There was one that was a garish, acidic purple, with too many green bloodshot eyes rolling in every which direction. A foot to his right were two six-inch tall sheep, round and fleecy and as benign as their neighbor was creepy. Behind them was a series of five little figurines, each four inches tall, respectively representing the five different elements in a near-traditional Japanese style, save the fact the medium was a white vinyl plastic figurine.
Such were the small vinyl visitors to atomic POP in Hampden on Friday, March 7. That evening, the alternative toy/book/gadget/magazine store hosted the Vinylmore art show, the first to occur in the area. The event was created by Benn Ray, owner of Atomic Books and atomic POP, two shops catering to the eclectic, artistic and fun in taste, or, as Ray puts it, "Baltimore's first and best source for weird stuff other bookstores won't carry." The stores, which have been in operation since 1991 and have made a fan of John Waters ("a friend and regular customer," according to Ray, adding that Waters has his fanmail delivered to the store), is a hub of the characteristic funky, artistic folk who frequent Hampden.
This is the second art show atomic POP has hosted; however, it frequently hosts writers, musicians and other performers in conjunction with Atomic Books. The prompt, to "take a blank vinyl figure and translate your art using it," as Ray said, was chosen ad hoc by the store owner himself. He says he found his contributors in his own store, regulars who have enjoyed the creative atmosphere at the two Atomic stores. In particular, Ray said, "I specifically went after local artists who were friends or who I was a fan of. This involved photographers, sculptors, tattooists, graffiti artists, comic illustrators, graphic designers, interior painters, fine artists, black velvet painters, etc. But then, I also invited some toy customizers who were regulars at atomic POP to participate too." The result of such diversity of talent and medium, from body ink to interior design, was a unique, sundry show, tied together in its creative havoc by the medium which dictated the artists' only restraint: MUNNY. MUNNY is best described as a soft, solid-colored (either white, pink, black, blue or glow-in-the-dark) vinyl toy with moveable joints and a round head, simian mouth protrusion and half-moon ears, with short trunk legs and vaguely shaped hands lacking distinction between the four fingers. Really what MUNNY looks like is an alien anime claymation figure, frozen and waiting for action.
It (or "he," as the Web site calls him) is cute and bizarre at the same time, but what is most extraordinary about it is the fact that it is a canvas for nearly any form of artistic manipulation. "MUNNY is here so you can do amazing things and see how great you really are," chirps MUNNY's Web page, a branch of the American company Kidrobot. According to the site's suggestion, "You can draw and paint on MUNNY, use crayons, pencils, ketchup or anything else you can think of ... snuggle him, pierce him, drape him, cherish him. MUNNY is open to pretty much anything."
While none of the artists resorted to ketchup to express themselves, a huge array of interpretations came out of this one blank toy. Arranged in the back of the tiny one-room shop, before the back room where Ray himself served free drinks at the bar, tables displayed what must have been at least a hundred takes on that MUNNY could offer himself up to for the talented artist. Some were whimsical and colorful; others black and white; some cute, some creepy; MUNNY also became political, purely aesthetic, accessorized, mutilated, furry, anime-style, Americana-cartoon-style, caricature and on and on, perched on their own or in front of a backdrop on the clean white tables with cards bearing the name of the artist and the piece and the asking price (all pieces were on sale, most in the mid-to-high one-hundreds).
At 8:15 in the evening, the gallery space was relatively empty. However, by 8:30, as more spectators joined, the store became jam-packed, making it difficult to maneuver through the artists, students, families with small children and older people that had pushed into the impossibly small gallery space to look at the creatures the local talents had dreamed up. Everyone was engaged in conversation; a contributing artist carried his little daughter around to see the pieces, two artists discussed screen-printing techniques. It was chaos, yes, but a friendly chaos, one full of enthusiasm and appreciation for the project that fostered responses from attendees such as, "I like that, that's like a diorama from Godzilla or something."
Stephen John Phillips, one of the contributing artists, spoke emphatically about the fun of the task. "Benn asked me to see what I could do," he said, and so he set out on a week-long process to create his piece entitled "Dead Clown." It is as eerie as it sounds: a 2D clown's head photograph on a board stuck on the decapitated, frilly-collared neck of a MUNNY figurine, body painted to look like a polka-dotted clown suit with blue mitts. Phillips, who is a photography instructor at the Art Institute of Pennsylvania, a commercial photographer, and acclaimed graphic novelist, explained that he had tried to use a process called liquid photographic emulsion to transfer the photo onto MUNNY's actual head, but, "there must have been something on it," he said, shaking his head. "Because it just wouldn't stick, So I cut his head off and did this instead."
Another artist, Michael Bracco, was pointed out explicitly, "You have to go talk to those two guys there, they're really good." Indicated was a man in his late 20s with hipster glasses and a tweed blazer talking to another artist. Bracco, a graphic novelist whose first novel came out March 8, said that he was prompted to try the challenge by Ray as well. "I'm in the process of putting out my first graphic novel, so I was spending a lot of time in the store," he said, and so Ray approached him with the proposal. Bracco, who found part of the challenge to be venturing from his usual 2D media to paint and sharpie, submitted two figurines: Aquan, based off the character who will be published soon; and a piece entitled "No Swimming After Five." Aquan was four inches tall, a green, angrily pouting creature; "No Swimming" features a gruesome cartoon pig cheerfully smiling, seemingly unaware of the chunks of flesh Sharpied to look torn from his body to reveal his skeletal smile and frame. Both had been formed from the same blank MUNNY doll.
From the swarms of enthusiastic visitors to the enlightened art chatter, atomic POP was the perfect venue for the Vinylmore Art Show. While some found the creepier creations hard to stomach, others effused about how cool they were and quizzed the artists about how they had come up with their works, would they do it again, etc. The overwhelmingly positive response, not to mention the commercial perks for the artists having their pieces for sale and the store hosting the event, suggests that the Vinylmore show is something that could happen again in the future. And who knows? Maybe Ray will come up with something even crazier for the next round.
The Vinylmore Art Show is on display at Atomic POP, located at 3620 Falls Road in Hampden, until Monday, March 31.
