Dan Rissom is an independent illustrator based in Austin, Texas. This year, he attended South by Southwest’s (SXSW) Flatstock event to showcase and sell his art. Flatstock is SXSW’s free art exhibition that showcases some of the most influential poster artists around the globe.
LASA Liberator:
What’s your name? Where are you from?
Grissom:
My name is Dan Grissom. I’m originally from Louisiana, kind of rural, middle of nowhere, Louisiana, but I’ve been in Austin since 2006.
LASA Liberator:
Why did you come to Austin?
Grissom:
I came here after I finished grad school. I didn’t have a plan in mind, but I was playing music, and I had some friends who lived here. They had a room open in their house.
LASA Liberator:
How long have you been doing illustrations?
Grissom:
I’ve been doing art in some form my whole life. I started as a painter. I did some letterpress printing and block printing. Then I got into screen printing and doing my illustration, and maybe like 15 years ago, started doing more of that. But before then, I worked more as a designer, a graphic designer, and a painter.
LASA Liberator:
How do you think Austin has affected your art style?
Grissom:
I think that Austin has a lot of people who value local [art]. That’s important. I don’t know if it’s affecting my style, except for the fact that just different print shops and artists that I’ve become friends with in Austin. I think Austin is a very nurturing place for artists, and we all know each other and comment on each other’s posts, even the people that we’re in competition with. We’re all supportive of each other, as well.
LASA Liberator:
Would you say the art community in Austin is a great place to be?
Grissom:
Yeah. It’s not as big as [others]. Some cities have much bigger art scenes, but maybe because it’s a little bit smaller. It’s a little bit tighter. You pretty quickly get to know a lot of the other artists and the developer community well.
LASA Liberator:
You said you do screen printing. What kind?
Grissom:
All the concert posters and all the colorful stuff you see are screen printed. Block printing is more like you’re making a big stamp. Essentially, you’re like carving a surface, putting ink on it, and stamping it. Screen printing is more like a stencil, so you have a screen that you sort of use in your design process. You create stencils for each color. Color has to be printed one color at a time, so you’re custom-mixing the ink. You’re printing the color, letting that dry, and then for the next color, let that dry, and so on. These prints vary from three or four colors up to seven or eight colors, and then you can also work with the transparency of the colors, so you can print like a light blue. I printed out of my garage on completely homemade equipment for years, and then, about a year and a half ago, I moved into a warehouse space that still mostly made equipment, but just more space for that equipment.
LASA Liberator:
Do you have a preference for a block versus a screen?
Grissom:
Yeah, it depends on what I’m trying to do. Screen printing works out better for doing large runs than block printing. Especially since I don’t have the right press necessary to do block printing. It’ll take me all day to print one, whereas by screen printing I can set everything up and then print like hundreds. So, especially for doing concert posters, where if I’m working with a bigger band, they might want hundreds, it works better.
LASA Liberator:
How has your time been at SXSW?
Grissom:
It’s been great. I haven’t been to any events other than Flatstock this year in years past. I’ve been able to get a badge by knowing someone and going to movies. Austin’s nice. When I first moved here, I used to go see tons of concerts. I would like to bike downtown. ‘I’m going to go see this man at this venue, and this band.’ It’s fun. I think South by Southwest can be a little bit overwhelming, but it can be fun if you embrace it and embrace the chaos a little bit.
