
For as long as I have been doing posters, I have been getting to know the various artists and their back stories. Poster artists are a great community and we share a lot of experiences together. It would be nice, I thought, to share some of that with everyone.
I’ve decided to start interviewing people involved in posters about what they were doing for work before going into posters full time. The stories are quite interesting and I plan to start posting a few interviews periodically as I get them. See the previous interviews with Rob Jones and Justin Santora as well as the interviews with Tyler Stout and Todd Slater.
DAN MACADAM INTERVIEW
The fifth interview I am pleased to present is with Dan MacAdam of Crosshair Silkscreen Printing And Design in Chicago. Dan’s prints, largely of Chicago locales, have a lot of character in the settings that he chooses. The printing is exceptional and his separations are seamless, nothing short of someone who has been printing since 1996. For years, he faithfully served the American Poster Institute by administrating the Flatstock Event at the Pitchfork Music Festival. Please check out the goodness at www.crosshairchicago.com
Wilco
The Printers’ Ball
Q: What kind of job did you have before becoming involved in posters (please explain the position, the responsibilities, the uniform, the hours, how long did work there, etc)?
A: I taught SAT and ACT prep courses to high school students, for Kaplan Test Prep.
Q: How did you get that job (apply, friend hooked it up, family business, indentured servitude)?
A: I had worked for an upstart company doing a similar thing, but for underprivileged youth in urban Chicago schools. They went belly up, and I moved on to Kaplan, who are the Death Star of test prep.
Q: What was your least favorite part of the job (douchey boss, lame customers, hard labor)? Any interesting stories?
A: I came away with a very negative outlook on this sort of testing in general. They basically teach you how to game the tests, by deciphering the way they are written. I taught the math course, and I can tell you that if you are actually calculating anything, you are a fool. The SAT and ACT do not measure your knowledge, they measure your skill at test taking. And if your parents have the money to afford this expensive class where they teach you all these tricks and cheats and drill you on them… Yeah. You are going to get a higher score than the kids who couldn’t afford the class. Regardless of how well well you have applied yourself in school, or how much you have studied the actual material the SAT and ACT purport to test. It completely works, and it is completely fucked and unfair.
Q: Did you quit or get fired?
A: Unclear. Students in the classes I taught consistently improved their scores, but they kept giving me worse and worse assignments that required me to drive ever further out, with that time and mileage uncompensated. So I quit, but I think they were hoping I would quit. Call it a ‘soft fire.’ I think my scruffy appearance and bloodshot eyes made Kaplan uncomfortable.
Q: Despite how unrelated that job was, is there anything that you learned on that job that you still apply to what you are doing in posters/prints today?
A: Not a damn thing.
Q: Are you in a better place now, doing posters and prints or was that job your true calling?
A: To be fair I was making prints and posters then too, just not as a full time pursuit. That job was such an utter waste of time that, until Tong asked the question, I had forgotten about it completely. I met some people there for whom perhaps it was their true calling by default, and they were sad sad souls. They’re probably dead now.
JON SMITH INTERVIEW
The sixth interview I am pleased to present is with the one and only, Jon Smith (that’s actually not true at all, Jon Smith is an EXTREMELY common name). I’m a big fan of Jon’s work. I got to know him first when he worked for a printer that I use and later as an accomplished designer. Jon’s quirky personality and humor (he’s kind of funny/miserable in a Louie CK kinda way) really come through in his work, as well as a refined sense of geek/nerd/dork culture. His work is a regular fixture at Spoke Art, Nakatomi, and dozens of bands. Let’s hope we see more of him in the years to come. Check out his portfolio at www.smithbellcraft.com
Q: What kind of job did you have before becoming involved in posters (please explain the position, the responsibilities, the uniform, thehours, how long did work there, etc)?
A: Well I just had bullshit part time jobs from high school through Art school then I had a job at a start up web game company. Then I got into posters and worked at D&L Screenprinting for roughly four years, part and full time.
Any jobs outside of design have all been circumstantial, not jobs I could ever see myself making a career out of.
I guess I should focus on the most interesting or funny job which would be Ernie’s Truck Stop in Kent, Washington: Wretched hive of scum and villainy.
I was “the lot guy”, I got a white jump suit, broom and dust pan, pressure sprayer, bucket of soap and brush to scrub diesel off of concrete (how futile is that???) and whatever tools I needed to do whatever crap needed done around the entire parking lot and the endless gas pumps. Also it’s a 76 Station so I got a bitchin white short sleeve work shirt with the 76 logo on the pocket BUT the one I got had been bleached to shit so the orange was kinda yellowy and the blue was purple.
Q: How did you get that job (apply, friend hooked it up, familybusiness, indentured servitude)?
A: I worked there for about a year and a half. I was hired on a whim because I was friends with Ernie’s grandson. Ernie’s was a place that a handful of guys I knew got jobs just because they were young, dumb, needed work and didn’t have a lot of options, I was no exception. I had just been fired from Safeway. I was 19 and still living with my folks (while going to art school) and I had no plans on telling them, I just needed a new job fast.
They told me the last guy that worked the lot got fired for selling the truckers speed out of the parking lot AND so did I….hahaaa, no, just kidding but I heard that the guy who replaced me was fired for the same.
Q: What was your least favorite part of the job (douchey boss, lame customers, hard labor)? Any interesting stories?
A: Least favorite part? PISS. Picking up containers of urine. It’s a truck stop, it’s the first thing they warn you about. These guys are on long haul they don’t stop until they absolutely have to so they fill up gallon milk jugs, Apple Juice containers, anything with a lid and leave them anywhere they please. They mostly don’t give a shit, they’re truck drivers, it’s a truck stop. The considerate ones will put them in the trash, some leave them on top of the gas pump and some just kinda drop them out the window anywhere.
So there’s that. I guess I was too young to be on the look out for “Lot Lizards”(hookers). People ask if I have any funny stories about skanky ladies visiting the trucks staying overnight and as a growns up now I’m kind of surprised I don’t remember seeing much of that but it was probably cuz I only worked during the day, never past 4PM….the freaks come out at night, yknow.
Found a syringe or two in the garbage which made me deathly afraid I could accidentally get stabbed by one while collecting the trash which is kinda half the job. There were 8 trash cans to change out every day, which were big ass steel drums. Took two hours to change out sometimes.
One time some idiot flicked a cig out the window on the way into the lot and it caught the beauty bark on fire. Not major enough for the fire department, just the perfect size a fire to keep Jon busy for a couple hours. It’s a long lot so I had to go around and hose it all down, make sure every inch of bark was wet and not smoking.
The fun part of the job was hiding. I had this little storage/office/booth in the middle of the rows of diesel pumps and when there was a truck parked at my pump I could hang out in there and the upstairs office (where my boss was) couldn’t see me. I also figured out how to position the milk crate in there so I could sit comfortably while keeping my head under the window so from the office you couldn’t tell I was in there. I read a lot of comics in there. In fact the first day I worked there it snowed, which was weird as Hell cuz it was May. Because it snowed no one was going to come out and bug me in my booth. I read like 40 pages of a book that day…which is probably the most pages of any book I’ve ever read…ever!…I mean, in one day.
So the job was, get my shit done and then kill as much time as possible hiding from my boss the rest of the shift. I listened to a shit load of sports talk and classic rock radio, that and the free soda and or hot cocoa got me through that job, comics and sketching shit, OH FUCK I just remembered I used to write these lame, half baked songs in there too!! My friends had a band that I was trying to weasel my way into….I am not a musician by any means, embarrassing(funny) stuff.
Q: Did you quit or get fired?
A: I got “phased out” they just slowly cut my hours down a few every week until I said WTF and they’re like “OMG we’re just gonna hire the Mexican guy who does the leaf blowing for the station and pay him under the table to do your job.”
Q: Despite how unrelated that job was, is there anything that you learned on that job that you still apply to what you are doing in posters/prints today?
A: Good question. I feel as a creative type it’s all about perspective. The stories and experiences you have make you unique and hopefully somehow make your voice interesting as a writer, painter, comedian, designer, whatever you’re doing. I was exposed to an interesting lifestyle and a walk of life I wasn’t going to get anywhere else and it gave me time to daydream.
It was really gross and a pain in the ass but I made it work for me. Kind of like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank…not that dramatic of course but you get the point. I came out unscathed with a handful of stories, that’s a positive.
Q: Are you in a better place now, doing posters and prints or was thatjob your true calling?
A: Of course I’m in a better place now, I was picking up piss jugs







































