Interview: Spork Press

By Dakota Sexton

In a hot town some people call Tucson, a handful of dudes (and sometimes a few ladies) run an online and print publishing house known as Spork Press. Yes, the books they make are sometimes fiction, sometimes poetry, sometimes both. But they’ve also got this crazy mixtape they’ve given away as a chapbook. Their books don’t go out of print, and they’ve never become a nonprofit because they don’t want to come up with a mission statement. How about that for punk rock? They even grow really big, gnarly beards sometimes. But seriously. They really don’t have a mission statement. (So you probably shouldn’t quote this, at all.)

I talked to three of their editors about their taste in music, what it’s like to live (or not live) in Arizona, and even more relevantly: the high and low tones that make up running a small press where books are totally put together by hand. Read on for a sampling of wits from fiction editor Joel Smith; poetry editor and South-Korea-based foreign correspondent Jake Levine; and Drew Burk, one-half of the co-founding team that started it all way back in 2001.

Paper Darts: Each book made by Spork is pretty handmade. What was the process? Who learned how to sew and focused on the craft of the book?

Drew: I made a record deal, years and years ago in a band back in California. It fell through and everything went to hell, a gun was put to my head, so I left town and moved to Tucson, thinking I’d pop into another band. But it didn’t happen because everyone else seemed to also be a refugee from some horrible experience in their last band. Nobody trusted anybody.

So I was writing a bunch. Then I wrote a couple novels and they were awful. I thought I should get them out there somewhere. But I got really offended by the idea that somebody else would get to decide the fate of the things that I had done. So I put them together, with nails and hanger-wire, and made some really ugly books.

And then I thought I could probably do that better. I gradually started learning, pre-internet. I kept refining the process. When we started production, we asked, how can we do many of these quickly and sell them at an affordable price? If you do a fully hand-bound book, you really can’t afford to sell that for ten bucks.

PD: And you released that cassette mixtape earlier this year as a chapbook.

Drew: The idea was sort of to show the sound of the studio. If you were here now with us, this is what it would sound like. Only, you know—none of the drinking and swearing. You can imply that.

Joel: People really like that. Cassette tapes have had a real resurgence lately; there’s something cool about it. And the first time you play a cassette, it’s actually better quality than any digital stuff.

PD: How else does music show up in your projects and events?

Joel: Towards the front of each of our books, it will say what music we were listening to, what kind of beer we were drinking. We also did a book release party at this club, Congress. There was live music outside, and Colin [Winnette] was reading parts of Animal Collection—and we were reading other pieces to warm them up—all set to music that Andrew Shuta, our design guy, was DJing.

There’s definitely a thrum of music under everything we do.

PD: Do you think there’s anything else unspoken that really separates Spork?

Joel: We’re more hands-on with our editing. We’ll spend hours going back and forth with our writers. I think a lot of people will accept something as-is, or they’ll just reject it because the premise of messing with it is onerous.

Jake: We’re not supported by anybody. We’re super DIY. We’re not a nonprofit. We have no hierarchy. But the biggest difference is that there is chicken shit on everything.

Drew has chickens. Where we make the books is next to his chicken coop, so it always smells like chicken shit. And nothing is safe at all. When you use the sander and you sand cardboard, you’re supposed to wear safety goggles and a mask. Drew does neither. So the shit just goes straight into his face.

I cut off two parts of my fingers cutting down books. Maybe more people are safety-oriented, but we are not. Maybe that’s what separates us. We also have no consensus in terms of ideology. We have completely different interests and opinions: Drew loves Batman. I think Batman is the scourge of the earth.

PD: You also have a predominantly all-male staff. We imagine it to be frat-house-y and full of smells.

Joel: It’s too hot and dry. Even if you did smell, I think it evaporates very quickly out here in Baja Arizona. There’s no weird boys club. We do grow some pretty gnarly beards, though. Although not this time of year. It’s really frickin’ hot.

Drew: Our all-guy thing has never been by design. It just keeps happening that way. Girls we want to work with say things like “I want to move to New York.” They tend to have other things they want to do.

PD: What makes you like working in Tucson?

Drew: I met a guy years ago. He’s dead now, but he was in a band playing in Pomona. I saw him and I said, wow you guys are super cool, where are you from? And he said, Tucson.

So I asked, what’s going on in Tucson? And he said, nothing.

When it became time to get the hell out, I thought, that’s the place I want to go. I want to go and not be constantly staring at people doing similar things as me. I want to go and not compete with anybody or anybody’s ideas or objects and just figure out what the hell I’m doing. And do it well.

The thing that I like most is that it is a good place to work. You are ignored and under-appreciated. You can just work. And then you take the work somewhere else where people can appreciate it.

Jake: Tucson is a super great place to work. It’s really fucking cheap. Have you been there?

PD: No. I’m totally from the Midwest, and I pretty much just spent the last three years on the east coast.

Jake: We grew up dreaming of trees. And water is mysterious. Tucson is a super old school, run-down, economically-fucked-up place. It’s one of the cheapest places in America to drink. You can get one-dollar draft beer.

I feel like Tucson is really American.

PD: Does the plague still exist out there? We’ve been telling people that.

Joel: The plague? As in the bubonic plague? I don’t know about that. We do have Africanized killer bees, but that’s kind of a racist thing to call an insect. It’s not right.

We also have a lot of weird stuff that will bite you.

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Fiction: Lindsay Hunter

 We are at, like, a dance. We are like wearing these new, like, tops. We put lipstick all around our mouths. We feel jealous of each other’s mouths but, like, that isn’t cool, so we keep it to ourselves. We don’t want to dance with anything chubby because it’s like dancing with our stepdads, or dancing with, like, some like weird baby grizzly boy. We are like, yuck. We want to dance with, like, anything that plays football, or, like, golfs. Anything that, like, might play the, like, savior in a movie or like a TV show. Or like the killer. We wouldn’t, like, mind being, like, bladed. Some of us don’t have titties, but like some of us do and it is hard to be, like, happy about it. The other day we, like, felt each other’s chests in the locker room. Like some of us got called ant bite and, like, some of us got called pudding piles. Some of us agreed that, like, pudding piles are just fat, just floppy mounds of, like, gross fat and it’s like just do some push-ups. But then later we all were, like, thinking how it’d be okay to have some fat because then, like, your  top would look better, and like maybe the quarterback would, like, ask you to get in his car. Some of us felt more than, like, each other’s chests in the locker room but, like, whatever, it’s the locker room. Some of us get all, like, burned up in the locker room. We like, like, watching. Like, thinking about how being in some guy’s car could happen at any time and, like, a lot of the time it happens in the locker room. Some of us have, like, been in that car. Some of us like have, like, bite marks and we love how they’re like rainbows, like, purple green yellow gone. Some of us bite ourselves because, like, whatever. At this dance we pretend there are, like, arrows pointing out each, like, ant bite or pudding pile right at, like, the savory boys. This, like, helps with our posture and like also it’s like, You, come. We’re, like, always imagining what, like, the best night would be, and it’s like someone took a poker and stirred up our, like, embers and like whoosh, we’re all of us like our own flame. It’s like, You, come, and like, bring that poker. We can, like, taste it. Some of us are like thinking bratwurst, like how our stepdads cook sometimes, all cooked and, like, firm and ready to, like, be eaten. And, like, the juices. Some of us know better because, like, we’ve been in that car. Like there’s no, like, platter, there’s no, like, small bites. There’s no, like, stopping when you get full. We’re, like, at this dance and some of us keep going to the bathroom to, like, sip out of this bottle of, like, iced tea but, like, it’s only half iced tea and, like, the other half is rum. We, like, throw our heads back to get it down. Our throats are, like, jagged and it’s like, who needs a poker? We, like, take our shoes off and, like, slouch in the bathroom and it’s, like, what a relief and, like, we all see each other like the way we are in the locker room and it’s like we’re just girls and, like, we hate each other for our hair and legs and titties and mouths and, like, even, like, wrists, but, like, we would never say that to each other because, like, that’s not how you, like, treat a friend. And, like, we’ll be friends forever so, like, we, like, hate each other until our hate, like, turns into, like, love. Some of us have dreams that, like, we’re carrying the others of us on, like, our shoulders because, like, the others of us are, like, dead, and, like, foom we drop the bodies, like, into this big fire and, like, there goes the hair there goes the eyelashes there goes the, like, perfect Disney princess wrists but, like, I’m sure the others of us have, like, the same dream because, like, they want to watch, like, our ankles and tans and, like, our thighs burn until we’re just, like, meat, so it’s, like, we get each other. We put our shoes back on and, like, point the arrows out again and, like, we’re back in the gym, waiting and, like, we get pulled onto the dance floor and we, like, put our hands on our boys’ necks and, like, some of us swirl our nails in our boys’ hair and, like, some of us are rewarded with, like, little denim or khaki animals, like, little, like, sea monkeys we made grow with, like, barely any work on our part. We, like, pretend we don’t, like, know our, like, hips are swiveling or, like, some of us are short so, like, we have to, like, really work our abs, and, like, our boys hold us tight and we smell their, like, deodorant and cologne and, like, sweat and, like, their essence under it all, which is like garlic and like dirt. And, like, our boys probably think they are doing it to us too, like we’re, like, buckling and folding and, like, melting, but, like, that is like pretending that, like, the stars in the sky are just the pearl buttons on our tops and skirts and just, like, unfasten and zoom the, like, heat of the universe of our, like, necks and titties and, like, the parts we spritz and oil the most is our boys’ to, like, have. Like we’re, like, theirs. 

But, like, it’s us, we lie on our backs to watch the sky pearl to star, we are skin to bite we are hair to flick we are swish we have the power, it’s us, we say what we want we say Come and we say Here and we say Burn and we say Like.

All rights reserved to Lindsay Hunter.

Illustrations by Allegra Lockstadt.

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Reframed: Graphics and GIFS

A reaction gif is worth a minimum of 1,500 words, but art gifs are worth even more. Maybe like 2,750. Gifs have been around since 1987, but only in recent years have they begun to make the transition from GeoCities-style annoyance to art form. The following artists will be featured in the upcoming gif exhibition in the Paper Darts Pop-Up at SooLOCAL (a division of SooVAC) from June 14 through June 26.

Sophie Alda

An illustrator/painter/prop maker based in London who won’t reject a handmade aesthetic.

Mr. Div

A motion graphics designer and aspiring game developer with a grainy finish.

Tommi Gweilo

An illustrator/animator/musician working from Brooklyn with folkloric and cyberpunk flare.

MiRon

A psychology grad living in Kiev, Ukraine, who recently flipped the switch from black and white to color.

Charles Huettner

A Pennsylvania-based artist and animator who brings cute characters to strange life.

Skip Hursh

A Brooklyn-based artist/designer who’s one part quality Midwestern stock and two parts playful abstraction.

Julian Glander

An artist/designer from Brooklyn who knows the value of not taking oneself too seriously.

James Jirat Patradoon

An Australian artist with a penchant for black metal and pro wrestling.

Oamul

A Chinese animator/illustrator with a darling take on life.

Mimi Leung

A UK-schooled/Australia-based artist whose mission is to impart ”delirious joy.”

Art: Jennifer Davis

Now through July 20, Jennifer Davis’ paintings will sit at the heart of our storefront for storytellers, but you can also find them here. Once you, dear writer, have fallen in love with the world of Davis’ paintings, we invite you to create 500 words inspired by her work. Submissions can be made through the Paper Darts Pop-Up website. One story will be selected for publication by Paper Darts. 

 

 

Jennifer Davis is a Minneapolis artist to the core. Born and raised in Minnesota, she received her BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Minnesota in 1998. After being laid off from her job in 2003, Davis began making art full-time and hasn't looked back since. She has established herself as one of the most unique, prolific, and recognizable artists in the Twin Cities, exhibiting work at the MIA, SooVac, and other respected venues across the nation. CityPages, Star Tribune, Minnesota Monthly, the Boston Herald, and Los Angeles Metro Magazine are among the many publications that have sung her praises. Aside from being incredibly talented, Davis is also quite possibly one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. Visit her website, and support local art by snagging a painting or two at the Paper Darts Pop-Up storefront at SooLOCAL (a division of SooVAC).

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Featured Artist: Lea Devon Sorrentino

 

An argument concerning what constitutes Fine Art, especially in the case of non-manufactured pottery, is that the art is found in the process and the intention, and not in the object that is left behind. Through a sculptural installation, Ceramics: Without Ceramics intends to generate a conversation about the significance of the “object.” Is art found in the process and idea or is the physical object necessary? If pottery has no monetary value and exists without functionality can the piece be accepted as Art? Read more about this installation.

CLICK THROUGH TO VIEW WORK FROM THE EXHIBITION: 

 

All rights reserved to Lea Devon Sorrentino.

Ceramics by Johnne Law McMahan.

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