Twenty Years Ago I Took Photos of Young Artist Molly Crabapple. Today, I Interviewed Her About Her Work.
During my first few years picking up the camera, I was teaching myself how to shoot by finding models through Craigslist. That's how Molly and I met.
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During my first few years picking up the camera, I was teaching myself how to photograph by doing photoshoots first with myself, then friends, then branching out to find models through Craigslist. That's how I first met Molly Crabapple. In 2004, we did a shoot in her Brooklyn apartment, and I loved the results so much that I had a photo of Molly hanging in my house for a decade after. It was one of the pivotal points of my early stumbling-around-while-figuring-things-out era, and one that crystallized my then-delusional belief that I was good enough to turn photography into a career.
While a large print from our shoot hung in my house for years, Molly and I lost touch in the lawless, pre-Instagram era. It took twenty years for us to reconnect, virtually bumping into each other on social media. I wasn’t surprised that in that time, Molly had become a visual artist and a writer with a cult following. When I mentioned her name to a friend, he lit up like a teenager. “I had a crazy crush on her,” he said. “We all did.”
Other than being a muse for a generation of young men in New York, Molly has been busy. She has made a name for herself as a political illustrator, blending art, activism and sharp cultural commentary. She has covered Occupy Wall Street, the Syrian refugee crisis, the trials at Guantanamo Bay, and, most recently, has done work for the Mamdani campaign and ICE protests. Her illustrations have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and VICE, and she has published several books, including an illustrated memoir, Drawing Blood. On top of all this, Molly’s animation work has won two Emmys.
Molly’s latest book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country, the dramatic story of the Jewish Bund—a revolutionary movement from a vanished world—and its radical vision of solidarity in an age of division, is out now and available for pre-order.
Molly has also started a fiery Substack, Ink Vault, in which she shares her work and her unfettered thoughts on culture and politics. One of my favorite pieces tackled the absurdity of $6.2 Million Banana that was sold at auction. The newsletter, resplendent with dry wit and empathy is sharper than any other piece of writing I’ve read on the topic.
Excited to share her work and writing with all of you, I asked Molly a few questions.
What painters inspire your work?
I have a longtime obsession with Francisco de Goya, as this artist whose work encompassed everything from sexy naked majas to mean portraits of the aristocracy to devastating reportage of the French invasion. Recently I started doing copperplate etchings at Robert Blackburn Studio in Hell’s Kitchen, and it’s made me understand Goya's work in a whole new way. Those perfect spider lines! The clouds of grey! To work in the media of your favorite artist is to be able to see their art from the inside.
What artists are you looking at?
SWOON. Tatyanah Fazlalizadeh. Hiba Shahbaz. Danielle de Jesus. Phoebe Boswell.
What music are you listening to? Anything recent that you've been liking?
I love old records you get at the dollar bin at Johnny Albino's in Bushwick, and I always find old lady stuff there I adore like Edie Gorme. Also classic salsa like Hector Lavoe. For current stuff I love Saint Levant.
How do you work out your concepts from idea to completion? - writing it down? drawing drafts? - and how long does it take for each (approximately)
Its hard to count hours cause I'm in a fugue state of caffeine when I'm actually doing the drawing, but I want to say my best stuff takes a day or two (a few weeks for the bigass paintings). The concepts percolate for a long time. I talk them through with Fred, my boyfriend, and do chicken scratch sketches only I understand. Sometimes I fuck up a piece, tear it up, tantrum and have to start again. Overworking a piece is the enemy.
Do you have a person to bounce ideas from (friend/editor/husband)? How important is that to your practice?
Fred! I've been with this guy since I was twenty, and I'm forty one now, so it’s over half my life. He's a brilliant painter who taught me so much and always is able to look at my art and tell me what isn't working (something that's precious because my own eyes get fried staring at something and I can't tell any more what’s good or shit). We draw in diametrically opposite ways, but share tips, ideas, supplies, encouragement, and all nighters.
Ink Vault, Substack by Molly Crabapple
Here Where We Live Is Our Country, new book by Molly Crabapple
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