Captain Captain Studios
Oh, My! Art, music and whiskey.
By Curtis Jensen
Captain Captain Studios houses the workspaces of a tight-knit group of Salt Lake City artists, a group which is inextricably tied to Salt Lake City’s music scene. You’ve seen their work not only in galleries and publications, but also in cover art, show posters, stickers and at collaboration events. Even the hipster sucking down Coors Light next to you at the bar stands a good chance at being plim-solled in Patrick Munger’s hand-dyed Lake of Salt sneaks.
Most days, around 6 or 7 in the evening, the tenants of Captain Captain begin to circulate through each other’s spaces. Often sipping beers or whiskey drinks, they check in on each other, on who is there and what they are up to. The following fragments of a conversation took place on April 20, 2009:
Steve Larson: How are we going to pee in the corner?
Sri Whipple: I remember, like two years ago, this whole place was cleared out, I took a pressure washer and I squirted all the dirt that was in that corner, so the water would run out that way, and it is already built up again.
City Weekly: Could somebody maybe say where we are?
SL: In the backyard.
Gaylon Justus Jr.: Courtyard.
SL: Of?
Patrick Munger: Captain Captain Studios.
SW: 825 S. 500 West. But don’t print that.
All: [laugh]
CW: Who is missing today?
SW: The White Salamander.
SL: Cein Watson
TC: Tessa Lindsey.
SL: [yells] Tessa!
PM: Walter—
TC, SW: Ben.
PM: Ben Wiemeyer
SW: Berkley.
PM Bercules.
CW: Who’s been here the longest?
SW: Tom [Mulder].
PM: Well, Trent, Tessa, Sri—
TC: Well, this is the thing: I’m going to say that we’ve got a really nice balance in here. With Patrick and Gaylon—
SW: This is the best lineup that we’ve ever had.
TC: I think it is totally even, except for maybe the ladies in the back.
SW: If they, if we could just love them a little harder.
TC: Yeah. If they would try harder.
All: [laugh]
PM: Trent, weren’t you one of the first ones who thought they kind of had a space?
TC: I was the first one to approach him, but I was—
PM: And you were the last one to get a room!
TC: I guess I didn’t try hard enough
SW: But you moved your stuff in before everyone else did.
TC: We all moved from Poor Yorick.
SW: I moved from the Guthrie building, and Jason came from the Guthrie. Trent and Tessa and Chase and Tom came from the old Poor Yorick. Steve Larsen—
CW: What happened to the old Poor Yorick?
TC: It got shut down.
SW: So how ironic for Trent, because—
TC: That’s OK. It’s a good room.
SW: He’s also the kindest, most gentle person in the whole building. Next to Caroline.
CW: What are some of the shared markers of style of the Captain Captain artists?
SL: A lot of cartoony stuff is bouncing around. On a lot of different levels.
SW: There’s a lot of loose mark-making going around, but then I would say there is a weird mystical element, because there is Trent Alvey and Patrick, and my stuff has some of that crossover stuff, and all of us are getting into those subconscious things, in those ways. Trent, have you seen her drawings? They are what your dreams are telling you. But, you know, I’ve seen a lot of color, a lot of weird things just going back and forth. I don’t know. [pauses] There is a lot of pink.
SW: There is a lot of pink and blue.
SL: Pink, did you notice?
SW: And also it seems the colors have been getting more vibrant, too. And fucking Tom’s absence.
SL: We have to make up for the pink.
SW: I think that has affected their styles, whether people know it or not.
CL: In which way—more bold colors, or?
SW: I’ve seen like Trent Alvey, I don’t know. I’ve just seen a lot of connections. I’ve started all these paintings in pink and blue.
SL: It is hard to deny the landscape; we all seem to have a strong sense of landscape without thinking of it consciously.
CL: It is hard to get away from.
SL: Yeah, sky’s up here, land’s down there, no matter where you look.
SW: And another thing: the horizon line. I’ve noticed a lot of people, just ’cause I’ve caught on because everyone else is doing it, like Steve does these horizon lines that are right at the edge of the top. And Tom’d do these full landscapes with the horizon line right at the top.
SL: No one’s painted Heavenly Father for awhile.
CAPTAIN CAPTAIN
Open Studios
Friday, June 5 6-10 p.m.
CaptainCaptain.org
