Thursday, August 21, 2008

Mark Grambau, reporting from Bolton Hill...

1.)What have you been doing post-graduation (art-wise or life-wise) and what are your plans for the next few months?

The day before graduation I had an interview at the Towson Apple Store to handle the whole "needing money immediately" thing. A few weeks later I was hired and I have been a Mac Specialist there for about a month and a half. While it's not part of the career big picture, it's been a lot of fun. It's a job I've done before and can do without thinking too hard, and the people there are fantastic. It's been great having a new community of friends at work with my MICA community now spread out all over the country and world.

Today I actually finished labeling my several hundred postcards (I combined every mailing list I could get my hands on) and will be sending them out tomorrow. I only plan to do one or two of these giant mailings before scaling way the hell down, but let's hope it at least gets my images out there. I am fostering a couple contacts that I've made, one of which could end up with me as the primary illustrator for a new web startup. Even if that falls through, the guy spearheading it has been in Baltimore journalism for decades and is a great contact to have. Plus, he loves my work and endlessly promotes me. I also managed to find a mutual connection with someone at Blue Sky Studios, which is conveniently about 15 minutes from my home in NY. So we'll see if anything comes of that. In the mean time, I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible about art and am trying to create. Thankfully, Apple will be scaling down my hours soon (I've been there more than 40 hours a week for the last month or so) so I'll have more time to dedicate to pen and paper.


2.)Where have you moved to (be specific: ex."hampden") ? Are you happy/excited/frustrated/ disappointed by your new location? Is there something about this new place you wanna advertise, or warn us about? (Ex. great Tex-Mex food, bad public transportation)

I'm still in Bolton Hill, in the same absolutely wonderful apartment I had senior year (along with Justin Lloyd and Ian Kahler). We repainted the living room and replaced a light fixture in my bedroom, and are constantly trying to improve the place even more. Great location (corner of Lanvale and Park), great space, great landlords, great roommates. I can't complain. With my friends at the Towson Apple Store, I'm also managing to get out of the immediate "MICA bubble" a bit as well, venturing to other parts of the city and county.

3.)Is there something you have created since you graduated you would like to share? (it doesn't have to be an illustration)

Project Rooftop had a contest to redesign Superman's costume, and while I didn't make any cut for finalist or even honorable mention, the creator of the blog, Dean Trippe, left me a really positive comment on my blog, and frankly, I'm pretty proud of the work I did. I couldn't just do a straight costume change. You guys know me, I had to bring some politics into it. Check out my entry at my blog.

4.)Which specific color have you been using/thinking about the most lately?

Super warm skin tone, like, skin tone with a red light. Very "pulp" cover kind of skin. Probably because I've been living in my book "Pulp Culture" as of late.

5.)Tell us something about you that has changed since we last met.

I've played more Scrabble in the last month than I have in my whole life. And I've always played a ton of Scrabble. Feels good, keeps me sharp, and makes me aware of obscure two letter words like "xu."

3 comments:

Megan Russell said...

That apartment is so gorgeous. It was basically my ideal when I went hunting in Chicago.

P.S. Is apple releasing a new laptop anytime soon?

Anonymous said...

I wish I could provide you with some sort of fantastic insight into Apple's future, but I find out about new products on the day they come out from reading about it at Apple.com (or whatever news source you prefer), same way as everyone else. They keep us in the dark regarding announcements and new stuff.

Your apt. in Chicago looks great! I saw the photos published on facebook. I love your wine glass thingamajig in your kitchen!

Amanda Welling said...

Is it the same ian kahler from lancaster pa? I went to school with him, could u let him know amanda said hi? My email is amyer23@gmail.com