Today, we are chatting with versatile illustrator Myke Amend, whose work has been classified as steampunk, pulp and gothic, among other things. His latest series of paintings, “Airships and Tentacles”, combines steampunk with Lovecraft:

IFP: What are some sources of inspiration for your work?

MA: It mostly depends on the work. I used to draw on emotion almost completely, but inside is rather a vast and dark place – and though my primary goal was to convey an insightful feeling or thought, I felt I such too dangerously close to being classed as a horror artist. There are many in this genre, and few of them all that prosperous. Most everyone loves horror art, but it takes a special sort of someone to want it on their wall – and that sort of someone typically wants a $3 poster, or likes to send anonymous photos of your works re-made with real people…who you hope are only faking. This past year or two, I have been mostly working on creating worlds out of things that fascinate me, while at the same time experimenting with different techniques and media, while slipping in horror elements which are more veiled or subdued – while still all-encompassing. My end goal is to put the viewer into a place they would love to see in person, while at the same time being thankful for viewing it through the (apparent) safety of a picture frame.

IFP: What are some recurring elements in your art?

MA: I like to slip tentacles in there, as well as ghostly visages hidden within clouds, stone, waves, and leaves. Oftentimes, I like an image to be there at the edge of consciousness, something which appears only when squinting, and only just apparent enough to make one wonder if it was a purposeful thing – or a manifestation of their own subconscious, much like a fine-art rorschach test. I also like to mess with angles and lighting – skewing the direction of shadows and lighting in nonsensical ways, making expressions hollow yet soulful, combining unease with tranquility, or defying the rules of good composition in ways which create an unexplained sense of uneasiness or dread.

IFP: What’s your background? Did you go to art school or are you self-trained?

MA: I went to school, but not so much for art. In high school, I drew in English class, wrote prose and essays in art class, scrawled out computer programs in chemistry, and pondered statistics and mathematical possibilities from the bleachers in gym. My college experience was somewhat similar, in that I took a mishmash of things I wanted to learn, but mostly gravitated towards art history…which of course meant I was going to be a professional net tech and web-applications programmer. I am self-trained in everything, and since it drives me crazy to have anything I do not know, I spend a lot of time researching answers to every question posed by any of the thousand-some people I read and study online – when I should be working. Fortunately, my tendency to over-study is balanced by my urges to dive right into a project and figure it out as I go.

IFP: How and why did you start painting steampunk and fantastic creatures, machines and landscapes?

MA: Fascination. I found an offshoot of familiar subcultures which revolved almost primarily around all those things I love about the human spirit: inventiveness and a sense of adventure. As a kid, I always wanted to be Indiana Jones, Captain Nemo, Jacques Cousteau, David Livingstone, Hannibal Lecter, or some other traveling scientist/explorer type. I also liked tinkering with and rebuilding things. There is a sense of wonder and adventure found in the works of Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and even pulp authors Mary Shelley, and H.P. Lovecraft – a sense which has long-seemed absent from people, and even writers of today. Our explorers of the day do so with computations and probes and, save for the distant and seemingly-lifeless reaches of space, we have few frontiers outside of history. Steampunk, strange fiction, and fantasy bring an opportunity to live in a world of wonder – or at least, while my brush is wet.

IFP: Tell us about the “Airships and Tentacles” series. What’s that all about?

MA: Life was happiest for me when there were monsters and aliens in the dark forest, undiscovered ruins in distant jungles, and horrible or wondrous supernatural things waiting just beyond the veil – I grew up on National Geographic, Scientific American, Omni, Discover – but also grew up on pulp horror comics and late-night strange-tales shows – when I was not absorbed in books and experimentation pertaining to metaphysics and alternative religion. Horror books and horror movies evoke a sense of wonder in me – and a part of me longs for a life of dangerous foes, and even more hazardous terrain. I see people in horrid and scary situations, or the world collapsing into unimaginable chaos, and often think to myself with envy how exciting that would be. On the other side of fascination is exploration and innovation – a world where so many things are just waiting to be invented and technology can develop in different ways. In combining those two is a world where monsters wait to be discovered with binoculars or in person, in the furthest reaches of the Earth, by brave adventurers via unsound and untested modes of transportation.

IFP: So, why the interest in Lovecraft?

MA: Admittedly, not as much for his writing as for his imagination. Lovecraft created strange worlds and alternate realities, in which a perfect mixture of strange science, strange creatures, and strange deities mixed with the very best and the very worst of humankind. I will always love his stories, and all the vocabulary lessons therein, for his amazing, world-building ability. In his worlds, metaphysics and the occult were so real that they, rather than being dispelled and disproved through science and logic, they could be explained, explored, and even plundered by scientific means. In this, I feel that his works, whether acknowledged or not, are the driving force behind most any good science fiction horror story – as they are a building block for all of of the best RPGS, movies, and anime I will likely never get a chance to enjoy.

IFP: What artistic accomplishment are you most proud of in your life?

MA: None – This is perhaps because all of the artistic opportunities I dreamt of as a child were gone by the time I was an adult. There will likely never be another Michael Whelan, Michael Parkes, Frank Frazetta, Derek Riggs, Gerald Brom, or Dave McKean. As many people try, there will never be another Mark Ryden, either. In that right, none of those will likely ever see the days that Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol enjoyed – perhaps because of Andy Warhol – and no artist will ever be as historic a figure as Michelangelo or Da Vinci. Artists these days are more of a commodity, if they are lucky, and otherwise, an all-too-common novelty. The gainfully-employed are typically general labour for publishing houses and video-game makers, if not illustrators of technical manuals and consumer product labeling. There are those of us on the fringe who live as fine artists, but sadly, success there is often more a matter of promotion and other such whoring, dominated by cliques and those who have put themselves in charge of those cliques, in an “elbows-out at the dinner table” sort of world. I really haven’t the stomach to compete there, nor do I enjoy writing about myself in third person for press releases and press packs. I really despise hype in general. I enjoy that a good amount of people enjoy my work, that I sell prints, and that I have had some moderate amount of magazine exposure. I always hope for more, but success as an artist however, to me, is not worth the price I’d pay in time and dignity; If I wanted creative success and notoriety, I would write or direct. If I wanted to make money, I could do a thousand times as much work as I do if I worked digitally – probably living off of illustration jobs and licensing. My personal challenge to myself however, what I weigh my own value by, has always been to create visually with traditional media as best I can. As a result, my greatest artistic success will likely always be the next painting.

IFP: Who is your favourite artist?

IFP:  What are you working on right now?

MA: Right now, I am working on finishing up the latest from the “Airships and Tentacles” series and getting onto something else for a little while. It isn’t that I am tired of doing it per se, but I don’t want to become “the airship guy” if I can help it. I’ve committed myself to making enough of them for a book, and will explore other media to do so, new approaches, and other ways to keep it interesting to me. My mind is currently filled with other projects I want to work on, and I feel I should get to them while they are dying to get out. Currently on slate is a long-awaited “Airships and Tentacles” commission for Brian Gillespie – mostly long-awaited by Brian and myself.

IFP: What is your dream project?

MA: All those artistic projects I cannot afford to do, whether for time or resources involved: Huge paintings that would take me years to complete, monstrous brass kinetic sculptures capable of opening up rifts to darker worlds/eating the occasional museum attendant, and of course, writing. One of those things I plan to do when I have time to settle down…I have hundreds and hundreds of pages of  a novel which needs to be revised from top to bottom every time I pick it back up. I also have a children’s book written and storyboarded – everyone who has read it insists it be done. Funding would be nice – but what I really need is for someone to give me a relatively-workless caretaking job where I can write from beginning to end without having to worry about making ends meet – preferably, some remote mountain resort or something similar. Beth could come along of course – as long as she leaves the baseball bat at home this time.

IFP: What is your favourite Lovecraft/Mythos story?

MA: “Dagon’s Bell” by Brian Lumley, or “A Study in Emerald” by Neil Gaiman would certainly be up there. My favourite written by Lovecraft would have to be “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Shadow over Innsmouth” and “The Dunwich Horror”, in that order. I often hate that my favourite stories from my favourite worldbuilder are not written by that person, but I prefer descriptive writing over things which are indescribable and unimaginable.

IFP: If you could be a Lovecraft character or creature, who would you be and why?

MA: Henry Armitage. Being the chief librarian at Miskatonic University would certainly have its benefits – not only access to the most fantastic resources, but the opportunities to travel, explore, and even combat ancient supernatural or preternatural forces. As many places as I have submitted a resume to, I have never known a workplace to offer these things in the job description – else I would be very happily employed.

Bio: I am an illustrator and painter of things that typically fall under the categories of “strange fiction”, “horror”, “gothic”, “speculative fiction”, “steampunk”, “clockpunk”, “pulp”, or “science fiction”, and I tend to do so with a unique and surreal and fantasy art spin.

My media of choice tends to be acrylics, for their faster drying times and my ability to layer on microscopically-thin layers and lines with ease, though I do love oils, also – though my oil pieces tend to show up much less often, as they take longer to create.

I also do woodcarving, carpentry, metalwork, sculpture in metal and in clay, and pretty much everything hands-on. If it involves blood, sweat, dedication, and some degree of suffering, it appeals to me greatly. I love engineering and inventing, I love fixing and rebuilding things, and I love getting my hands dirty and my thumbs smashed.

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