art that “is more accessible to people. No one sells prints for this amount of money.”
Their book launch is happening August 13th at the Forest City Gallery. Click here for more details. Stay tuned to Fuse for a photo gallery of James' crib taken by the talented photographer Scott Pilgrim. In the meantime check out both Jamie Q and James Kirkpatricks' websites.
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