Life at Open Heart Publishing

One of the tasks of being a junior editor is interviewing the artists, so today I’m interviewing myself, Erin Marissa Russell. Erin is junior editor of Open Heart Publishing and did interior illustrations for An Honest Lie.

Erin, art has been called a metaphor for life in so many different ways. How do you feel this is relevant to your own craft?

Well, Erin, as you know, art couldn’t be anything else. Everything I create is going to be a metaphor not just for life, but for my specific life. It’s almost impossible to get out from behind my own perspective. Every painting, song, or story is only me trying to explain myself. I don’t think there’s a better way to figure out how someone else views the world than by looking at their art. Or interviewing them.

Ha-ha. How did you begin as an artist?

I always wanted to do visual art, but I was very frustrated with what I produced when I tried. When we were both still teenagers, my friend Eli Browning told me to draw an eye. I drew a sort of almond shape with spiky eyelashes sticking out of it and showed it to her. She said, “Look at my eye. It doesn’t look like that. It doesn’t have an outline. It’s light and shadows and shapes.” I started over and drew eyes all weekend. Many years later, I’m still learning to look at things.

Is there a certain medium you’ve come to like more than others?

I love working with charcoal, because the more you work with it, the more detailed the drawing becomes. Some things, like oil pastels, if you go too long you end up with a bunch of waxy gray mess on your page. That breaks my heart. I also love the mess of charcoal dust. Charcoal’s so un-final. If you make a charcoal line and hate it, you move it. But if you make a line in Sharpie and hate it, you have to start over, and I hate starting over.

What can you tell us about the piece(s) you completed for “An Honest Lie”?

I drew these illustrations first in Sharpie and then painted with diluted India ink. It creates a clear outline, but still allows for subtler shading effects. I was inspired by comic book art and Quentin Blake’s illustrations for books like Roald Dahl’s Matilda. I love old fairy tale illustrations, too, like Arthur Rackham’s or Harry Clarke’s. The pieces were really fun to work on because I didn’t have the full story, just an image. So the whole time I worked on them, I wondered what the stories could be about- all the different scenarios that could lead up to and away from this scene. It’s going to be fun to finally read them and see if the way I felt about the characters or scenes when I drew them still holds true.

Stepping away from art for a minute, you’re also the junior editor of Open Heart Publishing. How’d a nice girl like you end up in a place like this?

Well, I’ve done some freelance editing since I started college. I took a News Publications class over the summer, and they asked me to start as copy editor of the Brookhaven Courier. Editing on a regular basis made me realize I really enjoy it. In arguments, people often accuse me of getting caught up in semantics. I can’t help it! It’s just how my brain works. But it comes in handy for the work, and I love to read too. So when I heard about the editorial position, I couldn’t tell Debrin I was interested fast enough.

So, you’re an artist, an editor … what other creative outlets do you have?

I’m a writer myself, actually. I write poetry and short stories that are occasionally published. I founded a literary journal at Brookhaven last year, the Moulin Review, which I co-edit. I also sing and play instruments. In the past I’ve been in bands called Poor Wendy, Teenage Symphony, and How to Photograph Wildlife. Now I’m in The Lewis Family Singers and another project that I think is going to be called The Lavenders. I like to sew my own clothes or upcycle vintage. Unfortunately, I can’t dance.

So what do you like to write about?

I like to write about emotional things. Tiny things with enormous implications. Magical realism, with a fairy-tale influence. I tend to take a whole lot of my own experiences and a few things I made up and kind of chop them up and put them back together until they mean what I want.

Fairy tales and magical realism … do you believe in magic?

I believe in everything, especially magic.

Have you ever considered suicide as an alternative to procrastination?

I’m considering suicide as an alternative to answering this question.

Don’t get testy. What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned as a writer or artist?

Everyone says this and I didn’t ever listen until this year, but get a small notebook and write everything down. Every phrase you think is pretty that might become a poem, and every sketch of an idea for anything. Everything you overhear someone say that instantly brings a whole character to mind. A voice recorder is handy, too, especially if you’re in the car or if you’re trying to remember a song.

What do you feel about quantum mechanical theories involving cats in boxes or rather sharp razors?

I’m inclined to the many-worlds interpretation for the cat, on no real grounds other than it appeals to me the most. I don’t understand the need for a rule like Occam’s razor. Although discussing it encourages thinking, if it was proven we could just make a computer program to think for us and we would all get dumb.

What other projects are you currently working on?

I’m in my second semester at Brookhaven College, taking Drawing 2 classes as well as some others. I’m always writing and editing for the newspaper, and I’m planning a collection of short stories. We’re working on Moulin Review: Volume II and accepting submissions for Volume III. And I’m working on having my art matted and framed to take to all our events this winter and next year. I also attempt to maintain some semblance of social relationships, but it isn’t easy with all these things to do!

Who or what has inspired you as an artist?

J.D. Salinger’s work, particularly his characters the Glass family. Sylvia Plath, Neil Gaiman, Kate Chopin, Walt Whitman, J.M. Barrie, Wes Anderson’s movies, Harold and Maude, Mary Poppins, Flannery O’Connor. And looking at things around me every day. It’s easy to walk around not noticing anything.

Okay, since you’ve been paying attention: What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?

Long answer: That everything is connected to everything else. That the whole world is there, outside your door, waiting for you to step onto it. That there are forests you can put a tent in and stay at for free. What happens in the meadow at dusk.
Walt Whitman’s answer: That you are here–that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
Short answer: 42.

Who is your personal artistic hero/ heroine, and what does this individual mean to you?

Edith Bouvier Beale. Her entire life, down to her perception of herself, was a work of art. She was a cousin of Jackie O. and was one of the subjects of the documentary Grey Gardens. If you watch it, I think you can tell that she’s completely in her own reality, and completely thrilled by it. I think she had a wonderful life.

And finally, how do you encourage the delinquency of your inner child?

“Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked.”
— J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan)

I’ve always been too sensitive for delinquency. But I encourage my inner child by feeding the ducks almost every morning, eating ice cream sandwiches, playing dress-up, not wearing shoes, whistling to birds, and playing in dirt.

Erin Marissa Russell is a 26-year-old who studies art and writing in Dallas, Texas. She is the founder and co-editor of Moulin Review, a literary journal staffed by students at Brookhaven College. Her short story “That’s What It’s All About” won first place in the National League for Innovation in the Community College Contest in 2009. She is also copy editor of the Brookhaven Courier. In addition to writing and making art, Erin enjoys singing with The Lewis Family Singers and working on a new project, as yet unnamed.

You can visit Erin’s blog at: http://erinmarissa.wordpress.com
or her art at: http://erinmarissarussell.com

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