Artist Name: Kate Bingaman-Burt
Shop Name and Url: http://www.kateconsumption.etsy.com
Website: http://www.obsessiveconsumption.com
Blog: http://www.obsessiveconsumption.typepad.com
City: Starkville, Mississippi
Where in your home/apartment/city is your studio located? Starkville, Mississippi.
I work at The Public Design Center, which is a non-profit graphic design resource center that my husband and I founded at the end of last year.
I have another studio space on campus (I am an assistant professor of graphic design at Mississippi State University, but I spend most of my time working and making at The Public Design Center). I use my other space for sewing and printing and packing for shows.
What equipment/tools do you use?
Ink Pens, Markers, Color Pencils, MacBook Pro, Gocco, Sewing Machine, Long Reach Stapler (for my zines! I can’t live without it!)
Do you have an inspiration board, and can you tell us what is inspiring you now? (please include picture)
My inspiration board is pretty much any open flat space where I can stick bits of paper and ephemera that I am liking at the moment. Right now a lot of material on these spaces include bits of fabric, things that get sent in the mail to me, family pictures, magazine tearings, my failed drawings, planes of color, one inch buttons and dumb things that I scavenge from other
people’s trash.
How do you create best (e.g. do you listen to music while you create and if so what?)
When I draw I generally like to watch TV shows on DVD. When I was working on all of the handlettering for the upcoming Handmade Nation Book I watched the ENTIRE series of Six Feet Under. I don’t have a TV, but I watch a lot of dvds on my computer. When I work on stuff that
requires me to move around (installations, packing orders, sewing) I listen to music (right now lots of Okkervil River, The Dodos, Bill Callahan and Spoon)
Are you working on anything new and if so, can we have a sneak peek? (even if it’s just a corner of something if you don’t wish to reveal the entire project yet)
I have been working on incorporating color into some of my daily drawings. This is the end of the semester for me and it has been tough to do any non-prescribed work (teaching, daily drawings, blog updating, freelance work etc), so I am looking forward to this summer to experiment a bit more and to work on tackling some of my lists (work bigger! more color! more products! new website!)
List (3) of your favorite artists (with links)
I can’t pick. I am so lucky to be able to look at amazing work everyday. Here is a sampling:
Herb Lubalin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Lubalin
Marc Horowitz: http://www.ineedtostopsoon.com
Joseph Beuys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys
M. Sasek: http://www.miroslavsasek.com/
Stephanie Syjucco: http://www.stephaniesyjuco.com/
Kristen Martincic: http://www.kmartincic.com
side note: We shared a studio all through graduate school and I learned so much from her. We co-habitated extremely well.
If yours isn’t, what would be your perfect studio?
Ideally it would be a live/work space like we have now. I want to be able to always be able to work easily. We are moving soon (this fall I will be teaching at Portland State University in Oregon!) and I realize that there is the possibility that we won’t have a live/work right away.
I can handle that for a little while, but hopefully we will find a great place soon!
I have had a lot of workspaces and my best spaces have been those that have been shared. My first great shared space was with Kristen (see above) and now I am sharing a space with my husband and can’t imagine it any other way. We might keep our heads down for hours and communicate in grunts sometimes, but for me, nothing beats working hard on MAKING with someone who shares the same ethic as you do.
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The Regional Assembly of Text
A little shop I always enjoy visiting in Vancouver here is The Regional Assembly of Text. I stopped by this past weekend to see what was new and take a few photos. It’s a great place to see good designs that are all handmade on site. Owners Rebecca and Brandi are amazing screenprinters and have amazing ideas for cards, books, wrapping paper and by the looks of their shop, interior decorating (there’s an “old school” feel that brings a sense of nostalgia and comfort). Their shop is lined at the back with vintage lockers, filing cabinets and card catalog drawers (all purchased from bcauction.ca). There’s wind of an online shop coming down the pipe and with that hopefully some of these pieces I saw here will be showing up for everyone to buy soon.
The wooden recipe and address boxes are really sweet filled with dividers and cards, $28. I loved their mini pinecone journals, $15 and typewriter keyboard screenprinted notepads, $16.
The Regional Assembly of Text is at 3934 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C., V5V 3P2, Canada (http://www.assemblyoftext.com/).
