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Town of Mirrors: The Reassembled Imagery of Robert Pollard
At least two things fascinate me about Pollard’s work…
1. He started out as a kid, making up album covers for bands that didn’t exist yet:
Back in high school, maybe 4 or 5 people wanted to be in a band, but nobody knew how to play an instrument. So in art class, we’d sit there and make album covers, and the credits, and i’d have the lyrics, and we’d have everything but music. We even made t-shirts for our band. Walked around, and people’d say, “You guys have a band?” “Yeah, yeah, we’ve got a band!” And no one could play anything. So it started out as kind of a fantasy.
(Lynda Barry says, “when you were a kid, you’d never write a book unless you had the book to write it in.”)
I love this idea that sometimes having a container or making one can inspire you to fill it with art.
2. Collage informs both his visual art *and* his music:
“They both have to do with re-assembling familiar imagery to create interesting landscapes…One with sight, the other with sound.”
Back in high school, maybe 4 or 5 people wanted to be in a band, but nobody knew how to play an instrument. So in art class, we’d sit there and make album covers, and the credits, and i’d have the lyrics, and we’d have everything but music. We even made t-shirts for our band. Walked around, and people’d say, “You guys have a band?” “Yeah, yeah, we’ve got a band!” And no one could play anything. So it started out as kind of a fantasy.
This reminds me of Lynda Barry, when she says, when you were a kid, you’d never write a book unless you had the book to write it in:
“It’s always much easier for me to make a book if I have the size and page count first. Maybe it’s like doing a four panel comic strip. I know how long it’s going to be and that creates the structure.”
Pollard also likes to start out with song titles and fake band names, and then write songs for those specific titles and names…
Check out the documentary Watch Me Jumpstart

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