Interview Carli Ihde
When did you know you wanted to be an artist?
My mother has always been an art teacher, and that resulted in my dreams of wanting to be an artist. I won my first art contest at the age of 2 and it was just something I've always surrounded myself with.
What is you opinion on the cultural climate in the United States?
I have a hard time walking into many modern art museums. My heart longs for realism, classic, romantic and deeply involved and intricate pieces of artwork. I find that the artists getting the most exposure and popularity are the ones trying too hard to do something new instead of learning from the past and mastering the basic rules before deviating from them. I'd like to see more artist like Norman Rockwell, Ron Mueck, Jenny Saville and Chuck Close gaining more notoriety in the artistic community.
Who are your main influences?
My main influences are Frank Frazetta, Alphonse Mucha, Adam Hughes and the animators/character designs on films like The Prince of Egypt and Tekkonkinkreet.
What aspects of visual storytelling do you enjoy most?
I love comic books and story boards. I went to school for comic book illustration and had the honor to be taught by the legendary Joe Kubert. I love all the different aspects that go into creating a single frame of illustration in comics. Camera angle, lighting, flow, emotion, color, facing direction, panel shape, movement and story. I think that a single comic book frame could teach you more about story telling than many movies today.
Have you collaborated with writers on comics, or do you write your stories yourself?
I have been published in 2 comics and neither of them were stories that I wrote, but I am currently working on writing my own comic and I am so excited to see how it turns out. I hope to make it into an online comics when I find the time to put it all together.
