Cody Rae Knue sits down with Peter McGouran, founder of Polluted Eyeball Screen Printing

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PM: This building is really interesting.  I’ve been here for six years.  I’m the longest tenured studio on this floor and have seen many people come and go.  It can be great as you become friends with them but a lot leave eventually.

56B:  It must be nice to always have a community around. 

PM: Totally.  Everyone has his or her own project.  I’m the only screen printer, business wise on this floor.

56B: How did you get involved with screen printing?

PM: I originally worked in music management, for two managers in Manhattan.  One of the bands they represented broke up and the singer formed a new band.  They got a development deal from a label and I got in contact with the singer since I was looking for employment.  I didn’t want to be a manager but he needed someone to book studio time, and I agreed to help out until he could find someone to take over.  It was great because I had been a fan of the band and now I was able to be on the inside of it.  It was really exciting.

56B: When did this happen?

PM:  That was in 1999, so going back a ways.  I was 25.  I had graduated college but I still didn’t know what I wanted to do career wise.  It took for me up until 30 before I knew what I wanted to set my mind to.  I didn’t know what my strengths were.  Working with the band I was around a creative group and everyone had a role, so I started doing their merchandise.  A friend of ours had screens designed, which we then printed onto t-shirts.  Each piece was a one of a kind.

56B:  Did Polluted Eyeball start around then?

PM: No, not until in 2004.  I moved to 56 Bogart in 2006.   Prior to that I was in Williamsburg.

56B: What made you move over here?

PM: My building had been purchased and my landlord owned this floor, which was the blue print for the rest of the building.

56B: You saw this area really transform then. 

PM:  Yeah.  There have been great changes and some less so.  As anyone knows, when this happens, rent goes up, but I enjoy having simple needs at my footstep.  I feel like the neighborhood has passed me by in certain respects.  I’m 38 now and I’m working all the time.  I’m not experiencing it the same way I was when I first moved to Brooklyn.  I lived in Williamsburg and spent days and nights with the bands.  I was a part of something great.   Although, when I look at Polluted Eyeball, I am a part of something better because this goes further for me.  This is my project while the band was someone else’s. 

56B:  Do you make your own work here or is a client base focus?

PM: It’s a higher percentage for clients, because it’s how I make a living.  I don’t have as much time anymore for my own work, but I have never had a problem with that because I get to work with some really cool artwork. 

56B: That’s very exciting.  Do you work with local artists or larger companies?

PM: Mostly with artists but I also work with designers.  Since most everything is digital now, people will come to me because they want a screen print feel for a project.

56B: What do you enjoy the most about screen printing?

PM: When I look at the artwork on the wall, I know how and when all of them were made.  I teach workshops here and I can use them as examples.   For me teaching is great because I am able to pass that knowledge onto someone else.  What they do with it, that’s up to them, but I’m giving them information that I didn’t have when I began.  I’m a self-taught screen printer.  Everything up here is from commitment.  I’m happy I don’t have to sit down at a desk, but I’m on my feet 12-14 hours a day.  It involves a lot movement and a lot of problem solving.  You have to be preparing for X, Y, Z, before they happen.  

56B: I have to ask, where did the name Polluted Eyeball come from?

PM: It’s part of the lyrics from a Guided by Voices’ song, Come on polluted eyeballs, stop scabbing out the fields.  It had a special meaning to me at the time.  

Polluted Eyeball Screen Printing hosts workshops through out the month.  For more information and a schedule check out www.pollutedeyeball.com

Cody Rae Knue sits down with Jacob Perkins and Matt Nelson, founders of Mellow Pages Library. 

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JP: The soundtrack today in the Library is Nirvana, MTV: Unplugged from 1992.

56B: How long have you guys been open?

JP: Since February 21^st of this year, so two months.

56B: With so much of the book world going digital, doesn’t it seem a bit risky to have a library and reading room?

JP: That’s not a risk for us.  It was my studio, so I’m already paying for it.  It was more of an experiment.

56B: Would you classify this as an art piece then?

JP: More of a social project.

56B: Are you both artists?

MN: We’re both writers, Jacob is a painter.

JP: I paint too, that’s what I went to school for.  I started writing a ton in my studio and not painting at all.  At a certain point I felt like the room was wasted on me.

56B: Where did the library idea come from?

JP: Matt was going to move back to Seattle after school and do something similar to Mellow Pages.

MP: No, what I planned on doing was an archive of small press books with a book-signing component.  I was trying to get it set up with a friend of mine and we were going to do it legitimately as a non-profit with boards of directors.

56B:  How does the Library run?  Do you curate what is shown?

JP:  Yeah, you don’t just come in here, check out books and take it home.  We have memberships, but as far as money is concerned, it’s free.  You can bring us ten books, leave them here, people check them out and at the end you can get them back.  That’s where the curating comes in.  We’ll only accept certain things.  Our mission is to support small press publications.  We want to feature fiction and poetry.

56B: Besides having the space already, was there a reason to set up shop here?

JP: Well that was the reason why.  It just felt like the perfect spot.  It’s a studio and a commercial space, so we can do whatever we want with it.  We wouldn’t have done it anywhere else.

56B:  How many publications do you have?

JP: Of what we have catalogued and on Good Reads, almost 1,200, but there are at least a hundred to two hundred more, especially when you start looking at the zines and the journals.  We aren’t really cataloguing those, so I would say we are getting close to 1,400.

MP:  It doesn’t look like it’s that much stuff, but when you start actually counting stacks and how many books it takes to go up to the top, it adds up.

56B: I love the way you display the books on nails, it’s almost like they’re pieces of art.

MP:  We were trying to think of cool ways of displaying them.   We thought of shelves but these walls are just straight dry wall. It just seemed the smartest way, functionally.  Plus it just looks cool.

JP:  Yeah, it was the cheapest and the fastest.  Once we decided to do this, it was like: go!

MP: Yeah there wasn’t a lot of time between once said this is our place and actually making it our place.

56B: Are a lot of these books from your personal collection?

JP: Yeah but there is more than double since we got started.  I think we had 700 books at first.  Matt probably had 250, my brother had almost 300 that I rescued from North Carolina.  He went to school there and when he moved back home to Portland, he left all his books in North Carolina.  At one point I went down there to rescue a guitar, an amp and all the books with a rental car.  Two days after I got the books, we decided to start Mellow Pages.  That was sort of the reason why we thought to do this because I had a ton of books here. 

MP: His brother’s books are interesting because they’re all very dense: philosophy, political and abstract.  Someone came in here today looking for a specific book, which we had, and Luke, Jacob’s brother, had written notes in all his books.

JP: I think that guy just wanted to read it for the notes.  He was doing his PHD and writing his dissertation on political theory, so he took notes with that frame of mind.  My brother would draw a whole box around a paragraph and write four or five words to sum it up so he could go back later for that one specific paragraph.     

56B: Do you have any recommendations for Summer reading?

MP: Tons of stuff.  The book I’m reading now, “Crapalachia,” it’s Scott McClanahan latest book, it’s [pauses] amazing.

56B: What was your favorite book that made you want to read?

JP: My favorite book of all time is Hatchet.

MP: [Laughs] Really? That’s the good book.

JP: That was the first book that had chapters that I really liked.  It was fourth grade and what I was into then.  That book took over my life.  I started reading anything because of Hatchet.

MP: I’d say my favorite was The Phantom Tollbooth.

56B: Do you have any plans to continue the library?

MP: Forever!

JP:  We have year long memberships.  We just got another one today, so for at least another 365 days.

MP: That’d be a cool way of doing this.  As long as we have members, another commitment to that year.  Yeah!  This one is for you Chris!

For more information:www.facebook.com/MellowPagesLibrary

Naomi Edmondson speaks to Casey Opstad. 

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56B: Tell me about yourself, Casey.

CO: Excellent first question, Naomi. I grew up in in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I went back to school for a Masters in Painting. I went in 2009 and graduated in 2011. I always think people that grew up in North Dakota end up having a better imagination. You grew up in Brooklyn, you’re used to the stimulus. There’s stimulus in North Dakota, but only so much variance.  You end up with a better imagination, because you’re able to keep yourself entertained.

56B: I can imagine that.

CO: My favorite gift was a drawing pad or a blank sheet. That is how I feel about North Dakota. I see it as a blank sheet of paper: you can put whatever you want there. You can make it whatever you want.

56B: This leads to my next question: who are your influences?

CO: That’s a good question too. I guess I should be honest about this?

56B: It’s always nice when you’re honest about these things.

CO: Honestly, I’d have to say my parents. They were always supportive. I have two great parents who never really questioned what I was doing. When you tell your parents you’re going to try to make it as an artist…well, our generation is a little different.  But it can be difficult for that generation to understand. I also had some good art teachers growing up. Again, really supportive people. One teacher in particular was named Ryan Alson. He’s a pretty well known artist, but keeps it low key. He influenced me with his directness and his focus on drawing. I do think drawing is an important thing. I think a lot of people now, what with technology, don’t want to take the time to learn that skill.

56B: It’s becoming a dying art.

CO: Pun intended! I see it as sort of a metaphor. He taught me how to draw. Once given that ability, you’re able to see how the world is formed for yourself and others. The idea of the gaze…of what I want to look at is an important one.

56B: I agree. Drawing fosters the ability to discover your own gaze and your own point of view.

CO: Yeah. When you don’t learn to look, you end up stereotyping a lot of things. You end up assuming you know what you’re seeing. Seeing sort of becomes a metaphor for making decisions and living your life, and taking the time to really look.

56B: With that in mind, how did you get into art?

CO: It was one of the first things I was really good at and for which I was complimented. Growing up in North Dakota, I was really good at drawing log cabins. I was complimented on it. That became the way I received attention.  But I also had a lot of different interests, including improv. comedy and theater. Then as I get older it became, “Do I want to be an actor? What do I want to pursue?”. Art was the area where I felt I had the most talent. It’s the one thing I do where time seems to stop. I mean, it happens on stage for musicians and it happens for me when I paint or draw. It’s sort of an indicator that you’re having a good time; when time completely vanishes.

56B: I wanted to get into the series of work I saw on your website.

CO: Yeah, there are a bunch of different things going on. The chalk drawings are erratic. I got this job doing chalk drawings and it’s been hectic.           

56B: I really wanted to talk to you about the chalk drawings because I think they’re fascinating.

CO: I got this job with General Assembly on 20^th and Broadway. It’s sort of an incubator for high tech companies. It’s a really great business that is expanding. I knew the other co founder of General Assembly. When Steve Jobs passed, he called me to come draw a tribute of him on the company’s chalkboard. I get over there, put together a file. People are used to working on a white space with black material. So it fascinated them that I was doing the opposite. It takes a moment to adjust to that.  I think they liked that bit of magic. Once I finished, they liked the portrait so much that they commissioned me to do a total of 24 pieces over the course of a year. They’re huge, probably six by ten feet.

56B: How long would you say it takes you to finish a chalk drawing?

CO: I’ve gotten pretty good at it now and there’s not much lettering. People assume if you can draw you can letter and that’s not the case. [He laughs]. It takes about three to five hours, depending on the level of detail.

56B: I want to ask about the selection process. The portraits chosen are very varied.

CO: The General Assembly wanted to choose people that have created things. They wanted to foster entrepreneurs, and people that are creating something out of nothing. Usually I give them three or four options and they’ll talk to me about them. For example, when MCA (Adam Yaunch, founding member of The Beastie Boys) passed away, right away they were like “Let’s do this.”  That would be an example, because musicians create music out of nothing. 

56B: Thus far, do you have a favorite portrait?

CO: Oh, good question. It would have to be the Phillip Glass portrait. There was something about it. It was his face and after it was finished, I started listening to his music more. I worked from a good photo and he has an interesting face. He has a really strong face, plus the iconic glasses. That was a turning point: when it became more about the drawing process. It was less about being precise. 

56B: How did you get into chalk as a medium?

CO: They asked me to use it at General Assembly and it was the first time I ever used it. It’s kind of like pastels. But if you look at the drawings from the beginning to where I am now, they’re not very good. I mean, you can tell that it’s Steve Jobs. However, I didn’t trust my hand to do line variations. As I went along, I realized it’s a lot like pastels and pencils. But yes, it came through General Assembly. What’s so weird is that when I got that job, a lot of other people started doing chalkboard drawings for their offices. So now, seven or eight different jobs will call me up. 

56B: Was that intimidating at first, since chalk is a new medium for you?

CO: Not really. My philosophy is:  the advantage of the artist is having nothing to lose. I can tell you what I think, because what are you going to take from me? I’ll give it a shot and if I fail, I fail. I’d rather ride that edge. Even if the artist doesn’t like it, they can always burn it or paint it over. There’s always a new beginning.

56B: My last question: Do you have any words of advice for your fellow artists?

CO: Yes, I do have a bit of advice. Firstly, don’t ever take advice from me [He laughs].

Second, slow and steady always wins the race. The way I view it, it’s all about consistency. I’m not in this for the next five years; I’m in it for the long haul.  That’s the only way to live, and do it right. Take it one step at a time. I’m sure that sounds hokey.

56B: It’s never hokey if it’s true. 

For more information: www.caseyopstad.com

Bushwick street art

Doris Guo speaks to Mallory Sustick of Plovgh (pronounced “plow”)

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56B: Tell me about Plovgh and what you do at Plovgh.

MS: Plovgh is basically a way farmers can connect directly with consumers. We’re building an online marketplace so it will be similar to what you might imagine an online farmer’s market to be. Farms post their harvest each week online and individuals or commercial vendors can go online and place orders. Do you know what a CSA is?

56B: Not really…

MS: It stands for Community Supported Agriculture, it’s another market outlet that farms use to reach, to directly connect with consumers. At the beginning of the season you pay an upfront fee and over the course of the season you get a box either each week or every other week of vegetables.

56B: I’ve heard of it but didn’t know what it was called.

MS: So, we’re similar to that in that we have these neighborhood pick up points. 56 Bogart is a pickup and we have a bunch of others in Brooklyn and one at the New School in West Village and one in Queens. But the difference is that Plovgh allows for more choice and flexibility in that you don’t pay that upfront fee, you can choose any of the vegetables from any of the farms. You can pick up at whatever neighborhood pickups you want and it doesn’t have to be everyweek. So if you go on vacation, you’re not committed.

And what I do at Plovgh is I handle their community-building and manage that part of it. Basically what that means is I work with the organizers that work for each pick up point and organize their community there. And I also work with the farms with Lizzie, who’s the founder. For the organizers, if someone identifies a spot they want to have a pickup or we have already identified that, then we find someone in the community. Normally someone that knows their community better than we do so they’re better at spreading the word about what Plovgh is and finding out ways to get people involved. And then for the farms, we have a huge database of different kinds of farms. Basically finding those farms that are ready to try or experiment with alternative markets. If maybe farmers markets or CSA isn’t really working for them or they’re ready to think beyond that.

56B: How long have you been working at Plovgh?

MS: I started as an intern in November 2011, so a little over a year.

56B: What brought Plovgh to 56 Bogart?

MS: We had our first “office” at Dekalb Market, that was where we first started our pickup points in November. Basically, we were there for two months, and before that we were doing the typical freelancer start-up coffee shop to coffee shop. We noticed that there was better communication and work was getting done better when we were working as a unit. We wanted to find a space where we could do that and also be in a community where people were doing different things and thinking forward and alternatively. We didn’t want to be around a lot of other start-ups just for the idea that that’s what we’re constantly doing everyday, is thinking that mindset. To be in an environment where there’s people doing all kinds of different things, it allows your perspective to be..

56B: …out of that world?

MS: Exactly, and it makes you look at things in a different way so it’s really interesting to be at 56 Bogart where there’s mostly artist spaces and studios, and we’re doing something in agriculture and food. But in the bigger picture I think it all ties together.

56B: How often do you interact with other people in the building?

MS: It’s a little secluded being on the third floor. We’re working on a way to have the pick up point be more accessible that everyone in the building can go to because being on the third floor-

56B: You have to come to the third floor to pickup?

MS: Yeah, right now. There’s that barrier because the door locks and all the floors are kind of divided when the doors aren’t open. But we’re definitely interested in collaborating. We’re doing some courses with one of the farms we work with and some of the pick up points like Brooklyn Brainery, we’re beginning to develop a curriculum for that and we wanted to start a series of talks and have them take place in each neighborhood. So, have one be even in our office and invite people in the neighborhood to have an open dialogue about a certain theme or subject.

56B: How often do you work with farmers?

MS: Every week. The couple of farms that are selling right now we speak with on a weekly basis. Lizzie is between New York and Mississippi right, she’s consulting some farms down there, which is really helpful for us because we learn from that experience. We do farm visits once or twice a month now. We’ve been out in Long Island, Hudson Valley and upstate New York. And last summer, we were in northern Iowa.

56B: Do farmers ever come here?

MS: One of the farms we work with in Hudson Valley come to the city sometimes. They’re two women that used to live in Brooklyn and they just took to farming so they’ve been farming for three years.

56B: Oh, interesting.

MS: Yeah, they’re pretty cool, so they come in. I think a lot of farms, or at least in Iowa, some of the farms are like ‘We’re happy to work with you but we really don’t want to go into the city.’ But I feel like in this neighborhood especially with Roberta’s around the corner and other start-ups beginning, there’s a lot of intersection. Like farms with urban communities which is really great.

56B: Is there anything you’d like readers to know?

MS: We really want to help build community in this neighborhood. Ideally, we  want to have a pickup point that’s similar to one in Greenpoint right now. It’s on Saturdays 12 - 2 and it’s really fun, there’s all these people from the neighborhood that come to pick up. We used to have one in a coffee shop and people would stick around and have coffee. We want to begin building that for this neighborhood and connect more with not only 56 Bogart but all of East Williamsburg/Bushwick area.

http://www.plovgh.com