Knoxville's Weekly Voice • January 17, 2008 • Volume 18
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Knoxville’s Weekly Voice • January 17, 2008 • Volume 18 #03 By Coury Turczyn YEE-HAW Industries help resurrect the long-lost artworks of Jim Flora, the original pop-surrealist Detail from “Railroad Town,” 1951, a print made at Yee-Haw Industries of a Jim Flora woodcut once thought to be lost 1951, a print made at Yee-Haw Town,” “Railroad Detail from 18 Metro Pulse January 17, 2008 PAINSTAKING DETAIL: Yee-Haw’s Bryan Baker prepares two Jim Flora woodcuts for printing. “They all had a strange problem I couldn’t even wrap my head around at first.” s far as blocks of wood go, this printmaker charged with creating probably hasn’t been printed in half rwin Chusid describes himself as one is extraordinary. Perhaps a new edition from the woodcut. “In a century. Disaster could be just one a “landmark preservationist,” a A a lifetime ago it had humble all the other studios I’ve worked in, print away. I trade he fell into by virtue of his beginnings as, say, a leftover piece of I’ve never seen another block carved “As soon as I saw it, I was floored, fascination with discarded pieces of scrap from a long-forgotten carpentry this way. The depth is really strange, but I was also really scared—what pop culture—and his ability to re- project; it probably should’ve ended and the angles at happens if some- package them for modern audiences. up in somebody’s fireplace. But now which he would thing goes wrong He’s the fellow who resuscitated the it is handled with the care and rever- hold his knife are while we’re career of space-age pop bandleader ence normally reserved for ancient really unique. It’s printing it, and Esquivel in the ’90s with a compila- artifacts of lost civilizations. And so pristine and so the block cracks?” tion CD. He also wrote the book on perhaps it is just that. accurate, it’s on Baker recalls. “I “outsider music,” celebrating the At first glance, it doesn’t look like a mad-scientist was more careful efforts of untraditional musicians— much: a wood board about the size of level.” than I’ve ever those without formal training, or an old movie-theater window card. Even Yee-Haw been before with (some would say) musical talent. The worn plank has the dark patina co-owner Kevin any block in the Chusid’s offbeat discoveries have of age, as if it had been baking in Bradley, whose proofing process. won fans, and even sales, as with The someone’s attic for a long, long time. own woodcuts We started with Langley Schools Music Project, a col- One side is perfectly unremarkable. have defined the roller really lection of rock songs by a 60-member But once gingerly turned over, the well-known high and we just chorus of school children originally its other side spills out an entire letterpress shop’s [eased] it down recorded in 1976. world of bizarre imagery, a riot of esthetic, admits very slowly until But his current obsession/project— hieroglyphs carved by an alien hand: to having one it started getting cataloging and popularizing the humanoids with spidery bodies amid thought upon a good impres- works of Jim Flora—is his biggest a landscape of rickety buildings seeing the Jim sion.” yet. He stumbled upon Flora’s art and brutal machinery. What rituals Flora block for The result of years ago in the same places that are they enacting, what stories are the first time: Baker’s pains- so many current artists originally they trying to tell? To find out, the “F-word!” taking work is discovered it: thrift stores. In the board must be coated in ink, pressed “There’s just “Railroad Town,” 1940s and ’50s, Flora drew utterly bi- against a clean sheet of paper, and not a bad cut on a limited-edition zarre and magnetic album covers for printed. the whole damn SELF-PORTRAIT: Jim Flora as he saw himself relief print of Columbia and RCA Victor, mostly for It sounds like a simple procedure, block, and that’s pretty amazing,” 50 copies, with proofs priced up to jazz artists like Gene Krupa, Louis but the printing experts here on the says Bradley. “I don’t even know $2,500. But more importantly, it is Armstrong, Duke Ellington. Childlike second floor of Yee-Haw Industries in what kinds of tools he was using. another reclamation of what was yet sinister, chaotic yet balanced, downtown Knoxville are not a little Not even with an X-Acto knife can thought to be lost original art by playful yet weird, Flora’s illustra- awed. The block of wood is unlike any you make these cuts in wood without Jim Flora. Striking in its complexity, tions were unique; they inspired they’ve worked with before, created some history of the edges overlap- detail, and pure juju, “Railroad Town” many imitators at the time, though in Mexico over 50 years ago by the ping, but he has the cleanest edge on adds to the growing reputation of a few could match his technique. late artist Jim Flora and rediscov- these little hairlines, straight lines, humble man who had no idea that Inevitably, this ephemeral art landed ered just a few months previously. Its and curves that you’ll ever see. It’s he’d someday be cited as a primary in used-record bins to be discovered carvings are mysterious not only for very fascinating to try to figure out influence by almost every major by those drawn to its peculiar vibra- the strange beings they portray, but how he was doing it.” artist in a movement that fuses tions. also in their technique. In fact, this woodcut is an ir- pop-culture imagery and fine art: “I was collecting Flora covers “His line quality, the manner in replaceable piece of art history by a lowbrow. The story of how it landed before I ever realized there was such which he carved it, is really, really commercial illustrator and painter in Knoxville is just as unexpected as an artist as Jim Flora,” says Chusid stunning. I can’t even explain it,” who, until only the past few years, a Flora woodcut. from his home in Hoboken, N.J. “I says Yee-Haw’s Bryan Baker, the was largely forgotten. The block also used to be a record collector in a January 17, 2008 Metro Pulse 19 former life. Record collectors for Columbia Records and King’s wall, Chusid was curi- tend to be lower life forms, the designer credited with ous: Why did he have these and I confess I was one of inventing the entire concept here? King explained his those groveling creatures. I of illustrating album covers, fascination with the little- had a couple of covers came across one of these known Flora, and Chusid’s that I just bought at odd little magazines and curiosity was piqued. thrift stores or garage offered Flora a job. Flora “I could see that he liked sales because I liked blossomed as a cover some of the same painters as the cartoonish qual- artist and the creator of me, Stuart Davis, Paul Klee, ity about them.” Columbia’s promotional Joan Miro,” says King of his Although certainly car- magazine, Coda. Flora was affinity for Flora’s work. “But toonish and often absurd, promoted to art director in he injected that modernism Flora’s album covers also 1943 after Steinweiss left with an energy that had combine a variety of fine-art for the Navy; he unhappily more in common with the influences, from Picasso-style worked his way up funny pages.” cubism to surrealism by the corporate ladder This combination of high way of Miro to modernism a until he became so and low art was likewise la Kandinsky. Other pieces frustrated with com- mesmerizing other record- reflect an almost Mayan feel, pany bureaucracy store-shopping artists who and still others are impish, that he resigned in would buy these frayed with comic figures like you 1950. albums for the inspiration might see in a children’s After an artistic sojourn in of their covers. But Chusid book. In Flora’s most famous Mexico, where he had moved didn’t just want to hunt for album covers, he created with his wife, artist Jane records—he wanted to do his own visual style for jazz Sinnicksen, and their two something with them, just that expresses its energy children, Flora returned to like he had with other bits and sense of cool—while commercial work in 1951 as of cast-off pop culture that still looking completely the art director of Park East intrigued him. So he hunted offbeat: Mambo for Cats, magazine, where he pub- down Jim Flora instead. Inside Sauter-Finegan, This lished spot illustrations by He found him still living in Is Benny Goodman, Shorty a young artist named Andy Rowayton, Conn., his home Rogers Courts the Count. It’s Warhol. Later that decade, for the past 50 years, and the kind of commercial art he produced some of his most contacted him with the goal that refuses to be easily for- revered album art for RCA of getting Flora’s blessing to gotten or disposed of; it has Victor, drew storyboards start a website devoted to his the soul of high art, if not the for distinctive animation album cover art. But in early respect. studio UPA, and began a 1998, Flora was diagnosed Flora (born in 1914) had new career as a children’s with stomach cancer; Chusid actually started out with a book author and illustrator, arranged to visit him for an fine-arts background, gradu- starting with The Fabulous interview in May.