Award winning NY-based artist Jason Freeny (b. 1970) has a clear background (or should we say grounding) in industrial design. He is the owner of Moist Production and has an interesting background working for some powerhouse media organizations. We are excited to sit down and chat with him a bit before his signing/appearence at New York Comic Con tomorrow (10/10, noon) at Tenacious Toys' Booth #208.
Q: Welcome to Go Figure News - what's going on in your world today?
A: Trying to catch up on all my unanswered emails :D
Q: I understand you went to art school, what influenced you to start designing toys?
A: In school I studied industrial design, toy design would fall into that category although I did not take any toy design classes. Sometime around the early 2000's I took a position as a "toy inventor", A position that required me to dream up new toy features that would be pitched to toy companies. While I thought I had some pretty fantastic ideas, none of my concepts made the cut in a very competitive field. I was let go after a year but the bug had already sunk into my veins...
Q: As an artist, who is your audience?
A: Anyone who will listen. I have found that artists don't choose their audience, their audience chooses them. My fan-base is extremely eclectic, from veterinarians to neurosurgeons to art students to Japanese schoolgirls to goth chicks and tattoo artists.
Q: Let's talk about dissection. It's been a fascination of many painters and sculptors for centuries, back to Leonardo. Years ago a friend of mine, Michael Paulus, turned me to more contemporary play with the inner anatomical workings of otherwise only two-dimensional cartoon characters, and of course we have Damien Hirst. Your take is wry and direct, can you talk about the evolution you have made looking below the surface of beloved pop culture and fun food like gingerbread men, gummy bears and even Mr. Potatohead and Mario?
A: Michael was a trendsetter :) While I have always loved anatomy, it is its complex visual and its juxtaposition to the plastic surfaces of a child's toy that excites me. It was my curiosity of what the grotesque skeletal systems hid inside these toys looked like that started me down this path.
Q: You are working on a balloon dog for your next big release - is this a poke at the blue chip art world?
A: The Balloon Animal/Dog was actually my very first dissection almost 10 years ago in an illustration I created named "Pneumatic Anatomica". its just taken that long to get the production up and running :D There is no deep meaning, rib jabbing or hidden purpose other than I like to design groovy things. I make things that I would want and hope others like them too.
Q: You have shown in art galleries like your contemporaries KAWS and others. I always wonder how seriously people take toys as art. Or are the things you make, once placed in the boundaries of a museum's white walls suddenly object d'art? What has been your most unusual experience with that, or general reaction?
A: The art market is a beast unto itself. To me it is more of a sideshow to what I am doing which is to make a living off of something I love to do. The art world has changed a lot since I set out to be an "artist" almost 30 years ago. when I started one had to trudge around from gallery to gallery begging gallery owners to look at your slides and be rejected over and over again. Once the internet took off I abandoned that whole process because I didn't need them anymore to get my work out for people to see. it was very liberating to me and I'm assuming to artists all over the world. The internet did to art galleries what digital music did to the music industry, it moved a huge amount of power to the artists themselves. The one thing that hasn't changed with art galleries is their influence on establishing artists and their "name" in the scene and the value of their work. Where you have shown is still very important to collectors. Gallery space is expensive and galleries only show work they can make money off of, therefore if your work shows, it has value.
Q: What was it like collaborating with Luke Chueh and also with Suckadelic?
A: Luke was very pleasant to work with. The design was pretty much his vision and it was obvious very quickly to me that it was a perfect marriage of styles. Suckadelic was much more a methodical process. I dont believe I ever actually spoke to him through the whole project.
Q: Does scale matter or play into your vision? What was the largest figure you have made, and perhaps the smallest for comparison?
A: Absolutely. I would love to make everything huge :D But cost, space, time as well as wether anyone could afford the final piece, all play into the final size. Spending months of time and emptying your bank account to sculpt a colossal piece is suicidal if in the end no one wants it. Creating "art" is a gamble. Smart designers work with the best odds they can get. If one wants to create art for a living they must take capitalism into consideration in the mix. The largest dissection I sculpted was a 24" Kewpie, the smallest a 2.5" toy.
Q: You've worked in the corporate world, and now run your own Moist Production. What are the significant differences in this transition and your overall lifestyle?
A: You trade working as a cog and a small sense of security, for an even smaller sense of security working as fully functioning motor.
Q: LOL, right on!!!!! I like process. When you sculpt do you use molds or other premade DIY toy parts? What basic materials are you using? With premade and commercially available figures, is this appropriation anymore, or something quite different in your practice?
A: I must use store purchased toys to sculpt into when I do my character dissections. Copyright laws prevent me from sculpting the character itself without the permission of the license owner. with my own designs I sculpt the entire piece. I work primarily in two part epoxy. I dont use any molds and hand that process over to those who are much better at it than I when that process comes up for a production.
Q: As a dad, how do your kid/s respond to what you make?
A: They love it. They get all my unused toys and swag :)
Q: Can you share some upcoming events or figures to watch for?
A: Im working with Singapore based MightyJaxx on a line of dissected DC and Warner Bros. characters. This partnership is fantastic as they do incredible work and are easy to collaborate with. I have a Balloon animal in the works with Hong Kong based Famemaster Toys to follow up the Gummi Bear we did. We also have some secret things I cannot yet mention. KidRobot and I are doing some secret things as well that will be revealed when they are ready to let the cat out of the bag :) I have a collaboration with Nickelodeon working with Mondo toys on a gorgeous Spongebob dissection that is currently on hold but Im hoping to pick it up again soon.
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