Every other Thursday (or near Thursday, at this point), I will be featuring a new artist here on the blog! To be clear, I’m using the word “artist(s)” to cover fine artists, photographers, musicians, crafters, fashion designers, anyone who creates something.
Today’s feature is Dmitri Arbacauskas!
- To start, please tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your story?
Tell you what- here’s my basic bio from Tormented Artifacts- feel free to adapt it for this:
“Traditional molding and shaping methods meet untraditional designs. That’s Tormented Artifacts in a sentence for you. Or, as Dmitri Arbacauskas, Head Mad Scientist and main artist of the studio would put it, “Bringing the awesome,” which he’s been doing for roughly five years now. The studio aims at taking mythical, fictional, abstract, and literary elements and breathing new life into them through one of the oldest arts there is- maskmaking. Each mask <http://www.tormentedartifacts.com/masks.html> is hand-molded from leather, and hand-painted to capture the intracacies of each design.
The studio also creates mask art in other forms, with all sorts of media, including the the truly attention-grabbing gasmask art pieces <http://www.tormentedartifacts.com/gasmasks.html>. Each gasmask has been converted from tools of warfare to reflect more epic forms- gods, spirits, monsters, and demons from many different cultures. Each gasmask piece is also wholly unique- while the studio may do a variation on the original design, they will never make direct copies of an original piece.
In addition to all this, Dmitri also produces digital prints, custom request mask and gasmask designs, as well as various one-of-a-kind props and curiosities, which are available for sale through tormentedartifacts.com or at any event the studio is currently selling at.
Dmitri would also like to tell you that he is a charter member of the League of Extraordinary Bastards, a lay priest of the Faith of Bacon, the third gunman on the grassy knoll, and one of the few explorers to survive the legendary tombs of Eternal Night, but we figured it best to lock him back up in his cage until it’s time to start making the next round of masks.”
- How long have you been creating?
As a semi-professional? About 6 years now. Before that it was just bits and pieces here and there for various theatrical productions or just for the hell of it. Counting that, it’d probably go clear back into high school- roughly twelve years or so.
- What inspires you?
EVERYTHING. I’m a complete and total sucker for art in tons of different forms, and a lot of it ends up in my work. Everything from classical painting to schlock horror movies, anime, sci-fi, literature, poetry, all of it somehow gets sucked into my sponge of a brain.
- I first saw your work on a steampunk community. For anyone who doesn’t know what “steampunk” means, can you give everyone a quick and dirty idea of what it is?
Heh. Well, while some of my work falls into the genre, I don’t think I can quite consider myself to be a steampunk artist, by any means- I do what I like. Today it might be cogs and brass, but just as often, I’m hauling out the gasmasks, spikes, and blowtorches. Anyways, Steampunk got started as a literary movement by a few sci-fi writers who were basically trying to imagine what a steam-powered version of modern society would be like. In other words, a world where the internal combustion engine, and likely widespread electricity didn’t happen. Steampunk these days has pretty much been handed down from that, only now it’s roots are firmly planted into fashion, art, all sorts of things. Honestly though, I’m no expert on the subject- if you’ve got questions on steampunk, you should really be hitting places like Brass Goggles (Editor’s Note: the Brass Goggles site seems to be down/nonexistent at the moment), instead of coming to me.
- How did you get into making the masks and accessories?
This is pretty much where I got my start on making stuff- the masks and accessories came first, and the rest has only been in the last year and a half or so. In college, I was originally a theatre major, with an emphasis on technical theatre and directing, as well as acting. Well, after I was done with school, about six years ago, I ended up with a rather long bout of unemployment- almost six months worth. During the middle of that, I was cleaning up the apartment, and stumbled across a large chunk of leather that belonged to my fiancee (now my wife). And just for the hell of it, I decided I was going to try and make a mask out of some of it, just for something to do.
- While checking out your deviantART gallery, I noticed that you have these great little tidbits of stories in the description of a few of your items. Do you general have a story for the pieces you create?
Actually, it’s usually the reverse- the stories end up coming to mind late in the process when I’m making something. Often, I’ll be starting with just a very bare-boned idea of what I’m making, and while I’m working on it, I’ll usually be able to start getting a feel for the kind of world that that object fits into.
- Please describe your creative process (the how, the when, materials, etc.).
There really isn’t one- I’m pretty chaotic by nature, and it just plain carries over into the artwork- I work when I can, with whatever materials I’ve got to hand- money is usually a bit tight for us, so a lot of the time I’m dependent on what materials I can scrounge or salvage, especially in the case of the props and sculpture pieces.
- What’s your biggest artistic disaster to date? How did it help you progress?
After having done the Cthulhu mask, I’ve actually received a few requests for The Pallid Mask, from The King in Yellow. Unfortunately, after a few tries in different media, I’ve had to pretty much abandon it- just not able to get any design to work quite right for it. The only way it’s helped is in terms of raw experience- I’ve been able to develop techniques from those designs that I’ve adapted to other working pieces.
- What’s your favourite piece that you’ve done?
That opinion varies from day to day, and from type of piece to type of piece-
For gasmask art, it’d have to be the Abbaddon design- It’s one I always keep coming back to, and with four different variations of it that I’ve done now, it’s probably been one of my most repeated designs.
Leather masks? Definitely the Green Man series- these actually just started as a good way to use up scrap materials- all the leaves are actually the eyes from other masks.
Other leather bits- it’d have to be the Shock Gauntlet- it’s the only design where the end result looks, fits, and feels exactly like I’d always envisioned it.
Props? It’s got to be The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll- I just had far too much fun hunting down all the bits and pieces that made up that box.
- What’s the best advice you were given when starting out?
“You’ll go blind if you keep doing that.”
- Do you have any advice to give others?
Do. Not. Stop. The last five years have proved to me that endurance if nothing else, is always a key factor. Keep pushing, keep re-inventing yourself and your art if you need to, do what you need to keep yourself sane, but above all, do not stop working.
- What’s coming up for you; any big plans artistically?
No major shows, but right now plans are in the works for two more events this year- one concert in Seattle in September, and a convention in Oregon in november. I’ll be posting up the details on both those shows soon.
- Recommend 3-5 artists the rest of the world should know about. Again, artist is meant to include musicians, crafters, writers, etc.
Cyra Hobson (www.cyrahobson.com)- Her work’s got this great level of intensity to it and I’ve yet to see a piece of hers that I haven’t been completely blown away by.
For photography, check out Nik Wilhelm (blakthorne on DeviantArt) great eye. And also check out Bloodengel, (www.bloodengel.com) the photographer I go through for a lot of the shots used on Tormentedartifacts.com
Ann Koi’s another artist not to be missed, and she’s got a huge show coming up in September. If you’re in Seattle that month, make sure to check it out.
- Where can people find your work?
Well, aside from the DeviantArt stuff, there’s always TormentedArtifacts.com, my own website (which I’m now woefully behind on updating).
- Feel free to add anything else that I might have missed, and thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview!
I can’t think of anything at this point, but if you’ve got any other questions, or need me to flesh out an answer a bit more, just let me know! And thanks again for the interview!
Well, that was another installment of “… And I Dig It!” Please visit Dmitri’s sites and check out his work (I highly recommend it since I didn’t have any images of his work to share here)! That’s what this feature is all about – getting people interested in art forms connected with people working and creating with art forms! And if YOU would like to be featured, don’t be shy about it! Feel free to comment here or contact me, and we’ll get you in a future feature!
