Today we’d like to introduce you to Erin Page.
Erin, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I began drawing as a child – at the age of five, I won a drawing contest for the first birthday of Baby Shamu and my mom and I traveled to Sea World for an all-expenses paid weekend vacation. I continued my endeavors as an artist and musician, (I taught myself to play guitar at 13), and enrolled in the Art program at Illinois State University, from which I graduated in 2003 with a B.A. in the Arts, concentration in Intaglio print-making. After college, I moved to Chicago where I learned to screenprint and became the master printer at Screwball Press for four years. I began building my portfolio primarily as a gigposter artist, doing posters, album art and t-shirt design for various bands domestically and internationally under the moniker Kill Hatsumomo. I opened my own studio in 2011. I also taught two semesters of an after school fine arts program at Gallery 37 downtown. I have been featured in Bust and Juxtapoz magazines, I have been published in a book entitled, “Gigposters: Volume 2”, had a cameo in a documentary film about poster art called “Just Like Being There”, and have had my art in galleries across the country as well as abroad. Some of my posters are part of a permanent collection in the Museum of Design in Zurich. I continue to create art and print for myself and others in my studio in West Humboldt Park. I am also the guitarist and vocalist in my latest band, Reivers.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I work in various mediums, but my primary medium is serigraphy aka silk-screening or screen-printing. Though I am capable of translating many ideas for various clients, my art is primarily of a dark and/or gothic nature. I’ve always been fascinated by the occult, the dark arts, the grimmer aspects of life, horror films and Halloween. I have cultivated my own style and interpretations – I often pair dark imagery with bright colors. I like to create on clay and scratchboard – most likely because of my history with etching. Though I have done pastels and watercolors, I am more often working with pen and ink. When working with bands, I typically listen to a song and create an image based on the lyrics and the feeling I take away from it – I try to not be too literal or cliché’. If even one person appreciates my art enough to want to have it in his/her home and sometimes even tattooed on his/her body, that is enough for me to be satisfied.
My music is much more personal. Music was one of the most important things in my youth. It helped me get through a lot of rough times. It’s always been an outlet for me that is much healthier than some of the other options I have chosen as an escape. I think of the music that has touched me, shaped me – and, if I can effect one person in the same way, I’ve accomplished more than enough. It’s especially important for me to reach other women – women who, like myself, don’t fit the mold. There are women out there who aren’t the typical pop stars and perfect magazine covers who need to see other women like themselves doing awesome things and be encouraged to always be themselves.
What do you know now that you wished you had learned earlier?
I encourage other artists to create their own style. There are a lot of people out there trying to mimic others who they admire. It’s wonderful and important to be influenced by others but it is monumentally essential to develop your own style and trademarks.
Keep going, don’t give up! And don’t ever let anyone take advantage of you with promises of “exposure”. Don’t work for free or for less than you deserve. Do everything you do with purpose and heart always.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
If you can’t catch my art in various gallery shows, I have a website at www.erinpageforever.com. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram as Kill Hatsumomo.
My band, Reivers, can be found on Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, Facebook and Instagram (reiverschicago) and we have a music video on YouTube. We play locally as well as touring.
I always appreciate people sharing my art and music on social media!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.erinpageforever.com
- Email: kill.hatsumomo@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/killhatsumomo
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/killhatsumomo
- Other: www.reivers.bandcamp.com
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