BUZ BLURR VS href="http://www.workhorsevisuals.com">LOGAN

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/>BUZBLURR: The first question is of a technical nature; how do
you do the different values separation on your incredibly detailed multilayered
stencil portraits and cityscapes?

Logan: my work is
the collective tweaking of photography, computer, and stencils. first, I
photograph what it is I want to work on. From there I scan it in and push and
pull the contrast so the image is lighter or darker. I save different files of
each tone. one for the midtones, one of the highlights, and one of the black,
etc. This way each layer has more or less detail.  once I have different tonal
values I begin printing each layer out in a grid from my laser printer on
8.5X11 paper.  I tape the pages together so they form larger pages.  For some of
my bigger pieces, such as this 13ft by 8ft piece I am working on now, I can have
135 pages taped together. After the printed pages are taped together, I begin
cutting the dark areas. After the stencil is made, I spray out each color on top
of each other. starting with the lightest color, and working my way up til the
black. it is the same approach as screenprinting, which I did for 8 years
before I started stencils.

buZ: Second question;
Aside from the intricate patterns as ground for your work, all of the work that
I am aware of is photographic. Is this true?

Logan:
for the most part it is true. At least for my stencil work. I do have a
body of commercial work (i.e., logos, layouts, graphics, etc) that I don’t use
photos for, but when I work on my stencil work, I use photos as a base. For me,
I see my work as being an alternative view of reality. Working from photos
allows me to focus on things that I notice, but other people usually glance
over. For example, I have a series of fire escapes pieces. most people wouldn’t
pay attention to every fire escape they pass by, but they have always caught my
attention. I have hundreds of pictures of fire escapes from every city I have
traveled to. seems silly when you think about it. When you have a show with
dozens of fire escape pieces, it changes the way people look at their
environment. They begin to notice the fire escapes around them. Because of the
whole fire escape series,  I have friends now that come to me and say “I saw
this
fire escape you would love”. I have quiet pride in the fact that art
alone changed the way someone looks at his or her environment. I think that if
my work was more interpretive, instead of photographic, people would think of it
as a comment on the environment, instead of a refocusing on what is actually
there. hopefully that makes sense.

buZ: 3rd
question; what photographers influenced you?

Logan:
to be honest, none have ever really influenced me. at least not my work. there
are plenty of photographers that I admire, like Joel peter witkin, jan sudek,
cynthia connolly, estevan oriol, sandy skogland, andy goldsworthy, max aguliera-
hellweg, but it is more of an unbiased appreciation than influence.

/>buZ: 4th question; is the attention to detail, particularly
in the repeated patterns backgrounds, a pleasure to be so focused, or an appeal
to the Wow factor in the Workhorse persona?

Logan: I
think it is more a matter of not being able to leave something alone. I have a
habit of filling up empty space. one look at my studio will show you that. I
just want to make a good piece of art, and I do what is necessary to do that-
even if it does take an inordinate amount of time to cut the stencils.  As a
result, I tend to fill every angle, every area. I kind of liken it to moving.
you know how some people move and they throw everything in the moving truck and
drive off? and then there are the people that take their time, and fit boxes
together like it is some real life game of Tetris? well I am like the Tetris
player. I try to fit al the visual elements together til the frame is
completely filled. once it is filled, and I cant add anything else, that is when
I am done. I enjoy the process, and I enjoy watching the piece take shape
slowly.

buZ: 5th question: If photography is not
your primary inspiration, what artists of other media and disciplines influenced
you?

Logan: there are so many that it is always
difficult to pick any. creative fields that require technical skill like stained
glass, and mosaics influence me. for me, I am always floored when creativity
shines through technically demanding fields such as making stain glass. it
exists on two levels. the first is the creative message. the second is the
skill. it isn’t the type of thing that some guy off the street can walk into and
start doing. you have to be dedicated to the craft. you have to ensure your
vision is backed by skill.  I feel more akin to art forms such as mosaics,
tattooing, architecture, stained glass, furniture making, etc. I try to bring
that same level of craftsman ship to my stencil work. some artists such as Mark
Ryden, Barry McGee, and Doze Green seem to give a nod to the craftsmanship of
producing work. There is this artist, Judith Schaechter in Philadelphia that
uses stained glass as her medium. her stuff is so nice. I could go on and
on.

LOGAN VS BUZ BLURR

src="http://www.woostercollective.com/images/1_Colossus-of-Roads.jpg">

/>Logan: Buz, your other persona is “Colossus of Roads”. Under
theColossus of Roads moniker, you have tagged thousands , maybe tens or hundreds
of thousands of rail cars over the past 30 years. This is a phenomenal number by
anybodies standards. What was it that kept you going over the past 30 years? How
did you remain so dedicated?

buZ: Despite all the
art jargon claims of conceptualism, or folk art tradition, and other
rationalizations,  basically the practice of making the same drawing over and
over again, year in and year out, for decades is indeed a severe case of
obsessive/compulsive disorder. This form of repetitive perseveration is a form
of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome, I recently discovered. I have lots of
other personality flaws that qualify for this diagnosis, which explains a lot
about my past behaviors, and has given me somewhat of an excuse, or relief, I
have a nameable malady. Even my use of language as obscure captions to accompany
my icon is an attempt to disguise or compensate for my borderline dyslexia, and
poor verbal communication skills, which is also a symptom.

/>Logan: Why did you choose Colossus of Roads as your
Moniker/tag?

buZ: When we as a family moved from
Smith Street to Main Street in Feb. 1979, I retired the previous character
drawing I had determined had reached its ultimate descriptive phrase,
“GypsySphinx”, with a year of drawings with that caption, and transitioned to a
new icon based somewhat on the original “Bozo Texino” , except as a rider-motif,
and back to the day to day different captions. I frequently hung up on what
seemed the ultimate identity of this character, such as The Grabiron Kid, Tramp
Royale, and others. In 1982 I used “Colossus of Roads”, which seemed to fit, so
I did better than a year of that caption, with the idea of transitioning to
another character, but I never came up with a suitable substitute.

/>Logan: Now that you have retired from the railroad, do you
plan to increase how much art you produce, or do you think it will remain
constant?

buZ: Definitely there has been a
tremendous increase in the amount of ‘art’ I churn out. Still doing the boxcar
icon dispatch, as well as spraying through stencils, and even gluing big collage
composites onto the railcars; plus doing more correspondence and mail art, since
I have retired. Currently enjoying embellishing large ink-jet phantasy collages
with watercolours,  paintstiks, charcoal, and crayolas.

/>Logan: You use stencils as your current medium. Why do you
use stencils, and are there other mediums that you incorporate in your work?
/>
Buz: My use of stencils grew out of my experiments with
Polaroid negatives. I started to cut silhouettes out of the portion you’re
suppose to discard, and realized the negative was also a mirror image, and when
you turned it over to the black back you had a direct positive again. So I
started to cut stencils directly into the negative, as a portrait technique and
then photocopy them for reduction to stamp size for my mail art work. The
stencil dispatches on the railcars have mostly been 8.5"x11” collages cut in the
graphic style, and sprayed through with white onto the darker railcars. I use
cheap paint, of late, and place a base of black, then when the black starts to
dry and still tacky I slap the stencil on and apply the white.  For 12 or 14
years I’ve made a porch haint to greet the trick-r-treaters Halloween, using
tightly rolled newspaper pages lashed together with tape and string to fashion
the sculptural collage effigy. This has become an obsession of late, also, long
before Halloween.

Logan: What is the ‘purpose’ of
your work? Is there any message, idea or visual that you try to impact the
viewer with?

buZ: John Cage said,” The highest
purpose is to have no purpose at all”. Certainly there is no didactic intent to
my work, other than hopefully startle some into what Duchamp called “infra-mince
moments” of uncertainty.