Before my wedding photographer career began, I created and collected concert poster art. At one time, I managed a collective of artists who created work geared toward the entertainment industry. After graduating college I managed several art galleries that catered toward current and classic contemporary rock poster art, 21st century figurative, urban contemporary, pop-surrealism and modern illustrative design poster art. I hosted grassroots art shows throughout Chicago in backrooms of bars and other untraditional "galleries" bringing the art to the masses.
In 2001 I began a friendship with a famed concert poster artists named Jim Pollock who created much of the graphic design, concert posters, t-shirts and concert ticket art for the popular Vermont jamband Phish. I began documenting Pollock's unique process of hand-carving linoleum blocks and hand printing his posters utilizing an antiquated bookbinding press and his 19th century Washington Printers Proof Press in 2002. The process takes weeks to carve away layers of linoleum over several plates, each representing its own color. Registering and pressing each block to create an impression over thousands and thousands of pressings also is a very time consuming, intricate ordeal. The amounting body of work that Pollock has created spans over 2 decades and over 100,000,000 impressions on paper. I have been there to document everything from his original pencil sketches to his signing and numbering of these rare limited edition works.
Works sold at concerts from 1997-2000 now can command over $5,000.00 when kept in mint condition and sold to rabid collectors on ebay. Much of his collection, along with its incredible appreciation, can be observed on the not-for-profit art collector's community resource expressobeans.com.
Over the past 4-5 years, I've helped keep PollockPrint's collectors current on all the behind the scenes action happening at the studio by posting photos of pieces in production. I became the "Collectors Services" department in 2005 and have since answered collectors emails, updated the PollockPrints.com website, created and continue to moderate the PollockPosters.com forum, streamline artist-promoter negotiations, orchestrate promotion and publicity, hang and curate an annual art show at the PollockPrints studio and finally I travel to art and music festivals and gallery showings across the U.S. to help educate new customers and appease seasoned collectors by offering hard to find artists proofs and original renderings once these pieces have been archived and are available for purchase.
Today, the PollockPrints studio resides one door down from the Jason Kaczorowski Photography Studio inside the Bulldog Lock Company building in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood. I am working to release a new book featuring his art and my photographs documenting his labor intensive process in early 2009. Many of my photos of Jim have already been featured in books, magazines and various online media.
In 2007, while working the PollockPrints booth at the Flastock Poster Convention during the Pitchfork Music Festival, Pollock and I were interviewed for a yet-to-be-named poster art documentary. The newly named flick dubbed "American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art" looks incredible and I encourage you to check out the trailer below for more information on its 2009 release.
American Artifact is a movie that chronicles the rise of American rock poster art since its birth in the '60s. Director Merle Becker crosses the country interviewing rock poster artists from the different eras to discover that America is currently in the midst of a 21st century "rock poster art movement", where thousands of artists around the country are doing silk screened rock poster art inspired by their local scene, the music of our time, and the spirit of our era.
Below are a few photos from the PollockPrints booth taken through my phisheye lens July 17th-22nd at the 10,000 Lakes Music & Arts Festival in Detroit Lakes, MN. More photos from this event can be found in the blog archives at http://eventphotoblog.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
