Yet again: it’s Society of Illustrators New Visions podcast time! We’re recording Episode #2 LIVE from the Society of Illustrators tonight at 7:30pm EST: http://mixlr.com/societyillustrators/ If you can’t catch it this evening, check the SOI Soundcloud! This time we’ll be talking about tech in illustration, and how it’s currently affecting the industry from Cintiqs to community. Yao Xiao is hosting Leland Goodman, Rebecca Mock, Jensine Eckwall, and Kyle Webster.  The Society of Illustrators New Visions Committee was organized to address this host of issues facing the contemporary illustrator; these include topics of diversity and inclusion, multiculturalism, and illustration’s role in a larger cultural context.  Get in touch with us! We’re constantly looking for new stories, voices, and content, and we want to involve you. The New Visions committee is: Jonathan Bartlett, Jensine Eckwall, Yao Xiao, Chris Kindred, and John Lee.

Exit Through The (NPR) Gift Shop - Chris Kindred

Internship position: Illustration Intern - Editorial Training Team

Hometown/university: Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA

Favorite DC spot: To be honest…NPR! It’s where I’ve spent about 80% of my entire time here

Favorite NPR show, blog or podcast: I’m a new fan of TED Radio Hour–I really love tackling the big intangible concepts in life

Number one song that you’re jamming to right now: Easy. It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night - Prince

Coolest thing you’ve done while at NPR: Watched a fireworks duel on the fourth of July in front of NPR HQ from the 4th floor terrace

Top #NPRLife moment(s): Guy Raz’s brown bag, where he talks about the inevitable hardship of our 20s. The only way out of it is to go straight through.

Pose a better existential question than this summer’s “Celery. Why?”: This Twitter account, @thinkpiecebot can do that much better than me.

Who is your dream Tiny Desk artist? I feel like Frank Ocean will roll up in here one day completely unannounced.

What’s next for you? I’m freelancing as an illustrator again! Hire me! chris@chriskindred.com!

Advice for future interns: Go see the city. Live life. Work hard, but not too hard. Your health is more important. The last thing you want is to build a house on a worn down foundation.

For future interns of color: Seek refuge in mentors and friends like you. They will show you how to navigate a white-dominated space and alleviate that looming lack of confidence and isolation is always around the corner.

New Visions Featured Artist: Chris Kindred Inspiration

This essay by Sylvia Harris, titled Searching for a Black Aesthetic in American Graphic Design Education changed how I look at myself in the context of illustration last year. This essay stresses that it is important that Black designers (or illustrators, in this case) are working at a disadvantage in school because we don’t know our aesthetic heritage as image-makers. That prompted me to do some digging, and looking through the art of the New Negro Movement lead me to spectacular artists like Aaron Douglas, who I believe informs in the aesthetics of a lot of working illustrators today.

And from there, Cuban poster art and the really loose illustrators of the golden age started to appeal to me. I’m a sucker for a lively line.

To be honest though, I wouldn’t be where I am at all if it weren’t for Shonen Jump. I was grounded after fighting a kid in the 6th grade, and my mom took away my TV and all my games. Little did she know I had stacks of these and my own imagination to dive into.

And through manga, I found artists who broke off from the mainstream and told stories that appealed to me as I got older. Since finding Taiyo Matsumoto’s work, I’ve been more level-headed in my own storytelling sensibilities.

And this video, because watching neighborhood kids turn up reminds me to always have fun at this. Illustration can be serious and paralyzing sometimes.

Check out more on Chris’ tumblr and Instagram! 

Made a post about my inspirations for Society of Illustrators. This is the only place you'll find Golden Age illustrators mentioned in the same group as YuGiOh and Young Thug.

Interview with New Visions Featured Artist: Chris Kindred

Last Friday Chris took over our Instagram as we celebrated the Student Scholarship Competition exhibition opening and his Scholarship win. Today learn more about Chris in the interview below. 

1. When and how did you decide to become an illustrator?

At VCUarts Portfolio Day in 2009. It was my senior year of high school and I spent the day shopping for art programs that I thought I wanted to go to. VCU was the last one I went to for the day, and Sterling Hundley just happened to be running that table. When I met him and told him I was maybe thinking about pursuing illustration, he gave me the most thorough portfolio review I’d ever had, and told me exactly what I needed to know to become an illustration student. Took 3 years after that day, but it paid off big time.

2. Who are the biggest inspirations for your career?

My friends. A lot of them I used to follow on Blogspot back before I moved to Richmond. They were (and still are!) a ragtag group of creatives who focused on the work and being as dope as possible. That energy is what inspired me the most. Even now I’m glad to be surrounded by folks who are always grinding, not only to be the best at what they do, but to be the best selves they can be.

3. Name one non-illustration inspiration in your career.

Prince.

                                                                                                                 All Black 

4. What is the best advice you have been given as an artist?

Know when not to take advice—When you get advice that steers you from where you want to end up, you’re by no means obligated to follow it.

5. What is your creative habit? What do you have to do to get into your creative zone?

I have to start in the morning, or else it’s exponentially harder to get into the zone. I need quiet or ambient jams to contrast my surging thoughts before calming down to focus.  

                                                                                 Boxing Taught Me to Survive 

6. What music and books inspire you to create?

I’ve been reading a bunch of Octavia Butler lately. The contrast between intimacy and brutality are themes I want to explore in my work soon. Also recently finished Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson. His attention to detail and matter-of-fact style of world-building is really up my alley.

For music though, I’ve been playing Lil Yachty’s Lil Boat a lot. It’s really playful, well refined Atlanta trap that’s easy to rope you in. Also Chance’s Coloring Book is flames. 2016 is a good year for music. Lemonade, James Blake’s The Colour in Anything, and Kaytranada’s 99.9% were instant downloads for me.

7. As it relates to illustration what advice have you never forgotten?

“Be loose without being messy.” It was recent advice, but hearing it when I did made things click for me—I’ve had the most fun drawing loose figures in motion, or anything in motion for that matter.

                                                                                                                Fanfiction

8. Do you see illustration as a group of individuals or a community?

That’s a tough one. Illustration to me is me and my friends I’ve met from all around. The wider that net of friends, the larger the community. However, I do wish illustration at-large could be as tight-knit as comics can be.

9. What sort of things keep you involved in the world of illustration?

Knowing that social discourse can be important within the image-making profession and as an image-maker. Illustration is the most impactful tool I use to communicate.

10. What is your dream project?

I want to run an animated show or direct a feature. Along the way, I want to work on a graphic novel.  A dream project for me is one where I can have total creative freedom without struggling to eat.

11. If you could time travel what year would you go to?

2100. When people talk about the future, they talk about the state of the environment and technology. I want to see how far society has progressed. I want to know if someone like me can walk around without people locking their hovercar doors, haha.

                                                                                        Benefits of Collaboration

12. What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

Knowing that my work has touched someone’s life in a very real way. Alternatively, when I go grocery shopping with money I got for drawing pictures. That’s so surreal to me.

12. What’s the most terrifying part of your job?

That moment when you send up your final draft and you wait to see whether or not there are revisions.

13. Love the Internet or hate the Internet?

Who would hate the internet?

                                                                                                           Hood Knight