Trevor Tipton - Profile Of An Artist
WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
I was born in 1984 and grew up in Oceanside, Ca. I've spent my adult life in San Diego and LA.
WHAT WAS GROWING UP LIKE FOR YOU?
A big influence for me was that my mom used to own an independent record store/art gallery when I was younger. So I've always loved music, album covers and poster art. I would always hang around the record shop stocking records, running the register, and help hang artwork, posters, etc. while listening to all types of music. We would have in store shows and art shows monthly, so that was really cool. A lot of really cool artists would show up.
DID YOU EVER PICK UP ANY INSTRUMENTS?
When I was younger I would always play guitar and we would sit around and play, but never anything serious. I was always more into doing artwork. But all my friends and people I grew up with were always in bands and we would hang and mess around and stuff.
WHAT WOULD YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS DO FOR FUN?
Listen to music, smoke weed, take a lot of acid/psychedelics and go to live shows. Go find records, all that kinda stuff.
DID YOU GO TO MANY LOCAL SHOWS IN YOUR AREA?
We did a lot of in store shows at the record store, but I didn't go to too many shows in my area. I would go to shows in San Diego and L.A. I would go to like the Casbah in San Diego, or up to L.A. I mean there's more clubs to watch music now then there was 15/20 years ago. So now I can basically walk over to venues to watch live shows. I live right outside of downtown San Diego so they have The Casbah, The Observatory, Soda bar, Brick by Brick, The Music box. There's more bands as well, it's great! But with the pandemic I haven't been out too many shows lately, but it seems like things are picking up...
WHAT BANDS LEFT A HUGE IMPRESSION ON YOU EARLY ON?
I think my favorite band is The Ramones. But I saw Motorhead early on a few times live and that was incredible. But I dunno, I love collecting records I've been listening to your podcast and I feel we like all the same stuff. But as far as local shows I would see Earthless play live, they are amazing and I was lucky enough to be able to do some artwork for them. Anything that gets me going. There's so many! Art wise I would say that all the old psychedelic posters/art from the 60's/70's left a huge impression.
Punk 7's/albums/flyers, but I think when I first started commissioning work for current bands I would say Alan Forbes left a huge impression. He's an amazing artist. A lot of the current psychedelic poster artists that do stuff for shows, there's so many. There are too many to mention but yea, all the psych posters are great, and it inspires me to keep creating artwork. I also love surrealist paintings. I was lucky to help a lot of artists hang paintings and art in the gallery we had, so that left a huge impression as well.
WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WANTED TO BE AN ARTIST?
I've always just done art because I love doing it. I don't know if there was a specific moment, I've just always messed around with it. I always loved album covers and poster art and have always collected that stuff, so that's been a major influence on me. My brother-in-law was also a major influence on me, he was doing a lot of painting and he encouraged me to paint more and I did my first art show with him.
DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL FOR ART?
I went to community college and took a printing class. I became friends with one of my teachers and got really into screen printing. This guy John Minor, he's a great printer/artist, loves music and had an awesome screen printing class at Pasadena City College in Los Angeles. He's a poster artist and fine arts printer. I took his classes and we would sell prints up at the flea market there and I started getting way into poster art and learning more about the screen printing process. I met a bunch of really cool people there, it was a great experience.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO WORKING WITH BANDS?
When I was in school I started doing more psychedelic art and paintings and a lot of screen printing. I would just listen to bands that I liked and would design artwork and then I would just send it to them and see if they liked it or not. Sometimes I would get a response, sometimes not. When I started posting on facebook and instagram, people started reaching out to me, to design posters, album covers and t-shirts.
BEFORE THAT WHAT DID YOU FIND YOURSELF WORKING ON THE MOST?
I would do pen and ink drawings, collage, and acrylic paintings. But I was really interested in printing posters. So I would just create the designs on canvas as a painting and then I would just make screens and do screen prints of the artwork, stuff like that I was always doing.
HAS ART ALWAYS BEEN A WAY TO SUPPORT YOURSELF, OR HAVE YOU HAD OTHER GIGS ON THE SIDE?
No, it's never been a way. I've always had to have a job. I've always done art because I like it. When I was starting out I did a lot of stuff for free just because I love doing it.
WHEN WAS YOUR FIRST BAND COMMISSION AND WHO WAS IT?
I think when I started doing more commissioned art was around 2015 for Levitation. The first commission I did for a bigger band that I really liked was for The Black Angels. Before that I was designing a lot of artwork and I would just send it to bands to see if they liked it. I just wanted to print posters. I love screen printing and seeing the final prints. But yea I think The Black Angels reached out for a poster for Levitation and from there I started doing more. But I had been commissioned before that for a few different guitar companies and other people, and have always sold prints. I did some art with Dylan from Frankie and the Witch Fingers around that time too. I was always a fan of his artwork and band and it was cool to be able to create some posters and designs for them.
WHAT WAS THAT FEELING LIKE FOR YOU?
It was really cool working with bands that I like, it's probably my favorite thing to do. I love to collaborate and it feels good when you can contribute, or give something back to the bands that make music that I enjoy so much. Its fucking great!
AND HOW MUCH DID THAT IMPACT YOUR LIFE AND CREATIVE PROCESS?
I started designing a lot more art work for bands, rather than just random paintings. But it really inspires me to create more art when its for bands and people that love music and art. And it's cool that people dig the artwork as well. I'm really happy that people enjoy tripping on it.
HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH INCREDIBLE BANDS?
I like to listen to the band as I paint, so when it's a great band it's a sweet process.
HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT APPROACHING YOUR PROJECTS?
I'll listen to the music, I love listening to the tunes to come up with an idea. I'll start with pen and ink on paper, and usually do a draft. Then on the computer I'll format it for a mock up and then most of the time I'll see if the band likes where I'm going with it and if they do I'll just go from there. Most times I will take the draft I made in pen and ink and I will recreate it on canvas. I was doing that originally to mix paint to get really cool colors that I didn't have for screen prints. I've been printing for awhile now, so now I can mix inks to create the color, but when I first started that's what I was doing.
WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU COULD MAKE THIS WORK?
I did a series of advertisements and designs for Pure Salem Guitars and it was published in Guitar Player Magazine. That gave me momentum.
HAS IT BEEN DIFFICULT SINCE THE PANDEMIC TO WORK SINCE LIVE MUSIC HAS BEEN COMPROMISED?
Yes, there hasen’t been many live shows to do posters for. And when there were, they would get cancelled. But I was still able to do merchandise stuff,T -shirt designs and album covers. And I was happy to do a poster for this livestream Earthless show.
OR HAS IT HAD A REVERSE EFFECT ON YOUR CAREER?
No, the majority of stuff I've been selling lately are prints of past work and the original paintings for past posters. It seems like everything is kinda up and down as far as live concerts but I also have been creating screen prints and other art work.
ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON ANY NEW PROJECTS?
I have some projects in the works, but with the pandemic the timelines are up in the air. I also create paintings that can be used for bands later, so I’ve been just designing a lot of new stuff and hopefully I can use the designs for some projects soon.
HOW HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR STYLE AND APPROACH SINCE YOU FIRST STARTED?
I've been doing the same psychedelic mixed media paintings from the start. I've aways used the same approach, but I'm into dong the designs by hand, whether it's a painting, drawing, or screen printing. I like to have a psychical piece of artwork/original. I’ve always done it that way. It always becomes a digital flyer because of social media, but I also like to have the artwork for gallery shows.
IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD IKE TO FURTHER SHARE?
It's been an honor!
For Commissions please email: trevortipton@yhaoo.com
Instagram: @trevortipton234
To purchase prints and originals check out:
https://trevortipton.wixsite.com/http
Thanks,
Trevor Tipton
Dakota Brown
