Who are you?
I’m Danimal. Aka Daniel Luedtke
How long have you been creating things? What go you into it?
I’ve been making music forever. I’ve been making visual art for the last 2 years. I studied music. I’ve been playing piano for over 20 years. It’s always been a constant in my life…so there hasn’t really been any occasion to “get into it”. It’s just always been. As for visual art, I have always wanted to do visual art, but previously my attempts were very lax. Dibble dabbled in filmmaking and performance art, but nothing stuck. Then, due to being in a band and needing art constantly, I started asking friends to make designs that I would screenprint. Then, finding that it was a hassle to get art from other people, I decided to make it myself. So. Basically, I started making art because of music.
What gets you excited when making a new poster?
I usually just look at tons and tons of things. I go to the public library and consume the image stacks and old magazines. When making a poster, my favorite part is when I’m halfway through the design, and I finaly get to the point where the drawings start appearing in color in my head. That is the best feeling, because you are over the hump, and soon you will be getting messy in the shop.
What other mediums do you enjoy working in besides print-making?
I’ve done a couple video pieces and they were fun and I really like performance art because it feels very vulnerable and risky, but music would definitely have to take the cake here. When I play, I feel totally at ease and confident. WAY more confident than print-making.
Who inspires you?
My friends. Feminist art, especially performance art. Magazines, seeing bands live, and sex.
Any Feminist or performance artists in particular? Carolee Schneemann, Valie Export, Karen Finlay, Marina Abramovic, and Judy Chicago. Y’know, the OG feminist performance artists. I used to work at the Video Data Bank, which is a video art library that specializes in queer and feminist video art, so I got exposed to a lot of stuff there, but it’s taken a few years to get around to seeing all the stuff.
What is your process like?
I think and think and think and look at things until I get a fairly concrete concept, or layout in my head. Then I do tons of thumbnail sketches to start processing a layout. Then, usually with a deadline looming, I furiously draw. The pencil sketch is my layout and I refine it until it’s pretty solid. Then I use my light table or tracing paper and ink in all the different color separations, with the goal of utilizing each layer/color to their full potential. After that, sometimes I take the drawings and scan them into the computer, where I fix tiny mistakes and pick out colors and refine refine. Or other times I just skip the computer and just print out my separations and fix mistakes on the screens and experiment with diffferent colors while I’m printing.
What is your printing set-up like?
It’s in my attic. It’s AWESOME, and I’m constantly working on it. I have the entire 3rd floor of this gigantic victorian house to work in. IT’s draughty, but it gets lots of light, and it’s all mine, which is the important part. There is a small washout area in an adjoining room, and I built a light/exposure table, and print table (2 sawhorses and a tabletop), and I cure my screens in a really long closet that is about 4 feet tall. I got a hand me down drying rack that is enormous, and I still don’t know how I got it up there. The whole thing is pretty ghetto, but within a month I’m hoping to make my exposure unit 10 times more powerful, and get my wash out sink backlit and organize a whole bunch. I just asked this screenprint equipment broker dude to keep an eye out for a one armed press, so things are really beefing up as of late.
This sounds like the one of the raddest spaces I’ve heard of! It’s always rad when someone builds an area that is there own out of just raw space.
I can try and take some photos. It needs to get a lot more rad, but i’m continually elated by the idea of free studio space, and knowing I don’t have to go out into the cold to get to my studio. No excuses.
What are you working on lately?
Oh god, this question makes me nervous. My band’s 7” and LP record packaging. I’m like halfway done. Several CD / LP projects for other people. A couple tshirt designs. A couple tour posters. Some upcoming gig posters for my band and some other local bands. I’m writing an application for a residency in providence…so, lots of things, piling up….on top of me …AAAAAH!
Great news! The LP you put out on DNT was really awesome. Tynan sent it along with a package that I’d ordered from him and it was a pretty awesome surprise. I didn’t know what to expect but it blew me away. Are you guys going to be touring a ton when the new record comes out?
Our new record is a HUGE improvement on that first one. A little bit less spazzy, and generally a lot more full sounding. We’re figuring out the touring thing, but I hope to do a three week tour sometime in June. Most definitely up to canada. We’d love to hit other towns besides just Toronto and Montreal.
Tell us more about your band, any other releases on the horizon?
My band is called Gay Beast. It’s kind of a proggy, dancy, no wavey kind of thing. We’re releasing our second full length on Skin Graft. It is called “Second Wave” and it will come out in May. We have a 7” coming out in March/April on Gilgongo.
What music are you listening to these days?
In the studio I listen to really lame repettetive music so I can trance out. Depeche Mode, OMD and Bad 90’s techno like “Church of Ecstasy”, and 808 State. In my apartment, I’ve been listening to a lot of old Skin Graft records like US Maple and Lake of Dracula, good local bands like Skoal Kodiak and Brute Heart, and oldies like the Beach Boys, that Mars Reissue, and I’m trying to school up on Captain Beefheart.
What is going on in the Mid-West lately? Do you feel like it limits you at all living there?
HAHA. that is such an offensive question, but sadly so many people ask it. The midwest is radical. Minneapolis has a HUMUNGOUS print scene that is bigger than many cities twice its size. Whenever I have technical questions, or need comradery, I can hang with a number of prominent postermakers and shoot the shit. I have way too much work on my plate, so as far as visual art, there are no limitations at the moment. Sometimes I wonder if people would take my band more seriously if we were somewhere hip like Baltimore or L.A., but the “poor-me” trip goes away pretty fast. I live cheap, make lots of stuff, and can afford a studio, a practice space, and a place to live while working about 20 hours a week and taking in a nominal sum off of my visual art and odd jobs so I can’t complain. Winter is ROUGH sometimes, but the winter also gives a certain amount of clarity and focus that is beneficial. I always have a tour and vacation planned for the wintertime so that I don’t go crazy, but I love Minneapolis. I was in Sacramento on tour, and this woman asked me, “do you think that your band will relocate anytime soon?”. I just laughed and told her how much I like Minneapolis, despite its terrible reputation. Come visit sometime and you’ll see.
I guess the only idea I have of Minneapolis is the few poster artists I like and the drive through it on my way to Vancouver last year. I guess I shouldn’t jusge a book by its cover, or even the first chapter! I guess I’m probably jut jealous that a mid-sized city can have just an exciting scene, being from Ottawa and all…everyone just leaves. We’re trying to get it going a bit more but its all up hill.
I don’t think that Minneapolis is someplace to get too jealous about, but I do appreciate the city more and more. Keeping busy and out of trouble is key, but that’s the same rule as anywhere. The winter makes everyone crazy, and they either create drama in their life and burn out, or re-make their surroundings creatively. Also, there are a lot of institutional draws to Minneapolis, like the University of Minnesota (2nd largest University in the country), and art stuff like the Walker art center and junk…so it keeps a certain amount of “global” ideas flowing through town on a regular basis, which is key. We are geographically isolated, which is the reason why the cities economy quickly moved away from a reliance upon industry, toward developing technological (3M), research (U of M), and cultural institutions (Minneapolis art institute, Walker..etc.). The city feels and acts a bit different than it’s other, more industrial midwestern sister cities. People leave, don’t get me wrong. There is a definite Seattle/New York City/ Portland migration happening pretty much all the time, but many do stay, and now I’ve watched several of my friends move away, and move back, which is kind of bizarre.
Who is making rad stuff these days that gets you excited to see what they’re going to do next?
Locally, friends like the folks in Hardland / Heartland, Jaron Childs, and the folks at Landland are doing pretty rad stuff. My Toronto friends Jesjit Gill, and Mike Deforge are pretty inspiring on a regular basis, and all the peeps in the Montreal scene like Walter Scott, Lisa Czech and Seripop.
What do you see yourself doing in 10 years?
I hope to be doing similar things. Hopefully I can quit my part time job, and live off of grant money, commercial work and teaching. If i’m not in a band in 10 years, I’d probably start making video/ animation so that I would still have a reason to make music.
What would you be doing if art/music wasn’t an option?
I would be a porn obsessed gym bunny. Or an alcoholic.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Cook food with my friends, go running, do queer activist stuff with my friend in the Revolting Queers, and go to shows. (sex)
Which poster are you most proud of?
I haven’t made that poster. Soon child….soon.
Any final words?
Hire me! Buy my stuff! I’m poor.
See more of Danimal’s work at http://www.danimaldanimal.blogspot.com/
