How to Draw the Middle Finger, the Sock Conspiracy, Driving Fast, and Other Things You Can’t Learn from Art School: An Interview with James Victore
Interview by Angela Sailo
Photography by Neda Abghari
Design by Joel Wheat
When James rolls into town, people actually show up for seminar. He starts out, and I’ll paraphrase: “F---- research, and there’s no perfect font.” Ah, can you smell that breath of fresh air? Ok. There may have been more to it than that, but really—do you need more? I digress.
I had the opportunity to sit down with the self-proclaimed “great date” to ask some important questions, and some not-so-important ones, too. (Give me a break. It was my first interview.) It goes a little something like this:
*All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Upon suggesting Dick and Jane as suitable replacements, Mr. Victore politely noted, “They’re all Dicks.” So Dicks they are.
A: Your website says that you are open 23 hours—making you the only person who sleeps less than hank does. What do you do to let loose? Recharge?
JV: I go surfing. I like going to class. I bicycle. I like to ride my motorcycle really, really fast. Have sex with my great wife, and play with my son…Not all in that order—I would change the order…First, surfing, then, maybe, my wife.
A: You’re afraid she’ll see this, huh? Okay, Dick planted this question—What do you think about rock posters?
JV: I don’t really think anything of rock posters. I think the posters that are being made out there are the same posters Victor Moscoso made in the 60s, the same posters Art Chantry was making in the early 80’s. There are no rock posters now. I can understand how a young music fan would have an opportunity to make fliers, and want to make a punk manifesto thing, ‘cause, you know, they weren’t around then. They have to get that through their systems. But what happens most of all is they all kind of look alike, which is unfortunate.
A: Unfortunate, yes. I watched a QuickTime video—
JV: Ah, Hillman Curtis [not a Dick].
A: You mention that graphic design shouldn’t be used to sell socks.
JV: No, not that it shouldn’t be used; it’s a good tool to use to sell socks, but there are so many other ways to use it. It’s not like selling socks is bad—I feel like I will never be allowed to sell socks in my life. I’ll never get that high profile sock contract. You can do a good job at selling socks with graphic design. I just think it’s a waste of the tool.
A: Sometimes you have to sell socks in order to sell anything else…to print 5,000 posters.
JV: You have to sell socks so you can kill George Bush’s reputation. The sock mafia.
A: In seminar today, you explained the political nature of some of your work by saying you love this country enough to ask it difficult questions.
JV: Yes…
A: What is the most difficult question you’d like to ask the country right now?
JV: I don’t know... It’s interesting now, because, more than any other time in our existence, we’re really split. Now we’re red states and blue states. The last time we were red states and blue states was the civil war. With this red state, blue state thing, even the normal race relations issue takes a backseat. The level of tolerance and the level of acceptance is so alarmingly low these days, and I’d hate to think the answer is some faggy, why can’t we just get along kind of thing.
I haven’t made a social or political poster in a couple of years, and I’m wondering why, what’s not firing? I mean, whether it’s because things are especially convoluted, with so many big issues going, or it’s just the fact that I’m in New York City, and everyone in the city agrees with me; so, to make a poster is a joke…unless I can get it out to another state. You know what I mean?
A: Definitely.
JV: The other thing is, this president—who I think is a buffoon. But my wife’s parents-- whom I love dearly—like him. So, I’m being forced to see him another way, too. In Judaism, there’s this thing call Talmudic logic. Which means when you go into an argument, you don’t go into it with just your side. You go into it understanding both sides, so you can argue logically.
Now I’m being forced to think, how can so many people really dig this guy? I don’t understand how he’s duped so many people on either side—the liberal Jewish New Yorkers, or the mullet heads in the middle of the country. They can’t both be right, and they can’t both be wrong. I guess I don’t really have a good answer for that question. But I’m curious about what it will take for me to come out of my little Unabomber cabin and make something.
A: Do you ever feel like—
JV: people are following you?
A: Um, no. Do you ever have the feeling that your last great idea could have been your last great idea?
JV: You’re a pussy. No, it’s that writer’s block that people talk about. I’ve figured out a long time ago that it really doesn’t exist. When I get stuck on something, I find the problem is that I’ve been thinking about in tunnel vision. Thinking and thinking and thinking. Pushing and pushing and pushing. And it just won’t go any further, so I just need to turn around and go in the other direction.
But another question that occurred to me--this was a couple of years ago. I had done this poster for the school of visual arts, and it’s awesome, I mean awesome, but it will never get the critical acclaim that racism, the hangman, the dead Indian and the tongue thing did. I did five posters that are, quite frankly, going to be in history books for a long time, when I was just 30. So now I’m looking at it at 40, asking, “Will I ever be able to make anything again that is so strong?” I don’t know if I’m going to have the opportunity, or do it. That is something I think about.
A: When you hit a wall, do you feel like it’s better to power through it—to keep stacking up the crumpled sheets of paper--or to put it down?
JV: There aren’t really crumpled sheets of paper. I think even those bad ideas are something. You think it’s a bad idea. Then, you do this [turn the paper]. It’s your way of seeing it. It’s all perspective. Perspective is everything. You can alter your reality by altering your attitude. It’s about your ability to take that frown and turn it upside down. That takes confidence, and confidence takes practice.
A: Do you feel that often your first idea tends to be that gut-instinct, best idea?
JV: Yes. It wasn’t always like that, though. It came through practice. That is—even practice in accepting that first idea. A lot of times I’ll get a first idea and it looks good as a scribble in my notebook, but to take that and turn it into a project or a catalog or a something takes a lot of craft through the whole process. It needs to maintain its kind of gestalt kind of ah-ha, immediate—It has to feel like I just went, “Ah yes, what is it? Oh [spits]. There you go. Thank you. Goodbye.” It can take weeks to make it feel like that—just pregnant with that fun, but it needs to feel grrr!
A: If it weren’t graphic design, what would it be?
JV: When I graduated high school, there’s a little program, you know that the parents all get—it had our names on it and listed what we were going to do after college. Basically said: James Victore is going to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. [laughs]
A: I could see that.
JV: It wasn’t like I was brave enough, and that’s just way too much work. Even with the hard ideas, like even with the hangman and the others, I think the idea of making those funny is interesting. I mean I really like the idea of entertaining people. I like being in front of a crowd, and I like being able to control like bringing it down really somber then going in funny…I like that. One of the things people have been telling me is that I should go into inspirational speaking and go talk to a lot of groups and stuff. It’s funny cause I’m not really a people person. I don’t really like people. But, if not graphic design, I don’t know. I like the excitement of it. I like the entertaining idea of it, and the education—the teaching of it. Teaching something, philosophy might be kind of interesting—as long as it’s funny philosophy. I wish someone would pay me to race Motocross, although where I am now, if you get hurt it lasts forever. [laughs] So I don’t really have a good answer. [wife]Dick and I always thought it’d be nice to have a small shop of like a cabinet of curiosities where you’d just kind of have all of this weird, groovy stuff you like, and people would come by and want to buy it and be like, “Oh, my God. This is so cool. how much?” And we’d kind of go, “Hmmm... It’s not for sale. [laughs] but these things over here are.” Just all of your favorite stuff. Like if Nike makes one particular shoe that’s awesome—you’d just carry that one shoe that’s next to some Mojos that you bought in New Orleans a bunch of years ago that you’re gonna sell what’s next to a bunch of shoes…and socks!
A: Socks?
JV: I’d sell socks.
A: With a poster in the front?
JV: With a poster.
Portfolio Center students share a strong desire to communicate ideas, the willingness to let go of preconceived notions, and the compulsion to learn new ways of thinking. These qualities are fostered by the school’s constant stream of industry bigwigs, who bring their varied and colorful perspectives from all over the country. These creatives, who are always generous with their time and energy, tend to hang out with students, conducting informal workshops and continuing the day’s discussions over dinner. Often, what results are provocative interviews—written, shot, and designed by PC students.
