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AoM: Anthony Kinney

They say time flies when you're having fun. I say it flies when some a-hole from history decides to knock a whole 4 days off of a month. Alas, February, I hardly knew ye.. and now ye're gone. Which isn't to say that it wasn't fun! But.. well, whatever. My point is, March is all up on us! Spring time will be here soon (hopefully, at least), I think there's some sort of sporting event where grown men run around for hours at a time attempting to toss a ball into a small basket that has been suspended from a pole (madness, indeed!) and last but most certainly not least, it's time for a new Artist of the Month here at Bored in the Basement! And we've manged to steer away from the freaky tattooed types, going instead for the geeky super-nerd type. Birds of a feather, and whatnot.

Our very own Tom Velure met this month's artist Tony Kinney sometime last year during a convention at which other geeky super-nerd types had gathered. When approached with the possibility of designing some shirts for BitB, Tony says he jumped on the opportunity. Ok so really he says he jumped AT it, but let's not split hairs here. Other than designs he has created with the intention of submitting them to another t-shirt site that shall remain unnamed here, Mr. Kinney says he's never designed art for clothing. We consider ourselves lucky to be the first ever to actually get to print his work on t-shirts. As Tony pointed out, an added bonus of Bored in the Basement is that once we pick an artist, they're it for the month! There is no voting or screening process that the art goes through to decide which submissions get accepted.. the artist basically gets to simply say "Dude, you know what would make a bad-ass shirt?!" and then.. we make a shirt out of it. But, I digress. It's understandable that Tony hasn't ever really designed art for clothing before, being that the bulk of his experience and work is in HTML/CSS, but he says he enjoys the challenge of using Photoshop and Illustrator to create.

Of course, we didn't always have things like fancy computers and picture drawin' programs and the interwebs and the like. (Not until Al Gore invented it, at least. The interwebs, that is.) Why, back in my day we had to chisel our art into stone walls, and color it with crushed berries and buffalo blood. And we LIKED IT. I didn't get around to asking if Tony had ever had to kill a wild animal in order to create any of his art, but he did say that he got into it as a child-- getting started with Ed Emberley books, later graduating to copying the art from comic books, on and on and so forth. He did at some point take actual art classes, including some digital design courses to help hone his Photoshop skills. He says that he'd like to do more commissioned art as opposed to just hobbying around with it, but that he really doesn't have the time between working, drinking beer, and playing Minecraft-- All admirable pursuits, in my opinion.

And because there are the requisite ridiculous and completely (well, only slightly so this time) irrelevant questions in every interview, I figure this time I'll give you the words straight from the horse's mouth. After all, who better to hear it from?

What one person, alive or dead, would it be your dream to do a commissioned piece for? And let's pretend they basically say 'Here is a wad of cash, I just want you to make something awesome for me.' What would you make? And why, for that person?

I think it would be cool if Chuck Palahniuk, Cory Doctorow or Douglas Coupland (two of my favorite authors) commissioned me for their new book jacket design.

Do you have a favorite quote pertaining to art? What is it, and why?

There's a long ass quote by Jim Jarmusch that begins "Nothing is original." So many critics decry literature, music, films for being derivative of something else, but that's the point! We're constantly building new and greater things based on the work of our predecessors.

Favorite movie of all time, and why?

Star Wars Episode 4, A New Hope is my favorite. Well, I love the original trilogy can quote the entire film.

And last, but certainly not least.. You're on your deathbed. You have the presence of mind to say something coherent at your final moments on this earth. Famous last words?  

"I shoulda fucked old what's-her-name" c. George Carlin.

Tony currently works part time in a bookstore and does some independent work for a web design company, in addition to the aforementioned beer and Minecraft related activities. In addition to his offerings as March's Artist of the Month, he can also be found on the aforementioned interwebs at his portfolio site: http://sotd.us/anthonykinney/

We'd like to thank Mr. Kinney for taking time out of his busy beering-gaming-working schedule to create some kick ass art for this month's shirts, and we leave you with his own personal tag-line: "I'm a full-time nerd, part-time geek and volunteer weirdo."

Damn. Wish I'd thought of that one..

Until next time,
-RR