Interview with horror artist Nick Rose by JD’L
I first discovered today’s featured artist when I stumbled across his blog. I’d been Googling my short story ‘The Food of Love’ to see if its ghost remained online. Instead, I found Nick’s site and his detailed explanation of an illustration titled ‘Brainburgers’. Nick had been commissioned to provide art for my story in an anthology now titled Darc Karnivale. His image of zombies queuing for ‘Brainburgers’ in a fast food joint appears in the book, as do many other fine examples of Nick’s work.
As you’ll glean from his frank responses to our questions, Nick has survived a lot to get where he is today.
Joseph D’Lacey: Welcome to Horror Reanimated, Nick. I’m glad you could make it all the way out to our quaint little corner of Hell.
Nick Rose: Joseph, I am very honoured. You know you’re Madison’s and my favourite writer, and you’re a wonderful man on top of that. Illustrating “The Food of Love” was probably my favourite assignment to date. And guess what? – This time next month everyone will be able to have a print or T-shirt with “Brainburgers” on it. And don’t worry, brother, if we sell a good many of these, we’ll send some money your way! After all, you gave me the idea…
Actually, this will be the very first time that fans and friends can buy prints of Nick Rose art. I really hope that I get the chance to work on more of your stories in the future.
JD’L: Thanks, Nick! It doesn’t matter about the money – you can buy me a beer next time I come to the USA!
Now, I see a lot of news about you on Facebook these days but I’m very curious about your past. How long have you been a professional artist and what kind of journey has it been?
NR: Well, actually I have been around for a long time.
My first published piece was for a fanzine called “Stellar Gas” way back around 1980. It was a Star Trek fan magazine. The picture I did was of Mr. Spock. From there I was published regularly in a Magazine called “Lost World. Around 1990 my pro career started with a piece published in Dragon Magazine #203. I also had landed a few commercial accounts as well.
Publishing is great as far as building a fan base, but it pays very little considering the time you spend on it. Commercial art on the other hand is boring most of the time, but the pay-checks are awesome.
Now through all of this, I also was a carpet installer. It was the only way I could make ends meet. This went on until 1995. At the time computers were coming in strong and you could do an assignment in a 10th of the time. But two things were going on with me at the time. One: I was against using computers to produce art. Two: I was growing sick of doing commercial work. I wanted to paint Dragons and Monsters, so out of frustration, I quit drawing and painting again. From 1995 to 2000 I gave up art. I packed up the studio and put it in storage.
Those 5 years where hell. I started drinking and smoking very heavy and I just didn’t want to live to be honest. I was killing myself. Then in 2000, I got a computer for my then step-son, and he started show me all the cool things like publishers websites. (Before this, you either had to mail your work into the publisher and pray that you would get it back, or you had to have an agent knocking on doors for you.) But now with the internet, all of that had changed. So I became inspired again, and unpacked my studio and got to work.
Everywhere I sent samples, I was getting work. This was mainly small press, but I was loving it. I was constantly getting magazines and books in the mail that either had a cover by me, or interiors. It was very exciting. I muddled along doing this until 2005 when a Master Artist offered to train me – Master Daniel Horne, and shortly after that fantasy legend Todd Lockwood decided to help me as well.
As a young man, I could not afford to pay my way through an art school. After the Army, I went to a local community college where I took commercial art for a year. The sad thing is, everything I learned from the community college is totally useless these days. The computer has changed the world as we know it. So having Daniel and Todd train me was and is a dream come true. Daniel really opened my eyes to art and I started seeing it in a whole different light, and Todd really introduced me to contrast and perspective. He had me go down town twice a week and practice drawing buildings from all different points of views. I did that for about 5 months, and I remember mumbling every time I was sitting on a bench drawing and a wino would come up to me asking me for money. But after a while I started to get it and understood why he had me doing that. It really opened my eyes to how important it was to making a good picture. I haven’t used much of that knowledge yet but I will soon.
Through the years I installed carpet to get by, but there were some years I decided to try to go full time as an artist. Financially, those where tough times, but they were also a lot of fun. I don’t even remember how I got by, but I did. For some reason when I was young I thought I would get rich painting, but the truth is, you’re lucky just to get by. Being an artist is an act of love. Now don’t get me wrong, I know a few artists that are well off, mostly because they had a spouse with good business sense, like Elli Frazetta. She built the Frazetta empire by cutting out the middle man.
I know other artists who make $20,000 per painting, but those are few and far between. In my case, 2 of those a year and I would be living better that I ever have.
These days I paint because I love to, and last year people started noticing me on Facebook, and with in a year’s time I had 4600 friends, 2 fan clubs – one with 4800 fans, and the second one with 2000 fans, and my blog has 900 known followers. That’s about 12,000 fans in less than a year. It’s mind boggling if you think about it, me just being an artist. So I guess I’m doing pretty well these days.
JD’L: It seems that very few of those who set out to become authors are ever able to support themselves through their writing. How true is this of artists, do you think? I ask because I know several and only a couple of them make a living by their creativity.
NR: Good question Joseph, and you are right. A small percentage of artists like me can make a living doing this, but I have help. I have a health problem that I get money for, and Madison works a regular job, so all of that helps.
A couple of weeks from now we will start selling prints and other merchandise, and hopefully that will get Madison out of her job so she can write full time. But even the big names I know struggle. If their wives weren’t working, I don’t think they could make it either. Now there are a few that do, but they live modestly. For the first 50 years of my life, I installed carpet 37 of those years, and was able to retire from that at 50 years old. But the sad truth is that 80 percent of the artists you see in the field right now, will be memories in 3 years. Life pressures get to them, or raising a family, or they lack the 3 things it takes to be an artist which are Talent, Heart, and Soul, and/or they are in it for the wrong reason, like they want to be famous. If you want to be famous, you’d best learn how to play music or act.
JD’L: In your case has it always been the bizarre side of imagery that has drawn you or do you also enjoy what people might refer to as mainstream art?
NR: Now that is the first time I have ever been asked that, and I will do my best to answer it.
I didn’t take art seriously until I was in the army, but in the 4th grade, around the time “One Million Years BC” came out, I started drawing dinosaurs. I had always loved dinosaurs and had a big box of the plastic ones like army men that I used to play with. You heard it here first folks, Nick Rose used to play with toy soldiers and dinosaurs! Anyway, after I saw that movie, I started drawing dinosaurs in school. If I’d gone to a Junior high school that had an art program, I would have pursued art at a much earlier age. But we lived in Bigfoot country, so the best I could get was creative writing.
In high school I became a huge comic book fan and I loved Spiderman. So in the army, when I started to draw again, I was really into comics. After the Army, I went to a local community college to take some art classes, after that I found a book by Frank Frazetta and I knew then and there that I wanted to learn to paint like that man. So I moved into doing fantasy art.
But through the road of life, dark and evil things and people have been part of my existence. Not by choice, but imposed on me by certain step-family members. For instance my step father used to beat me and my mother senseless, and I don’t care how old you get, you never get over that. I had an asshole artist tell me the other day that he was friends with my ex Stepfather, and I remember thinking that this fool was proud to be friends with a man that would do that to a woman and a child.
He also allowed his younger bother to molest me. He was told about it but never did anything about it, except call me a “faggot”. This same artist told me that I was not allowed to come to my ex step fathers funeral when it happened. I would be physically removed if I did. I’ve got news for them: I am going to visit his grave often to pay my respects, if you know what I mean. So this artist is proud to be friends with him. I think that says volumes about his character.
But because I have had to live with these memories through the years, my work has become darker and darker, and I see them getting Darker as I go. There is no cure for what was done to me, talking about it just makes me angry, so in some way, painting these images has helped me slowly but surely.
In my early years I did try to do some mainstream art because family members would tell me “why don’t you paint something people will like, like barns or cowboys?” I did try, but it was like taking a pair of pliers and pulling the skin off of my face. So I went back to being the loser artist that everyone thought was weird.
JD’L: It’s very clear that you’re no kind of loser, Nick. Certainly not to survive such treatment and come out with so much positive spirit. What fascinating about what you’ve told me – apart from your honesty and candour – is that the darkness of your work has given you comfort. Horror has many functions!
Tell me, what is your preferred medium? Do you ever work outside of it?
NR: Joseph, I work in all mediums, including digital. I believe if you’re going to make a living doing this, you need to be able to do as much as possible. My favourites are pencil, oils, and Corel painter. I used to work in pen and inks a lot, but I don’t get much call for it anymore.
JD’L: I’m fascinated by the working practices of other ‘creatives’ – How does a typical Nick Rose work day go?
NR: Normally, I get up at 7:15 am, make a pot of coffee and head to the dungeon (studio) to go through my mail and Facebook. That takes from 1 to 3 hours, drinking coffee throughout. After that, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I head to the gym for 90 minutes, come home, shower and get to work. The other 4 days of the week, I shower after checking e-mail and start work immediately. Somewhere along the way I grab a bowl of oatmeal. I work to at least 7pm, sometimes as late as 9pm. It depends on the day. Then I pick out a good movie and enjoy that, have a snack and hit the hay ready to start all over at 7:15 the next morning.
Starting this week I am going to be redesigning the studio, buying new equipment and supplies. I am really looking forward to that. Right now a good portion of the floor is taken up by my movie collection. I am going to buy book cases to put them in and that will clear a lot of the floor. Then I will have space for a table where I can put together packages ready to be mailed or to matte my prints. I am also buying another drawing table, a medium size easel for Madison’s daughter to work on, and a light box for her. The dungeon is large and wide open, so I can do what ever I want down here.
Another thing is that I listen to music all day long, so I have about 11,000 c.d.’s most of them are on my iMac. I listen to every kind of music you could think of.
JD’L: Do you feel there’s a gap between your ideas and your ability to bring them into being? Arthur Machen once wrote: ‘One dreams in fire and works in clay.’ He also talked about ‘the horrid gulf that yawns between the conception and the execution’. Admittedly he was an author, not an artist. Nonetheless, what’s your personal view?
NR: At one time I would say that would have been true, mostly because my skills were not strong enough to paint what my mind sees. Now, it is the other way around, my hands can surpass what my mind sees, and improve upon it. I get excited now every time I do a new piece because I know that it will be so much more than what my mind sees. I have to ask myself, what is next, and that is a big part of why I love to paint.
JD’L: Is it only art that gets you out of bed in the morning – or, indeed, at any other time – or do you have other passions?
NR: Oh my, to be honest, there was a time I didn’t want to get out of bed several years ago at all. As a matter of fact I overdosed on pain pills, and somehow lived through that. After the Dark Angels disbanded and I realised my best friend had betrayed and stabbed me in the back, and my Step Father said he never wanted to have anything to do with me ever again, I was going to commit suicide, but as a last resort I went to the VA hospital and told them what I was going to do. They locked me in the Mental Health ward for 3 weeks, during Christmas, and worked with me to help me cope with what happened. When I went home, the girl I had been dating took almost everything I owned and vanished off the face of the earth.
I just existed at that point. I didn’t care anymore. I just drank and smoked all I could smoke in a day. Then a friend offered to move me up here to Michigan, where my home is now, and my life changed 100%. The first thing was I met Madison. We fell in love, and all of a sudden I wanted to live again. It has been a rough year. I quit smoking, drinking and started working out again. I found out I have COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) because of the smoking, and this last year I’ve had pneumonia 5 times. But each day I get stronger, and my will to live is amazing. Nothing gets me down anymore. I work all the time and spend time with Madison and the kids. My career has gone through the roof and keeps going up everyday. This is the 9th interview I have done since Christmas, Joseph. I was on a world wide radio show last week and am going to be a regular on there – talking live a couple times a year – and they will be giving away prints of my work and promoting my name almost every week. You can’t beat that.
JD’L: If you had the time, money and support to do only your own work, which deeply-held, as yet unrealised idea, would you bring into the world? I suppose I’m asking, what is the piece or series Nick Rose was born to create?
NR: Actually that is coming very soon now. I am at the point where I can do what I want and turn down what I don’t want to do. I have two projects I will be starting as soon as I finish remodelling the studio this coming week. One is a series of oil paintings of my dear friend and scream queen, Ms. Suzi Lorraine. We will be selling prints, calendars, t-shits, and whatever with her image. Another is a series of books called ”The book of Rose” which I am already working on. I can’t say anything about that now, because of all the thieves out there, and this is a one of a kind thing. It will have a role playing game and video game based around it, all done through my company. And on top of that, I will be painting my paintings, writing how-to book, and a book about my life including all the creeps and monsters I have met on my journey, names and all.
JD’L: Beyond that, what’s next for you, Nick? I have a sense there’s a lot of work in the pipeline. Is there anything you can tell us about without giving away too many secrets?
NR: Well, between now and January I have 20 covers to do, so that’s gonna keep me busy and it will get my work out there to a much larger audience. I hope by this time next year that the number will double and we will have our own market of buyers who are fans of my work.
JD’L: I hope so too, Nick. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you and share some of your artwork here at Horror Reanimated. Thanks for joining us and good luck for the future!
NR: Joseph, it has been my pleasure. You know Madison and I are two of your biggest fans, and it has been a thrill for me to do this interview with you. To my fans, “May the Darkness Comfort You.”
