Episode 163 | Tom Hück

Published October 24, 2022

Miranda Metcalf  03:00

Hi Tom, how's it going?

Tom Huck  03:02

Hey, how you doing? What the hell you want to ask?

Miranda Metcalf  03:05

Welcome to your long overdue guest spot on the Hello, Print Friend podcast. 

Tom Huck  03:11

Yes, it is long overdue, Miranda. 

Miranda Metcalf  03:15

But I'm glad that we waited.

Tom Huck  03:17

I have to make it known, I turned you down.

Miranda Metcalf  03:19

You did! You did.

Tom Huck  03:20

I turned you down. But now I'm okay.

Miranda Metcalf  03:21

Yeah, that's on the record. It's on the record. And now we're getting to meet in the beautiful Black Rock Editions, Landfall Press headquarters here in Santa Fe, in person. 

Tom Huck  03:32

This is where it should be, because I owe my whole career to this place. 

Miranda Metcalf  03:36

It's beautiful, right?

Tom Huck  03:37

Jack Lemon and Steve Campbell, and Chris, they're awesome. But especially to Jack, I owe my career. I wouldn't be able to make a living off of prints having not gone to Landfall in 1999. So they got me started on the path to being an independent, and Jack telling me, 'You know, you can do this, Huck, you've just got to do it right and you got to do it hard.' And it's been very hard. I took that as some hard living as well, but also hard work.

Miranda Metcalf  04:09

Definitely, definitely. So I feel like it's completely appropriate. 

Tom Huck  04:14

It's perfect.

Miranda Metcalf  04:14

And I'm going to ask you to just answer the three questions I ask all my guests at the beginning, which is who you are, where you are, what you do?

Tom Huck  04:26

Okay. My name is Tom Huck. I'm a printmaker. I do woodcuts, and my shop is called Evil Prints. And it's existed since 1995. "Disgusting the masses since 1995." That was a line I came up with in my 20s, I don't know if I'd do it now, but that's what stuck. And I live in work near St. Louis. My shop was in downtown St. Louis for 20-something years, and when COVID hit, I moved my shop. I made it private, and I moved it out to my property in southern Missouri, about an hour out of downtown St. Louis. 

Miranda Metcalf  05:05

Wonderful. 

Tom Huck  05:06

And I just make prints for a living. And that's what I've been doing, really, since 1995. I mean, I taught for many years in there, but my shop existed outside of... I didn't use the school's facilities at all. Evil Prints always had to exist on its own. And it had its own non-existent budget, which lived - the bills were paid from print-to-print - which is still the way it is today. I live print-to-print, you know.

Miranda Metcalf  05:37

I definitely want to make sure we get a chance later on to talk about the living life of someone who is making a living off their prints, and making that happen, and doing exciting projects. 

Tom Huck  05:48

Well, I'll let you know all about it. 

Miranda Metcalf  05:49

Yeah! But I want to acknowledge that you're just coming off a great interview with the wonderful Ann Shafer and Ben Levy on the Platemark Podcast.

Tom Huck  05:57

Ann rules. She's great. 

Miranda Metcalf  05:59

Ann is a treasure. 

Tom Huck  06:00

Yes, she is. 

Miranda Metcalf  06:01

And so you got to dive in there for a lot of the kind of lead up stuff. We heard the great stories about you getting to see Durer in the Vatican, and then in DC -

Tom Huck  06:10

Yeah, when I was a kid. 

Miranda Metcalf  06:11

- And having great supportive parents, and all of that, which often, we dive into on this podcast. So I think I'm going to encourage everyone to go listen to that. And we're going to pick up kind of where that narrative was running out of time, which is like, when you're starting to make work that's really sort of finding your voice, when you've decided you're going to make some work about your hometown, about where you're from. And you do this series, "The Bloody Bucket." And so I guess my first question would be, when you first started to make work that really felt like your voice and you, and you started to make work that was getting a lot of attention - and "The Bloody Bucket" is not an easy series -

Tom Huck  06:55

None of it is! 

Miranda Metcalf  06:56

None of it is. So you set the bar - and so, if you were getting maybe positive feedback and negative feedback, strong reactions, probably, early on - what was that like for you? Were you just like, 'Yes, this is my voice'? Were you like, 'Fuck yeah, attention'? Or did you have any doubts that maybe this wasn't going to be a sustainable thing to do?

Tom Huck  07:16

The thing is, I never made the work for anybody else but myself first. I made prints that I wanted to look at. Okay, so in a weird way, that kind of is a shield from criticism. I mean, everybody takes criticism in different ways. And they take it personally when it's you selling your ass, basically, and putting yourself out there in your own work. And the moment that you really find that you're doing what is in your id, and what you're trying to say, you open yourself up to all kinds of stuff. I mean, I get a lot of criticism in my word for being immature, sexist, too much violence, too much sex, all that stuff. And it goes back to, hey, make it a nicer world and I'll make nicer prints. I'm like Hogarth, I'm like Goya. Durer, too, to a certain extent. Posada. They're my benchmark. And I want to make prints that are as good as those prints. That's my daily goal. And when you care about the history like I do... this is a long term game. So any sort of criticism that's leveled my way about the subject matter, it's just a short storm to ride out. I have to live to fight the next print out, you know? And so I guess I take it. Sometimes it bothers me, when the work is sort of put into, 'Oh, well, it can't be taken seriously conceptually, because it's just satire.' Fuck you! You know? Come on, man! My stuff is just as conceptual as the latest stuff that's being pushed at Berkeley, or god knows... Cal Arts, or whatever place, okay? And I spend a lot of time thinking about every single visual move that I make these days. You know, I've worked very differently than I worked with "The Bloody Bucket." Although there are still hillbillies doing bad things in there. And these days, hillbillies almost overthrew the fucking government, okay? So it's not like... my subject matter isn't going away. And so I guess what I'm trying to say is that I just make work from my heart and my head, trying to fit into the history of prints. So "The Bloody Bucket," and then after that, I started doing the large triptychs. Well, "The Bloody Bucket" was still me taking real stories that I heard growing up, or witnessed, and turning them visually into a narrative. These days, I take things that I witness and things that I think and things that I feel politically, and I put them all in one big visual burrito that's multi-layered. And they deal more in allegory and metaphor. There's more surrealism in there, there's more allusions to things that aren't just, oh, there's a woman at a greased pig contest, look at how crazy that was. I don't do that anymore. It's a broader based social commentary... some of the old characters and caricatures are still in there someplace. But they're also large, I work really large, because I want people to have to deal with it visually. My stuff is not made to go on someone's phone, which is another whole - that's a whole podcast of bitching and complaining. Because my stuff is made to be seen live, you know? Taking one of my big woodcuts and putting it on a 1.5 inch by 1.5 inch square on Instaspam, or whatever it is, or tok-fucking-wok or whatever the latest social media thing is, that's the equivalent - shrinking it down to a 1 inch by 1 inch, whatever it is - is the equivalent of seeing Led Zeppelin live and making them play cardboard instruments. This stuff is made to be seen live and in person. And so that's kind of a drag. But that's a whole other thing.

Miranda Metcalf  07:47

Yeah, there's a whole podcast episode, I'm sure.

Tom Huck  11:45

You should do a roundtable with people that do traditional media, and stuff like this, and have it [be about] what our complaints are about digital media now. I like some stuff with digital media, but you know, when it has to be viewed as the primary intro on your freakin phone...

Miranda Metcalf  12:05

Yeah, the ways in which Instagram's affected the market and the way people can see the art, I mean, that's so many...

Tom Huck  12:11

Well, we have a little running joke amongst me and Carlos, and even Tony and people, it's like, when we see work that got 80,000 likes on Instagram, and then you see the stuff in real life at some print fair or whatever, the joke is, 'Boy, they put the DaVinci filter on that one, didn't they?' Because you can literally shrink anything down and put whatever freakin filter on, and it's gonna look fantastic. But when you see it in real life, more often than not, it's a letdown.

Miranda Metcalf  12:44

Yeah, it's such completely different experiences, and particularly with the pandemic and so much of artistic consumption being sort of forced to move into the digital space, there are people who just think that this is what art is, it's what lives in the computer that lives in your pocket. 

Tom Huck  13:05

Right. And I guess maybe it's old fashioned, sorry, I still like to see stuff in real life.

Miranda Metcalf  13:11

Yeah, totally.

Tom Huck  13:12

You know. Did that answer your question?

Miranda Metcalf  13:15

I think it did. What I was sort of curious about that maybe we didn't exactly touch on was the experience of being a younger artist, where you're still sort of finding your way, and making work that's hard, and getting the kind of backlash of that challenging work. Did that ever sort of shake you? Or were you just like, 'This is my voice?'

Tom Huck  13:38

I never got a lot of backlash in the art world.

Miranda Metcalf  13:44

Oh.

Tom Huck  13:45

I got backlash from the academic world.

Miranda Metcalf  13:47

Gotcha. Okay. Can you say more about that?

Tom Huck  13:50

Yeah, I think that it tended to be... the backlash was more from, 'Okay, if we have Huck out here to do a talk at the university, is he going to put up the "Hillbilly Kama Sutra" and talk about it for an hour in front of 350 art students?' And is - those are all the different sex positions - and, 'Is Huck going to curse because the work lends itself to that?' Either, when you look at my stuff, you're gonna go, 'Oh, fuck, what is that guy doing?' Or, 'Oh, man, is that guy doing what [I think]?' You know, there was that backlash. With the art world, somebody like Jack Lemon at Landfall Press saw my work immediately and was like, 'Okay, this is all the history, social commentary, and satire. I get it.' You know, print curators immediately jumped on when I was like 23, 24 years old, and did that first body of work. They bought it, showed it, right away. I was lucky. I was showing in museums at 23 and 24. As a self-publishing printmaker! Which is, it's still crazy! But the backlash was only for people with rules that were instituted in classrooms. 

Miranda Metcalf  15:20

Gotcha.

Tom Huck  15:20

You know... I think, I've heard this, a lot of printmaking professors wouldn't show my work to students, and that kind of thing. Because it's a rough world! 

Miranda Metcalf  15:32

Yeah. 

Tom Huck  15:33

And I want to talk about the rough world, you know? And students, dammit, need to know about the rough world. But it goes back to a Rob Zombie quote that I always fall back on: 'Real life rules don't apply to art.' They don't! It's like, this day and age, it's like, 'Oh, well, if you make a movie about the Nazis, you must like the Nazis!' No, it's called social commentary and criticism, and how do you criticize the Nazis without talking about the fucking Nazis? You know, when I depict a Nazi in my work, I put the armband on him. But it's an X in it. Which goes back to Charlie Chaplin's movie, "The Great Dictator." Okay, there are ways that I allude to it. But I did, I got rid of a swastika one time in my work, because somebody said something about it. 

Miranda Metcalf  16:22

Oh, okay.

Tom Huck  16:24

And then I carved it away, and it's still there, you can barely see it. And so sometimes - maybe that's why I moved away - some of the criticism maybe made me grow. I moved away from [being] so literal, and I became more allegorical, like Hogarth would. Because not everybody knows what those prints are about now, but the beauty pulls you in, and then you eventually kind of can figure it out when you have a title. So there, the backlash was more from academia, but not from the art world. And I moved out of academia eventually. And it wasn't just because of that, it's just because I couldn't take the rigidity. And my personality didn't fit it to begin with.

Miranda Metcalf  17:12

Yeah. And so when you're making work like "The Hillbilly Kamma Sutra" or "The Bloody Bucket" - I'm still thinking how, in my questions, we're still in, like, the early works - and as you say, this is a lot of what you saw growing up. These were stories you heard growing up. These were real experiences from your formative years. And yet, they're very critical, it seems like. They're grotesque. Everyone's sort of transformed into these monstrous characters.  And so I've often wondered, what's it sort of like - because it seems like it's sort of like, fascinated and repelled. Like, this sort of investigation of what made Tom. But then also exaggerating it into these forms that are not flattering.

Tom Huck  17:40

I had a teacher in graduate school. I was having a lot of trouble - and I think I may have said this in Ann's podcast - he came into my studio, and I was having a block. I had horrible crits and everything. And I was having a hard time, and he told me - his name's Douglas Dowd, and he told me - he was looking at my sketchbook. And I loved Warrington Colescott, and I loved all these old master printmakers. And... Durer's funny! Yeah. 

Miranda Metcalf  18:31

Yeah.

Tom Huck  18:32

There are funny things in Rembrandt's prints!

Miranda Metcalf  18:35

There's a faucet that's supposed to be a penis. 

Tom Huck  18:37

Right!

Miranda Metcalf  18:38

You know, that kind of stuff in Durer's work.

Tom Huck  18:39

You know, it's all over all of it. Posada's hilarious! Goya, not as much, but there are funny forms in there. And Doug told me, he was like, 'You know, Tom, it's okay to be funny.' That was a big moment for me. Because when you're in art school, I think they tend to try and grind that out of people, because everything is so serious all the time. Everything is so serious. Even though you can take serious subject matter and make it more serious with humor, because that makes people think. Comedians. But I think my reaction early on, visually, was to hit people over the head with it. To go to the extreme visually with it.

Miranda Metcalf  19:31

Yeah, why? 

Tom Huck  19:32

Because it's sort of like the monster. If you expect a monster in a movie, it's got to be alien. It needs to be over the top. And visually, there's a lot to compete with out there. 

Miranda Metcalf  19:48

Yeah. 

Tom Huck  19:49

I mean, how in the hell am I really going to compete with any of those Van Eyck depictions of hell?

Miranda Metcalf  19:58

Yeah.

Tom Huck  19:58

Well, I mean, there's a high bar visually. And so these things are things that I experienced, and they were, at that time, small town, sort of rural stories. And every small town has those. Every city has those. It just takes certain people to broadcast them to the rest of the world in whatever media they choose. Me, I assume that I'm an artist, I'm in the middle of nowhere in terms of the art world. No one knows who I am. I know my history. I know my forefathers and mothers. How am I going to make my impact visually, knowing all the history of depictions and what their circumstances were? What are my circumstances? And what do I want to see? What would get me going, having known all that history? The audience was second row.

Miranda Metcalf  20:59

Right.

Tom Huck  20:59

I'm first row. Okay? Because it's got to come from me. So my way of doing it was to exaggerate. Visually extreme. There's a print in "The Bloody Bucket." It's called "Anatomy of a Crack Shack." And it's the most heinous freakin print that I've ever done. I have a full stack of those! I didn't sell them all. I didn't sell a lot of them.

Miranda Metcalf  21:22

[You can't just get that for] any home, put it in the nursery.

Tom Huck  21:24

Put it in the bathroom, man! It's of a woman... a guy having sex with a woman, who has a wooden leg, and a dog is humping the wooden leg while he's humping the woman. And he's got prosthetics, you know, and it's... so my subject was a bar. The whole series is about a bar. Well, people that go to bars, they end up having sex! And so that's part of it! And I was also thinking about "The Dance of Death," Holbein's "Dance of Death." And death is always there. Well, sex is always there. Two things in life: sex and death. Okay? That's it, because one begets the other. And so I depicted it like that because I needed to talk about the sex that goes along with bar life. And how do you do it? Well, if it was just two people in a bed with a blanket over them and a bump of the coupling, it's not going to be the same visually! 

Miranda Metcalf  22:33

Yeah.

Tom Huck  22:34

This way, it hammers home the point.

Miranda Metcalf  22:39

So to speak.

Tom Huck  22:40

Yeah, exactly! That's pretty good. It hammers home the point! And it's of... the guy is a pirate having sex with a woman in an outhouse. I mean, what's the worst place - so when you're making these things up, I'm looking at it like a movie director for effect. What's the worst place that you could have sex? In the outhouse! Okay, how terrible would that be? Well, that's where it is. And at that time, I was thinking about - I'm in the studio, I'm like, 'Don't put that dog in there humping that peg leg, Huck, don't do it. Don't do it.' And then I'm drawing it, and I'm drawing it, and then I'm doing it. And then I put it up there, and I've got it on the block. And I'm like, 'Aha, yeah, that's what it's gonna be!' And then I live with it. Because remember, I'm front row. 

Miranda Metcalf  23:26

Yeah.

Tom Huck  23:27

I'm the audience first, that sees the premier. Okay? And I get to make the decisions. And I don't really care about people getting upset about that stuff. Because they don't have to look at it. That's sort of the way that I am, and I think that you have to be. A lot of my heroes, I'm sure, were like that too. You know, tune it out. You can't win them all! You know? I mean, my audience is my audience. And I'm not out to win everybody over, although I want everybody to like my work. And I want everybody to react to my work. And if people, in a weird way, react negatively to it, maybe that's part of what I want too. I want to be like Bosch. You said that, I think earlier, you said that push-and-pull thing, if that's the way you put it, of intrigue and repulse, or whatever. That's Bosch, man! I mean, it's scaring people off and then you're like, 'Oh my god, what is that couple doing in the bushes? Why is that thing sticking up that guy's butt?' And then you run away from it, but then you're like, looking around the corner, 'I'm gonna go back and look at that again.' That's kind of where I want to be. I mean, I've said this many times. I try to occupy, as an artist, a place between the whimsical and the terrifying. That's where I live. And all my heroes did that. Because they were making art about the human condition, which is not a nice thing all the time. It's hard. It's a hard world. It's a dark world. 

Miranda Metcalf  25:05

Do you think that recognizing that, and then taking this imagery to these extremes, is that like a way of processing the fact that life is fucking horrifying a lot of the time?

Tom Huck  25:17

I'm working it out for myself that way, yes. This is how I think about - this is me working it out. Because I care.

Miranda Metcalf  25:26

Yeah, yeah. Because I think a lot of people who make work that is - or even music -

Tom Huck  25:32

Sue Coe! Sue!  One of my biggest freakin heroes. I love her. She's a good friend of mine, major influence on me. You know, Sue probably doesn't... Sue sells to a lot of museums, but Sue isn't the kind of work that you're going to put up in your kitchen or at your kitchen table while you're chowing down on that pork chop. You know?

Miranda Metcalf  25:44

Sue Coe is a big one, yeah. Yeah, and a lot of artists... even thinking of punk rock, like, musicians, metal heads, they're often people who actually are people who feel really deeply, because it's a reaction to actually living in the emotional reality of a world where there are slaughterhouses and - 

Tom Huck  26:12

School shootings!

Miranda Metcalf  26:13

School shootings, and all of it. Yeah.

Tom Huck  26:15

That's how we deal with it. That's how I deal with it. Now, the larger projects that I do now, I look at as learning events, learning times. So I'll spend five years making a whole series about gluttony, which is what I just finished. A new triptych. It'll be out this fall, late fall, keeps getting pushed back. But it's funny, I spent five years dealing [with] a whole thing about gluttony, and conspiracy theories, and American gluttony in all of its forms. Like fast food, conspiracy theories, religion, and violence. Americans are gluttons for all of that. So gluttony in the bigger way. And then it also sort of revolves around a food theme, bad food. And at the end of it, I decided to go - I didn't even realize I was doing it - I finished it, and then I went on a major diet. I changed all of my eating habits after spending five years making this whole thing about gluttony. And somebody - I didn't even realize until Jim was like, 'You kind of did this after the whole gluttony thing.' 

Miranda Metcalf  27:27

You were working it out.

Tom Huck  27:28

I was... yeah, because I'm thinking about things that are a concern to me! And I'm learning as I'm doing, because there's a significant research element of the work that I do. So I'll spend five years on a project. There's a good year-long lead up to that before I commit, while I'm finishing the previous project, where I'm reading and studying about World War II airplanes, and things for the next series, which is war. And that's how I'm processing things. And so my work is an extension of what's going on in my head. The concerns. Which is like Hogarth and Goya. I want to be a mirror to society. I want to hold it up and say, 'Look at this, guys, we could do better.' And that's sort of what my work is about. It isn't easy. I'm not making shit to match people's couches. And I realize that's a hard thing. And it turns people off! People just don't want to deal. The people just do not want to deal. And I've scared off my fair share of curators, too, which is really a lot of fun, actually. I won't name any names. But at big, big places. I've seen big places walk up to my work at the big print fairs and stuff... I know I got them on technique, but when they realize what's going on, like, when they've come face-to-face to a giant chicken woman's vagina right in their face in the dead center of a print, they kind of shake their head and run away really quickly. So I've seen that.

Miranda Metcalf  29:06

Does making work like "The Hillbilly Kama Sutra" and "The Bloody Bucket," does it ever make family reunions awkward?

Tom Huck  29:13

Well, we don't even want to talk about the family necessarily. Because - well, yeah -

Miranda Metcalf  29:18

Okay, we can edit anything you want.

Tom Huck  29:20

No, no, that's a very good question. Because my mom and dad are fantastic. They're amazing. And I don't know, my brothers and sisters, they're come-and-go with my work. They don't know for sure. But there was a point where I did a print called "The Tommy Peeperz," which Ann talked about. 

Miranda Metcalf  29:39

Yeah, there's a good story about that in there. 

Tom Huck  29:40

There's a scene in there, the first scene, is when my mom caught me looking at porn. But I also found - when I was a kid, I found my mom's personal massage devices! And there was some shit in the magazine about this. And my dad saw it, and he was like, 'Tommy, that was pretty rough.' So I felt bad about it a little bit, but it went away. It went away. But I'm just being honest, man, this is stuff I think about every day. I'm working stuff out from when I was a kid through my work.

Miranda Metcalf  30:17

Yeah. It's interesting. So when I heard you talk about that before, you know, the fact that art is a processing tool. So this idea of working things out, it actually reminded me of this moment that I think about all the time from the R. Crumb documentary, which I'm sure you've seen. It's an incredible film.

Tom Huck  30:38

I spent four days with Crumb in the south of France. 

Miranda Metcalf  30:40

Shut the front door! 

Tom Huck  30:41

Yeah, I know Crumb. I went over there as a fanboy, 10, 15 years ago. Maybe 13. I don't know, it was 2006. 16 years ago! Because I know people that know him. And there was an introduction. And I went over, and I stayed in his guesthouse for like, four days. But, okay, but that's aside. Go back [to what you were saying].

Miranda Metcalf  31:03

Off air, I want all the Crumb goss.

Tom Huck  31:05

You would not believe that week, it was unbelievable. But he was my - I wrote him a letter every - I was just that way. I've been this way since I was a kid - I wrote him a letter almost every year for, like, 10 years. From the time I was like 13.

Miranda Metcalf  31:24

Oh, my gosh! 

Tom Huck  31:24

Because on the back of the comics, they had an address. "Write to R. Crumb," or whatever. And I did, and I never heard anything back. Never. But it didn't matter. But go back to the Crumb documentary.

Miranda Metcalf  31:38

Yeah, so the Crumb documentary, which is actually filmed right before he moved to France -

Tom Huck  31:45

He did a whole thing of sketchbooks for a...

Miranda Metcalf  31:48

Like, a chateau or something? 

Tom Huck  31:49

A chateau.

Miranda Metcalf  31:50

Yeah. But it's looking back at his work. And there's a scene in it where he's being interviewed by a reporter, a female reporter, a young woman. And she kind of talks to him about how, when she was young, she found her brother's Crumb comics. And it was really disturbing to her. She got really freaked out by it. 

Tom Huck  32:14

And he's like, 'Oh, no! Oh, God!' And he starts feeling guilty.

Miranda Metcalf  32:19

Well, he says... he says something really similar to what you say. He doesn't use the words 'I'm working it out,' but he says, 'This is just me. This is what's in my head. This is what I'm putting on paper.' And he even says, like, 'Maybe I need to have my pencils taken away from me. I don't know, maybe I'm a monster, but I need to make this work. And it's out in the world.' And I've always wondered if it's possible for artists to feel kind of ambivalent in that way, or to be neutral about the reception in that way, of just being like, this is just out there. And I've washed my hands of it.

Tom Huck  32:55

I don't think you wash your hands of it. 

Miranda Metcalf  32:57

Okay. 

Tom Huck  32:58

I think you put it out there because you definitely want people to know what you're thinking. 

Miranda Metcalf  33:02

Gotcha. 

Tom Huck  33:03

You make it for yourself first, but yeah, there is consideration of the audience. But it's second. Crumb is making that work for himself first. 

Miranda Metcalf  33:15

Yeah.

Tom Huck  33:16

He is a big Thomas Nast fan, George Cruickshank fan, Bruegel, Goya, he is an offspring of that. And the girl found the work when she was young. You know what, tough shit, man. I'm sorry. You know, any kid now - even back in the '90s when that was filmed - you could turn it on, and cable TV existed, any kid can turn on the television and see murder, murder, murder, sex, sex, sex. But for some reason, when they see a drawing of something, people get really worked up over it. More so than an actual video, I think, a lot of times. Because I think people have expectations of what art should be coming into it. They think it's Looney Tunes, which I love. But Looney Tunes are fucking violent, man!

Miranda Metcalf  34:17

Yeah. Itchy and Scratchy.

Tom Huck  34:18

All of that stuff! Crumb said it best. He's like, 'They're just lines on paper, folks.' That's really what they are. They're more than that, they're way more than that, but... they really are! It's art! And I don't know what to say to that person. It's hard. I say 'Tough shit,' but then part of me, because I'm a Catholic boy, I feel guilty for him. You know. But he's being honest. And that is the highest respect that an artist can have for their audience, whatever it may be.

Miranda Metcalf  34:56

Yeah, yeah, I think there's really something to that, that idea that... I think it's a real academic expectation to sort of say, before you create anything, you need to know everything about it. Rather than, let's create it and see what I learned. 

Tom Huck  35:12

I know someone - this is recent - someone asked me a question about, 'What are you going to be working on next?' And I was like, 'Well, I'm doing a whole thing about war.' I'm going to spend probably five or six years making art about failed US military endeavors. And broader than that, too, but that's the point where I start from. And this person was like, 'Well, shouldn't you have fought in a war to be able to make art about it?' And I'm like, 'Uh, NO.'

Miranda Metcalf  35:49

Yeah, but I mean, I'm curious, though, because I think that art does have - it's powerful. 

Tom Huck  35:58

I was about to say, it's very powerful. It's very powerful.

Miranda Metcalf  36:01

It's very powerful, and so I think that there is a responsibility that artists need to take if they're... I think, yeah, if they're making things that can be, like, directly hurting someone or something -

Tom Huck  36:18

Okay, here's the thing with that, and it's a very good point. 

Miranda Metcalf  36:20

Yeah. 

Tom Huck  36:23

It becomes... that becomes the issue if they become policymakers,

Miranda Metcalf  36:30

Artists, you mean?

Tom Huck  36:31

Yes.

Miranda Metcalf  36:31

Yeah, uh-huh.

Tom Huck  36:32

If I decided to run for Congress - can you imagine such a thing out there, the Hello, Print Friend audience? - then it would matter. It's art. It's entertainment. Okay? It's a different thing. When those people are in power to actually legislate or enact change at a for-real, technical level, then I think it can be a problem. Otherwise, you get to pick and choose.

Miranda Metcalf  37:06

So I think it's a really interesting point, and I'm curious about how, then, you define art, right? Because I'm assuming there are - maybe not, but I'm assuming, in this ideology, there are - limitations, right? Like, that someone is saying something terrible, and... I don't know.

Tom Huck  37:26

When it becomes exploitative, it's not art anymore.

Miranda Metcalf  37:29

Ooh, say more about that.

Tom Huck  37:31

It's a hard thing to explain, I guess. When you are... when it's obvious that someone is cashing in at the expense of a marginalized group in some way.

Miranda Metcalf  37:44

Then it's no longer kind of protected into this ideology. 

Tom Huck  37:48

That's the way - yeah, yeah, if there's a buck being made, definitely, at the expense of... the AIDS epidemic - I mean, it could be anything - where... I mean, that's even a gray area. But that's sort of how I see it, you know. But - oh, my God, this is heavy. God, Miranda! I thought we were -

Miranda Metcalf  38:07

I'm sorry! I'm a philosopher, I have to ask!

Tom Huck  38:09

It's okay, I get it.

Miranda Metcalf  38:12

We'll tiptoe back out of this minefield that we've walked ourselves into.  So I have a question about the experience of being Tom Huck. The Tom Huck Experience, if you will. Which is that I feel like you're one of the most talked about people in the print world, your reputation precedes you, Evil Prints has a whole stature and an energy and a presence. And I guess my question is just sort of like, what is that like? Is it ever exhausting? Like, do you ever feel like you need to kind of perform? Like, 'I'm showing up for the conference, I need to bring the Evil Print energy when I show up?'

Tom Huck  38:32

Yeah. Not anymore. I don't do that. I don't like the conferences anymore. I think they've become too academic. But that's another whole - we've got to do another podcast at some point. But to [the] general question, it's a lot of work. 

Miranda Metcalf  39:07

Yeah. 

Tom Huck  39:08

And when I started this, I knew that because - so I'd come to Landfall Press. And I had become friends with Tony Fitzpatrick. And so Jack Lemmon introduced me - Jack Lemmon of Landfall, the legend - had introduced me to the legend of Tony Fitzpatrick. So we met. And I hung out in both ends. So I was hanging out at Tony's independent print shop, Big Cat Press, when I was like 24, 23. And I had made a couple of prints at Landfall, which is high-end art world print stuff. Okay? Tony's shop, every day, was a visual feast of craziness and fun and irreverence and crisis, to sell prints to pay the electric bill. And Landfall, it was the same thing, but they kept it really behind a lot of smoke and mirrors, because they are Landfall Press art world stuff. And so I learned from both of those ends. And Jack was like, 'Huck, you can do this. You just got to do it right. And you got to work your ass off. And it's very hard. But you can do this yourself.' Which is a lot coming from a master printer, print publisher, talking to somebody that's trying to do it in their garage. He saw a lot in me. And then Tony was like, 'When are you gonna stop doing that schoolboy shit? Come and get tattooed. Let's go see some strippers.' Okay? And I'm an impressionable young artist! And I had both of those worlds going at the same time, via Chicago. And I learned the art print business at that level, which is a very high end. Meanwhile, I was teaching at the same time. And it was very difficult, after a few years, trying to do both. And so once I cut the teaching out, it was even harder, because you don't have that money to fall back on that everybody is so used to, you know, in the real - in the civilian world. And so I just kind of grew into the struggle of trying to hustle your prints to live. It's very, very difficult. But it's a lot of fun too, because I get to be me. And I get to wake up in the morning every day, and I get to make prints of giant fictitious monsters. Wormadillos. And I get to make prints about the first time I saw breasts when I was 12. I get to do this for a living, and people pay me to do it, most of the time. And I'm still excited about print history.

Miranda Metcalf  42:33

Yeah. 

Tom Huck  42:33

That's what gets me up every day, and to go into the studio, is loving prints and print history so much that I want to be a part of it. And I want to be a part of that lineage. So at the end of the day, all the struggles of just trying to keep a shop alive with the ups and downs of the economy, the ups and downs of society, and all of that now going on 25 years - 26 years - whatever crazy - 27 years! Whatever craziness it's been, that's what keeps me going. What's it like to be me? It's very difficult, but it's also really stressful, it's fun, I get to hang out with the Outlaw Printmaker guys. They're my best friends. Carlos Hernandez is my best friend. John Hancock is a close second. And I talk to those guys every day. And it's a lot of fun, too. It's hard, and it's fun. I'd say it's 50/50, where it's a struggle to keep money and food on the table with your prints. But the trade off there is that you get to have a life where creatively, you're fulfilled. And a lot of times the art world can be a lot of fun. I mean, the print world especially, because it's a small group of people at the high end of things. And I'm not talking necessarily about the academic print world. That's a different world than the, like, print shops that are having to publish the latest print to keep the electric on. The latest print by the blue chippers, or whatever. It's different. But it is part of the umbrella. There's an academic part, and then there's the non-academic part. And one is more art world, and one is more academic art world. But they tend to get together every once in a while at conferences from time to time. But living in that ecosystem, if that's what you want to call it, can be really fulfilling. And me, I just was myself. I've always been myself. I like heavy metal music. I love Durer. I like drinking. And I used to like strippers a lot -  I used to! I'm better now! But I was honest about it, like Crumb. I made art about it. And that pisses people off. I'm just being myself. I'm not everybody's cup of tea, Miranda. You know? I know that. I have enough self awareness now. I used to think it was just like, 'Oh, everybody's like this.' No, they're not. You know. But it comes with a trade off. I've been divorced twice, you know. Starting to think it's me. I'm just honest. In my work, and in who I am. And prints, for me, was perfect because of the drawing aspect. But it also is a way to get my ideas out there. Like, even though I'm the first wave, first audience, it also allows you to get multiples out and affect a lot of people. And that's fun. It's fucking fun making prints, man. And there's also the community thing around a press, you know, people help each other print and all that stuff. You meet groups of people that are printing things. And the Outlaw Printmakers were, we didn't - sometimes we helped each other print. It was just - I got lucky. And I fell into a really good group of people that really helped... being able to talk to Bill Fick about, 'Oh, God, how in the world did you keep the electric on in New York selling prints?' I mean, how do you - who am - I couldn't talk to my professors about that!

Miranda Metcalf  44:58

You used to?  Yeah, it's a different world.

Tom Huck  45:37

Because they're not doing that! They're drawing their income from another entity, whereas Bill is having to send posters out to print shops to compete with the big E's and Tamarinds and all that. He's competing with them, because he figured out, 'Oh, I'm gonna send out posters for Cockeyed Press.' And I saw that when I was a student, and I was like, 'Cockeyed Press! They must be a big print place!' And I show up out there, and he's sleeping under his press in a closet on Commerce Street in New York. But there is some joy in the struggle, too. There is this weird thing where, this is part of being me, and what it's like to be me is, if you can figure out a way to get people to buy this work, there is a high that comes off of dodging the bullet of impending bankruptcy.

Miranda Metcalf  47:38

It's like the extreme sports of the art world.

Tom Huck  47:42

It's totally - totally! If you're able to pay the bills selling a print about - back to the pirate humping a woman in an outhouse with the dog humping the leg - if you can manage to figure out how to get somebody to buy that and pay a bill with it, you've won! You've fucking won, man. And that's where I am. I mean, I'm lucky. I have collectors. I have subscribers that buy one of everything I do. I have a museum archive now, the St. Louis Art Museum. They get one of everything I [make] until I die. And I'm very fortunate. But a lot of it comes from having those people like Jack Lemon and Tony, and Bill Fick, and a host of other... Ted and Maryanne Simmons, and people that saw something in me from very early on. And you know, you realize, the further you get into this, people that do this, even if you're as fortunate as I am to be able to sell to museums, and - nobody has any money. 

Miranda Metcalf  48:51

Yeah.

Tom Huck  48:51

It all goes back into the work. We just live to... the projects get bigger and more expensive. So that's what it's like. What it's like, to circle it back, what's it like to be - I hate talking about myself in the third person - what's it like to be Tom Huck? It is constant struggle between trying to be a good boy, figure out how to pay the bills, and make my art. That's what it's like. I don't... there's not anything else.

Miranda Metcalf  49:26

No more space. There's no space.

Tom Huck  49:27

There's no more space for anything else! I mean, I build my life around my art. I don't build the art around the life. 

Miranda Metcalf  49:35

Right.

Tom Huck  49:36

I don't just, 'Oh, well, I'll get into the studio this weekend and make some stuff, and then I may not get in for another two months -' No. I work every day in the studio trying to make print history. And I take it very seriously. 

Miranda Metcalf  49:49

Yeah, yeah. 

Tom Huck  49:51

So that also eases the criticism, too, because I know I can back this shit up with history. You know? Some of the darkest fucking prints that have ever been made were during the fucking plague, right? And there's a lot of sex in all those prints... it's just that we don't tend to think of it in the same realm, because they're now on museum walls with a placard by it that spells it all out. I'm sure in their day, there are plenty of people that didn't want to look at a Durer print because they couldn't deal. I'm sure.

Miranda Metcalf  50:23

Yeah. And I think, too, kind of also reflecting on what you say - some of it might just be the shock of, 'I can't deal' - but I think some of it was like, 'Well, that's not in the best of all possible tastes.' You know? Like, it just it has to do with a perceived rulebook of what is appropriate and what is not.

Tom Huck  50:42

Well, I'm gonna tell you, all the Outlaw Printmaker guys and gals, we all come from heavy metal as a background. In the late '70s and early '80s, when we were growing up. And when you are nursing at the teat of Ozzy Osbourne, you look at those album covers and that music as art. Especially with me, living in a rural area, I put it all together as art. I didn't think that it - music is art, you know? And so we all have that influence, and we didn't allow the art school over-intellectualizing grind it out of us, like a lot of people allow that to happen with themselves. You know, Joe Blow might like the Partridge Family, but once you go through art school - I don't even know if anyone out there knows who the Partridge Family is - but it's the most syrupy, unpretentious pop that you can imagine. It's like the fucking Backstreet Boys or something like that. If you allow that to be ground out of you by over intellectualizing and overthinking every single move that you make visually as an artist, you kind of become embarrassed about admitting that you like that stuff, thereby negating it as an influence. I never did that. I'm very influenced by the music of AC/DC and Motorhead and Iron Maiden, especially the art that went along with the packaging. Me and Carlos and John, we don't distinguish - and Sean and Bill too - we don't distinguish the difference between a Boris Vallejo fantasy artist painting and a Basquiat. They're both art.

Miranda Metcalf  52:27

And is this kind of like, the core, would you say, of what an Outlaw Printmaker is?

Tom Huck  52:33

It's part of it. Because we, early on - even though we didn't say, 'Oh, we are going to have a mission statement.' 

Miranda Metcalf  52:41

'We have a board, we have meetings...'

Tom Huck  52:42

Yeah, we don't have a board. We don't have meetings and stuff. We don't do that. It was like, Tony named it, and then just was like, 'I don't want anything to do with this. I'm too cool for you young nuts,' you know? And we were like, 'Yeah! Tony named it, let's go, and let's do it.' And we had a show that was called [Outlaw Printmaking] in New York. A small show in a freaking basement someplace. And it was really well attended. But I think we ended up getting together mentally, and aesthetically, and narratively a lot of times, over all of our common interests of that love for old master prints, comic books, skateboards, heavy metal music, and being a pain in the ass when you're 24, 25 years old. Now, admittedly, it was a male-dominated group of dudes. Obviously.

Miranda Metcalf  53:49

Most groups of dudes are.

Tom Huck  53:51

Yeah, that was the world... well, it was very a macho thing, it still is. But I mean, you can't let everybody in to every group! Otherwise there'd be no groups! And so, like, Katherine Polk, and Julia [Curran], and Erica Walker...

Miranda Metcalf  54:08

And Sue, yeah. 

Tom Huck  54:09

Well, Sue's not really - she's a foremother of it. 

Miranda Metcalf  54:12

Okay. Okay. 

Tom Huck  54:14

But they influenced us. Richard Mock, Sue Coe, you know, way before them, Kathe Kollwitz, and they were the influence to make emotional work. Work about social commentary and criticism and all that stuff. And so that's where it comes from, are those artists. But eventually, women came along that we were [like], 'Oh, yeah, look at that! You want to be in a show with us?' And then they kind of became part of the group. At first it wasn't. There were just not a lot of women that we could find. Because when we started, there was no Google. 

Miranda Metcalf  54:52

Right. 

Tom Huck  54:53

You couldn't just hop on Google and look up "badass women printmakers." 20 years ago, it got to you slower. And Katherine Polk, we didn't even know that she made prints for the first 10 years that we knew her! Because Andy, her husband, Andy Polk, had us all as visiting artists at the University of Arizona. And Katherine would drive us around! She was the one that took care of us and made sure we were eating! And she's awesome. And then like, years and years go by, and then I saw a Katherine Polk print. I was like, 'That's not the same person! Could it be?' She wasn't broadcasting it everywhere. So these things got to us in a slower way. You know? So that's how that... but yeah, we all bonded over stuff that functioned, pretty much, outside of academic aesthetics. And things that were looked at as populous, a little bit, you know? It's, 'Oh, well, it's too of the people, it's not... oh, we can't sit and look at a HR Giger painting and really assign too much to it. Because the public loves it. So it can't be good.' That elitism. We're against that. We're very much against the elitist art stuff. Even though you're selling to museums and stuff. I mean, yeah, I realize it's a weird thing. But the initial impetus of doing Outlaw Printmakers, and that kind of thing, was an alternative lifestyle that was outside of academia. And not academic prints, which, when we came out, we were really... trying to bring it back to what we loved about prints, which [was] social commentary and criticism, and crazy imagery, and Hogarth and Durer and Posada. And also, you throw in the skateboard stuff with it, the skateboard graphics by Pushead and on and on and on. And Joe Putana did the Motorhead album covers. And all that wrapped up in heavy metal music, old master prints, and fantasy art, whatever you want to call it, that's it. And the lifestyle of kind of not giving a fuck. But you do - 

Miranda Metcalf  57:14

You're giving some fucks, though! 

Tom Huck  57:16

You give a fuck about the art. You don't give a fuck about whether or not, necessarily, when you're young, whether you're going to be able to pay the rent on time. 

Miranda Metcalf  57:22

Right, yeah. 

Tom Huck  57:23

Which you end up doing. Somehow. I always felt that if you're in it for the right reasons, and you're doing it from your heart, and you're doing it from your soul, the bigger stuff tends to work itself out. 

Miranda Metcalf  57:36

I love that. 

Tom Huck  57:37

And more often than not, there have been times where I am in the studio and - I can give you an exact [story of] what it's like. This is a good - to keep going on it, if that's okay - what it's like to be me. Okay. There was a time when my studio assistant, Travis Lawrence - he's fantastic. He was my assistant for years - and we were sitting there in the studio at Evil Prints. And I was literally [saying], 'They shutting the power off in the morning. Okay? I haven't made a car payment in two months. They're going to come and get my car. We don't have any paper. We don't have enough ink to do this block that I just finished. Delilah, my daughter, needs shoes for school.' This is all in one morning! And Travis is like, 'We're fucked, man!' And I'm like, 'I know we are, Travis! I don't know what I'm going to do.' So I needed a certain amount of money to just pay the rent of the studio. And across the street from the studio was a gas station, a little Shell station, had an ATM in it. And I thought, okay. If I go over there - I got like $35 in the bank right now, in the Evil Prints account - I know it'll let me overdraw. 

Miranda Metcalf  59:03

Yeah. 

Tom Huck  59:04

I went across the street. I go, 'Travis, I'm gonna go do it. I can maybe pay part of the rent and part of the electric.' So I went over across the street. It let me take out $800.

Miranda Metcalf  59:14

That's a pretty good overdraft.

Tom Huck  59:16

I - oh, I know! And I kinda - this was another good thing, because I knew that station, whatever brand of ATM, it was something to do with that. And I drew out $800. So I was overdrawn. And you had to make multiple withdrawals.

Miranda Metcalf  59:31

Oh, gotcha. So it's $35 every time. 

Tom Huck  59:32

So it's $35, so it's really gonna be $1,100, probably. That I knew, okay, I'm just putting the money down to gamble here. I drew out the money, I went over and I went to the post office, I got a money order to pay the rent, and then I somehow paid the electric in person, and I went back to the studio, and I told Travis what I did. I was like, 'Man, I don't know how we're gonna get through this. We live another month. Evil Prints lives another month.' That's in the morning. Okay? Still didn't have the money for Delilah's shoes. Still didn't have the money for the ink or the paper. But at least the doors are open. And maybe somebody will come in and buy a print in a couple of weeks. Maybe.

Miranda Metcalf  1:00:20

Yeah.

Tom Huck  1:00:23

So I went back to my work area. It was now one o'clock. I went and checked my email. And I got an email from the Janet Turner Print Museum. 

Miranda Metcalf  1:00:36

I love them. Yeah. 

Tom Huck  1:00:38

At Chico. And they, somehow, "The Transformation of Brandy Baghead" was named their print purchase of the fucking year! And they're like, 'Do you have any left?' I'm like, 'Fuck yeah, I got 'em left.' And they're like, 'Where can we wire the money? How much is it?' And I was like, '12 grand, man.' And the next day, there's 12 grand in the Evil Prints bank account. Well, actually, $11,000. Or $10,900.

Miranda Metcalf  1:00:38

Right, because of the overdraft! 

Tom Huck  1:01:07

Right! And it's still like that, to this day. 

Miranda Metcalf  1:01:13

Yeah, yeah.

Tom Huck  1:01:15

It has not changed. It's just the paychecks are bigger, and the bills are bigger. And there are not a lot of people, and I understand, that can do it like that. And live their creative life like that. But I'm in this for the long haul. And I'm going down with the ship. Because I made that decision a long time ago, without knowing that was the decision I made, there was some instinctive thing that knew that this is what it is. It's a warrior-for-art life. And I take that very seriously. And that's why I am who I am. And so all the criticism that's leveled at you... I'm playing a long term game here. I'm playing a history game. I'm not playing it, 'Oh, God... somebody shit on me in the New York Times because they don't like the print that I did about a hillbilly sex position.' I'm not in it for that, man. I'm in this for the history of it. And I'm in it for my heroes. And I'm in it to make prints that my heroes aren't allowed to make, aren't able to make now. I'm their voice, and doing it and carrying it on, and then maybe 150 years from now, some kid will come along and find one of my prints and that'll make them want to make those kinds of prints. That say something. And aren't just [showing] up in a flea market because they match someone's couch. You know, that's what I'm in this for. I'm in it for the history. And when you're in it for the history, you don't think about things that civilians worry about, like, 'Oh god, how am I gonna...' you know, 'I need a new car. I gotta have the newest car that's out. I'm gonna have a truck that's worth more than my fucking house.' We don't think like that! That's not even in the realm. It's, 'How am I going to be able to make this print, to buy a can of ink, or buy that paper, or fund my next project so that I can make the stuff that's going on in my mind?' See, that's where I'm at. That's where I exist, and all my friends are that way too. The good ones, the good artists. That's where all the good ones are. And the stuff that I like to look at. And that's where my heroes were, I'm sure of it. So does that explain it?

Miranda Metcalf  1:03:42

I feel like that is the perfect note to wrap up on. I love the, like, Tom is going down with the ship.

Tom Huck  1:03:51

That's all you got? Can we be friends now?

Miranda Metcalf  1:03:55

Can we be friends?

Tom Huck  1:03:56

We'll be friends now. We're okay.

Miranda Metcalf  1:03:58

Yay!

Tom Huck  1:03:58

I had to have my ego stroked somehow. You can explain to people in the future why I didn't want to come on.

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:06

Wait, can you -

Tom Huck  1:04:08

Make some shit up!

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:09

Oh, okay!

Tom Huck  1:04:09

When in doubt, print the myth, man. I'm all about drama. Especially in print world circles, because this stuff gets so blown up and overblown. I kind of like some of that, because it keeps things interesting.

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:29

You're a mixer, yeah! Well, I think we can officially draw the curtain on the long standing feud... 

Tom Huck  1:04:36

That's the way to do it. There's a feud. 

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:37

There's been a feud. We've been the Hatfields and the McCoys of the print world. 

Tom Huck  1:04:41

Exactly. An unspoken feud.

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:44

Yes. 

Tom Huck  1:04:44

I don't know.

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:45

I don't even know. You know, we can say that there's peace in the valley again. You no longer have to choose between Tom Huck and Hello, Print Friend in your Christmas card list.

Tom Huck  1:04:55

That's right. But my friends - who you know some of - did think it was kind of cool that I said no the first time. And now it's like, 'Okay, all right. Who paid you, tough dude? You caved!'

Miranda Metcalf  1:05:11

Wait, why did they think it was cool? Just because it was like, 'I don't need that publicity?' 

Tom Huck  1:05:15

Yeah! 

Miranda Metcalf  1:05:17

Like Hollywood! You were too Hollywood for Hello, Print Friend.

Tom Huck  1:05:20

Right, right. I was just really worried that there was too much out there coming out at one time. That's really what it was. People are gonna get tired of, 'Oh, fuck, Huck's on everything now.' You know? 'Okay, he's full of himself. I don't need to hear this story again.'

Miranda Metcalf  1:05:34

Wait, did Ann ask you before me? Or did you pick Ann over me?

Tom Huck  1:05:39

No, Ann asked me a long time ago. That thing was recorded a year ago. 

Miranda Metcalf  1:05:45

Oh, really? 

Tom Huck  1:05:46

Because they did it way in advance, and then I think there were some issues - there probably were COVID issues - it was in everything. And... yeah, that was a long time ago. And it didn't come out for seven months after that was recorded

Miranda Metcalf  1:05:50

Oh, gotcha. Okay.

Tom Huck  1:06:01

But I think it's cool that you're back with Ann - you two are kinda talking about each other. I think that's great! I think it's cool. And I was actually taken aback by that. Because naturally, I assume that everybody's warring. 

Miranda Metcalf  1:06:16

Wait, really? You thought I'd be like -

Tom Huck  1:06:19

I don't know! Like, you know, Landfall hates Crownpoint, or Bud Shark hates Tandem. I know it's not that way...

Miranda Metcalf  1:06:32

That's so funny.

Tom Huck  1:06:32

But you kind of imagine, like I said, the myth.

Miranda Metcalf  1:06:36

Yeah, yeah. 

Tom Huck  1:06:37

The competitive myth.

Miranda Metcalf  1:06:38

See, I just, I can't do that. I just make myself sick, you know?

Tom Huck  1:06:43

I know, but see, I get some of that - now, he'll hate this - but I get some of that from Tony, too. Because Tony and I have a little competition, although he would never admit it. Tony and I have a little competition going because... he's my big brother. He really is. And there's that, like, 'Okay, Tom... whatever. Whatever, Huck. Calm down. This isn't that exciting, come on,' you know?

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:04

Yeah. Like a big brother does, yeah.

Tom Huck  1:07:06

Totally! Like, 'Calm down, I've seen all this,' you know? But he's awesome. And I love him, so.

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:13

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think this is gonna be a really fun episode. And just, yeah, thanks for taking time out.

Tom Huck  1:07:22

Hey, it's fine. It's great. I've enjoyed it a lot. And it helped that we were both in the same town at the same time.

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:29

Yeah. It worked out. That can be your excuse. When your cool boys are like, 'Tom!' You can be like, 'Well, she, like, cornered me...'

Tom Huck  1:07:36

The cool boys. Carlos would be like, 'What happened, Huck? What happened?' I'm gonna lie and say you paid me. 'She gave me tons of money, Carlos!' ...'Well, I want that treatment, too!'

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:50

From the deep pockets of the Hello, Print Friend account.

Tom Huck  1:07:54

The deep pockets of the Hello, Print Friend bank account. Which, you're probably doing the same thing, going and overdrawing the account so that you can keep the...

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:58

Well, that's why I knew that $800 was a good deal!

Tom Huck  1:08:00

It's a good deal. 

Miranda Metcalf  1:08:01

It's a good deal! 

Tom Huck  1:08:02

I don't think they do that anymore, but... I did. 

Miranda Metcalf  1:08:05

Yeah. 

Tom Huck  1:08:06

All right. Very nice. Thanks for having me.

Miranda Metcalf  1:08:10

Thanks, Tom. If you liked today's episode, we have a Patreon where you can help us keep the lights on and get bonus content, like Shoptalk Shorts, where our editor Timothy Pauszek digs deep on materials, processes, and techniques with past guests. Also, if monetary support isn't in the cards right now, you can leave a review for us on your podcast listening app of choice, or buy something from one of our great sponsors and tell them Hello, Print Friend sent you. But as always, the very best thing you can do to support this podcast is by listening and sharing with your fellow print friends around the world. And that's our show for this week, and the end of Outlaw October! Join me again next week, when my guest will be Juana Estrada Hernandez. We talk about her practice exploring the immigrant experience and border politics, her incredible story of going to art school, her newly minted MFA, and her life as a DACA recipient. You won't want to miss it. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing by Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you next week.