SAM VANALLEMEERSCH

INTERVIEWED BY SARAH HERMAN

—

THE LAB MAGAZINE—Some of your most powerful pieces are almost frighteningly detailed that it’s hard to imagine how you sit down to start one of them. So tell us, Sam, how do you sit down and get started?

SAM VANALLEMEERSCH—I actually don’t think about it too much. Well I do, but it’s just difficult to explain. Most of the time I start on something, throw it away, and start over, as I prefer to skip roughs and try to avoid tracing a finished sketch. For me, it’s just more fun to be surprised or annoyed whilst working, suddenly adding something as a direct result of what I was doing before, which keeps the thing energetic. So I guess that’s where all the details come from, as the starting point is simple, but it just builds up and expands.
I’m a big fan of mistakes that lead to new mistakes, which sometimes make you say, “Aha, nice.” The niceness being something you never could’ve thought out or anticipated before. Not sure if my work is “fine art” either, I certainly don’t look at it that way, just, you know, drawing! I’ll probably end up making comics whether I like it or not.

TLM—To follow on from that, I’m interested in the life of your work – from its inception to when you finally feel it’s finished. Is there a definite end point, an assuring apathy that washes over you, a goal that you’re reaching for that lets you know that you’re done? 

SV—Well, it’s the moment the whole thing becomes too much of a chore, or when I see enough contrast, or when it looks like I made my point, however unspectacular that point may be. This is a good question by the way, I never think about this. It leaves me puzzled a bit. I’m actually staring like an idiot at my wall trying to come up with a “good” answer, looking at a poster for The Death Ray by Daniel Clowes, which is an excellent comic, if not one of the best comics ever!
I just want to make as much as possible if that makes sense? So when a drawing is almost finished I’m already thinking about the next one and just think, “Could be better, could be worse, on to the next!” Which is a bit ADD-ish perhaps? 

DONALD SILVERSTEIN

WORDS BY SARAH HERMAN

—

There’s a striking and resonating image of Jimi Hendrix, which is impossible not to recognize. The black and white photograph shows the guitar legend standing front-on, eyes focused down into the camera. With his hair big and dishevelled, haloed by a soft haze, his floral shirt unbuttoned, Hendrix’s expression is as much haunted Mona Lisa as it is celebrated musical icon. The portrait captures brilliance, bravado, and theatrics as well as the subject’s temperance and vulnerability. Most pointedly, fuelled with hindsight, the image encapsulates an era as well as the musician’s ephemeral life with startling grace. The year was 1967 and the artist holding the camera was Donald Silverstein.

Read the complete article here.

MIRANDA COSGROVE

WORDS BY SARAH HERMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN TYLER CLOSE
STYLING BY KEMAL & KARLA AT THE WALL GROUP
HAIR BY MICHAEL SPARKS AT SOLOARTISTS.COM & SHU UEMURA
MAKEUP BY KAYLEEN MCADAMS AT THE WALL GROUP FOR M·A·C COSMETICS 

—

Hollywood has been known to lead pretty young things astray. Marilyn’s troubles look almost nostalgic sharing the couch with today’s tabloids, eternally plagued with the forlorn faces of girls whose seemingly heaven-sent careers are largely overshadowed by addictions, disorders, and disaster to the point of cliché. For all we know, those palm-lined boulevards could be coated in smart, articulate, talented girls who make good choices for themselves and their futures and are protected by people who love them. We bet you’re thinking those kind of girls wouldn’t be interesting enough to appear in magazines? Think again. 

Miranda Cosgrove is smiley, sensible, and upbeat to a point that is very confusing to the cynic within most of us. But don’t be fooled by that infectious grin, bubble-gum giggle, and polite and polished demeanor for a second. Cosgrove is a Twittering tour de force with more than two million eager followers and her Nickelodeon show iCarly, produced by kids’ programming legend Dan Schneider (Kenan & Kel, The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh), has garnered unparalleled success for the network, won numerous awards, and is frequently the top-rated children’s show on cable TV – its triumph can be credited in large part to the brunette star. 

Read the full article here.

JUDY GREER

WORDS BY SARAH HERMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN TYLER CLOSE
STYLING BY KARLA WELCH
ASSISTED BY ERICA CLOUD
HAIR BY GREGORY RUSSELL
MAKEUP BY STEPHEN SOLLITTO
THANKS TO PETIT ERMITAGE HOTEL, LOS ANGELES

—-

There aren’t many actresses who can hilariously expose themselves to Jason Bateman on TV and turn up in an Oscar-nominated picture alongside George Clooney a few years later with seamless aplomb. Most recently appearing in Alexander Payne’s delightful awards darling The Descendants, Judy Greer’s a hot Hollywood commodity – a glamorous girl-next- door who plays funny ladies who feel real. It’s an effortless balance that’s built in to the LA-based actress’ performing instincts: “I think it’s written in the script,” she said, “and that’s why it comes easily to me… but I like to ground my characters. I really try to do that.” 

It’s not hard to see why casting directors would jump at the chance to place Greer in the role of that oh-so-funny best friend – affable, warm and hilarious in reality, she’s built her career on memorable supporting characters in The Wedding Planner, What Women Want, 13 Going on 30 and 27 Dresses, but the part that she is still most recognized for is serial-flasher and adulteress secretary Kitty Sanchez on Fox favorite Arrested Development. “I get stopped all the time by Arrested Development fans,” she said. “I was recently shooting my web series [Reluctantly Healthy] at a supermarket in Los Angeles, and Jason Bateman happened to walk in, so we talked for a while. After he left, a guy stopped me and he was so excited. He kept asking me, ‘Are you shooting Arrested Development?’ He was freaking out and I thought it was so funny. I told him it was just a coincidence, poor guy.”

Funny best friends are not Greer’s only forte. This year she can be seen starring in Jeff, Who Lives at Home as Ed Helms’ frustrated wife and in the Gerard Butler comedy Playing the Field holding her own alongside Catherine Zeta Jones, Jessica Biel and Uma Thurman. And then there’s her recurring stint on Two and a Half Men as Walden Schmidt’s [Ashton Kutcher] ex-wife. Maintaining a ‘willingly healthy’ balance between film and TV work – “ABC just green-lit my TV pilot, so I’ll be shooting that, which I’m so excited about,” – her experience in the industry has made her resilient, although not completely impenetrable.

“I worked with a very famous costume designer early in my career and she was kind of mean to me,” she recalled. “After my fitting with her, I cried because I’m a big cry baby. I worked with her a second time many years later and I really had to gear up for it. I thought, ‘I have more experience, she can’t hurt me again.’ And I walk into the fitting and she said, ‘Oh my God, it’s you! I never thought you would work again.’ I left and cried again. I guess that taught me to toughen up, I take things less personally at work now.”

That thickening skin also translates to her body of work and she remains proud of underrated projects like 2008 comedy series Miss Guided where she played a high school guidance counsellor still dealing with issues from her own nerdy teenage years. “The role was perfect for me, and the show itself was so smart and funny,” she said. “I feel like today it would have been a success… it was more of a timing thing.” She’s also realistic about shows getting cancelled, like 2011 four-hander sitcom Mad Love. “It’s frustrating not to be able to work with people who I have enjoyed working with, once a show gets cancelled,” she said of co-stars Jason Biggs, Sarah Chalke and Tyler Labine. “That was the harder pill to swallow – that I didn’t get to go to work with my friends every day anymore.”

The importance of friendship is something that resonates throughout Greer’s work and in her own life. Too modest to answer The Lab’s question about what kind of best friend Judy Greer makes, she passed the buck to her own BFF who told us, “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have Judy by my side. Not only is she hysterical and so much fun to be around, but she’s great at listening and giving advice, and would drop everything to be at your side if you needed her.” It’s no surprise the easy-going Greer is the success she is: no box office rom-com character or real-world woman could ask for more.

(Issue 05)

Enjoy more of this on thelabmagazine.com, coming summer 2012!