Peep Show: a quick minute with Molly Crabapple
I first encountered the delicious and ambitious Molly Crapapple when I posed for her life drawing series, Dr. Sketchy's. Don't let the wide-eyed, delicate Victorian moppet looks fool you, this dainty dollie is a powerhouse. A former artist's model turned illustrator, Molly has capitalized on her ability to go both ways by starting Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, a life drawing series using burlesque bombshells and the stars of circus and cabaret as models.
Started in 2005, Dr. Sketchy's has quickly gone from underground NYC art salon to a worldwide art movement with chapters stretching from Los Angeles to London and beyond.
Now, with the release of Dr. Sketchy's Rainy Day Colouring Book, it's safe to say that Molly's plans for world domination are well underway. The life drawing series has been scribbled about all over the Web and will be featured in an upcoming article in the L.A. Times. The book has garnered stellar reviews from Playboy.com and the Village Voice and new Sketchy's chapters continue to sprout up around the globe.
Tangerine Jones: How does it feel to be the undisputed queen of the "larger-than life drawing class?
Molly Crabapple: Immensely gratifying on many levels. I proved that you can pay models good wages as long as you make the class entertaining enough to draw a crowd. Dr. Sketchy's gives credence to my idea that artists yearn for hot and debauched life drawing classes. Who doesn't want to hire lots of sexy boys and girls?
TJ: Before coming up with the creative juggernaut that is the Dr Sketchy's machine, you were a artist's model. Was it glamorous or grimy?
MC: It was glamorous and grimy. On some days, I got hundreds of dollars to pose at liquor launch parties. On others, I deflected the advances of wheelchair bound illustrators while posing naked on their desks. In between though, it was mostly a mundane grind of hauling my tired body onto the platform and getting drawn.
TJ: If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
MC: Cupcake pink
TJ : Do you color inside or outside of the lines?
MC: I didn't know there were lines.
TJ: What artist, dead or alive, puts a shimmer in your stocking? Who do you most admire?
MC: I'm in love with Gibson for his pen and ink style, but my heart belongs to Aubrey Beardsley. Not only did he invent the decadent style of illustration before coughing his life away at twenty six; he was also a Machiavellian little careerist. Deciding that a life of clerking (the 19th century equivilent to office work) wasn't for him, he used his hot sister as bait to get into top artist Edmund Burne-Jones' mansion, then schmoozed and press-manipulated his way to fame and fortune.
TJ: You in five words.
MC: Caffeinated. Workaholic. Bookworm. Verbose. Not so good at these lists.
(Disclosure: Molly has immortalized me as a paper doll in the book. If that's not sufficient enough reason to take it home, crack it open and whip out your crayons and colored pencils, I don't know what else to tell you. Did I mention that it features paper doll versions of the delectable Darlinda Just Darlinda,the glamourous and hilarious Little Brooklyn, the ever fabulous Amber Ray and other familiar lovely lovelies, cut out pasties, puzzles and amazing illustration? It's art you can hold in your hot little hands. Go buy it now.)Peep Show is an interview series with the brightest and best of burlesque and the underground art and music scene. Quick peeks into what's good and interesting.
Labels: Dr. Sketchy, peep show
posted by -h* @ 10:33 PM,
