The Liminal Artist: The Many Lives and Works of Val Emmich

Photo by Andrew Holtz

Val Emmich will not be put in a box. His most recent novel, The Reminders, which will be available in paperback later this month, weaves a tale of healing and a search for understanding through the eyes and mind of a girl with infallible memory. It’s now available in paperback. If you haven’t read Val’s prose, you’ve likely seen him on shows such as 30 Rock, Ugly Betty and Vinyl. Val is also a musical force, creating songs that get their hooks in you and hit hard with their immediacy.

Since hearing Val’s indie rock powerhouse Sunlight Searchparty in 2006, I’ve been blown away by his ability to convey the human experience in seemingly whatever form he wanted. What follows is a window into his methods, philosophy and process.

Modern artists seem to be encouraged, whether it’s consciously or unconsciously, to pick an art form and stick to it. As a musician, actor, and writer, what has driven you to work across so many forms?

I felt that same pressure to pick a lane for most of my career. But at some point, I had to accept reality: I do lots of different things. So be it. When I was only focusing on a music career (which I attempted first, before the acting and writing), it was taboo to be anything other than a musician. Being an actor? Forget it. That was career suicide. No one felt you had integrity as a musician if you were an actor. This was the Nineties. Things are a lot different now. No one cares. For me, it wasn't calculated. I fell into acting while attending college and I had some early luck and was able to pay my bills by landing commercials. Then I caught the bug and wanted to take the craft more seriously. Writing fiction was always something I wanted to try but it was more of a distant, dormant desire--until it wasn't. There's a pressure in our society, not just in art, to be one thing. A teacher. A lawyer. I'm a hyphenated person. I am many things. I'm interested in many different areas and I'm really lucky that I've been able to explore a few of those as careers.

What did it take for you, emotionally and mentally, to part ways with Epic and step out on your own as an independent musician? What did that feel like? How has it informed the rest of your career in not just music, but everything else?

I was heartbroken when my contract with Epic went sour. I mean, honestly, I was damaged. I received a phone call from my manager who told me that after I had just spent the last six months writing songs with hitmakers around the country--something I didn't want to do but which ended up being a great learning experience--and after wasting tens of thousands of dollars on travel and recording and audience testing, the president of the company believed that I still didn't have a "hit" and I should write more. I got that call and I burst into tears. I had been pushed so far from who I thought I was, and for what? I played their game and it led me nowhere. I was so angry, I begged my lawyer to get me off the label. I still had an album I owed them, but my lawyer negotiated it so they had to pay me to leave. It was a real bright side to the nightmare. I took the money and I made the album Sunlight Searchparty, which was for me a statement record. I needed to make that album probably more than any other album I've ever made. Maybe Aide Memoire comes in second in that regard. Just making art in a specific way because it felt true to my heart. I've done it that way ever since but the urgency I felt back then after failing on a major...it felt like life or death. Ever since then I've pretty much been left to make art on my own terms. It's good and bad. I still have regret. My dream as a teenager was to be playing my songs in stadiums. I thought signing to a major would bring me one step closer, but obviously, in the scheme of things, I never really got anywhere close to realizing that dream. Those days still haunt me.

What did your writing process look like for The Reminders? What does it look like for a song? Do the two inform each other? Is your acting background in the mix, too?

With songwriting, I'm not very disciplined. I don't usually sit down with the express intention of writing a song. Rather, songs just come out of me when they're ready to come out. I can go months without writing a single song and then write five in a day. It's that unpredictable. It doesn't have to be that way, but I've found that the best songs come out when I don't force them. But you can't do that with something like a novel. You can't just sit around and wait for the muse to come. You'll never finish. There's a saying among writers: Put your butt in the seat. When I was writing my novel, I had to treat it like a job. I had to force myself to sit down and work, even when I wasn't in the mood. Because I was responsible for a young child when I began writing the book, I'd have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to write before she awoke each day. I needed those few hours to myself, just creating, so that I could deal with being a father for the rest of the day.

One of my main characters is an actor and the other is a songwriter. Plus, much of the book has to do with writing a song, so I definitely used what I know for the story. I had written two previous books that didn't ever see the light of day and I think part of the reason why they didn't work was because I was shying away from aspects of my own life. With The Reminders, I used parts of my reality. It seemed to work.

I suspect, like most artists, you've had to cope with failure and rejection. How have you done it? What works for you? And how has failure influenced you as an artist?

I touched on this in one of my earlier answers. It's weird for me. I'm pretty traumatized by failure and yet I don't let it slow me down. I go on auditions for acting all the time and 99% of the time I get rejected. It's a terrible feeling every single time. But I keep going and I keep trying to come up with new ways of failing. In fact, that exact feeling is what inspired a song I wrote called "Resume" from the album, Looking For A Feeling You Never Knew You Needed. Tangent, sorry. Anyway, sometimes I think I'm really pathetic for not quitting long ago. I want to be the best, and when that's your goal, failure is almost a mathematical certainty. Only one of us gets to be the best at any one thing and many times "the best" is a subjective determination. But I know that failure is part of any success story. I try to remind myself of that when I'm feeling optimistic. And I also remind myself that success is a word with varied definitions.

What is your biggest fear as an artist, or biggest vulnerability?

I'm still susceptible to what other people think of me and my art. I think that's a real vulnerability: caring what others think. At the same time, though, I think that helps me make art that hopefully speaks to people. I'm aware of an audience. I want it to be a conversation between me and them and not just me talking to myself. I guess my biggest fear is being ignored. I'm not sure, though. I have many fears.

You can only take one book, one record, one movie, and one guitar (and amp, if it's electric) to a desert island (that apparently has electricity). What are they and why have you selected them?

I'm not good at these types of questions. To make it easier, I randomly picked a year (1997) and limited my answers to releases from that year. For my book, I'll take Don DeLillo's Underworld; it's a long one and will keep me plenty busy. I'll bring Boogie Nights to watch; Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers and that movie just keeps on giving. For my record, Radiohead's OK Computer came to mind first, but I'm going to leave that one home. I'll need something to lift my spirits so I'm going with Pavement's Brighten The Corners. Guitar? Doesn't matter. Something that can hopefully withstand the elements.

The Latest from Val Emmich

• Read: The Reminders

• Read: Dear Evan Hansen

• Listen: Autobio Part Two

The Alchemical Sculptor: Adam Capone's Approach and Vision

Adam Capone is a sculptor living and working in Lambertville, N.J. Where the rest of the world sees trash, Capone sees potential. He shapes what is unwanted into pieces that teem with surrealistic life. What follows are his thoughts on the artistic process, the potential of what we discard and working through self-doubt. You can see Capone's latest exhibition starting April 7 at Sidetracks Art in New Hope, Pa.

Tell me about your process. How do you take an idea and transform it into a sculpture or a piece of furniture?

 A sculpture starts with collecting materials at flea markets, junk stores, garbage piles, yard sales, etc. I collect broken antique furniture. The stuff that restorers see no hope for. I'm looking for hardwoods mostly, things with interesting contours, textures and colors. Then I take them to my shop and dissect them, sometimes methodically, sometimes with a pickaxe or a sledgehammer. Then I organize the parts according to shape and scale. Once they're deconstructed like this, for me, they become just raw material, like lumps of clay or a sack of concrete. The next part is the real fun. I basically dump out a bunch of material on my bench and start trying to find ways that these disparate parts can align to start implying a greater form. So, a door rosette attached awkwardly to the weathered claw foot of a mid-century table can start to look like the face of an owl , a goddess or a psychotic elf. Once I see a form emerging the process becomes a series of  physics/aesthetic puzzles to solve. The problem is that I have to make this phoenix, or this giant elephant head and I have to do it with this pile of discarded material and it has to stand or hang with structural integrity. So I go about solving the physics puzzle within the confines of a particular aesthetic. With the re-purposed furniture I make the process and materials are similar but I have to also consider the clients requests. This takes more time.

I have no artistic knowledge or skill, but I've always thought sculpture was the most difficult form because it's more taking away than adding on -- revealing what's within. What does sculpture do for you, creatively? What's so difficult about it? What's so rewarding?

I have always recognized that I have a compulsion, good or bad, to take objects and/or images apart and make something new out of them. I'm not pleasant when I don't do enough of it and I feel content when I do a lot of it.  For me the reward is in the magic of it. I don't plan out imagery or any element of a sculpture. The magic lies in setting my ego aside, becoming a passenger and seeing what will emerge from the material marriages, from the universe. When a face appears or a chair arm starts to become a bird wing it is a surprise to me every time. The second reward comes from watching other people find the images,  objects and other surprises in my work. When somebody sees something novel, sees some small part of the world (even just furniture parts or a rusty hinge) as different or potentially more that feels like I'm not wasting my time. I think that is my job as an artist -- to help people see the world differently.  Honestly the difficult part of being a sculptor is in life balance, because this life doesn't make sense. It's certainly not logical. The hard part is getting the world around you to accept that you are just gonna go ahead and not live conventionally, that all your clothes will have stains, you'll be lost in thought and you will almost always skip a party for studio time.

I've noticed you work a lot with wood. Why wood? What's the appeal?

Old furniture and weathered lumber was the stuff that I grew up immersed in. I grew up in New Hampshire in an old colonial era house, my parents were antique dealers. All this stuff I sculpt with now was everywhere that I looked as a kid. Things were always being fixed and rearranged. In New Hampshire we forested and split our own firewood. Wood has always been familiar to me. I like how wood breaks, sounds and grows. I get lost in the images hidden in wood grain.  Wood can be manipulated perfectly. It can become steel or water or wool, if you know how to play with it. Of all the materials, for me , it is the most alchemical. Some people can transmutate paint or stone. My friend Scott Riether can do it with light through a camera lenses.  I cant do that.

Tell me about a time you most doubted yourself as an artist. How did you get past it? How did you find a way to make a living doing what you do?

The most doubt I ever had was my first semester in graduate school. They showed us our studios, gave us huge reading lists and said "OK smartypants, what brilliant thing are you gonna make," or at least it felt that way at the time. Create content to be publicly critiqued by a panel of grizzled U of C professors -- a daunting task.  "What the HELL do I have to say?"  was my inner panic-mantra. The answer was and always is to just start.  You can't get stuck on doubt. Being an artist is a process of doubt.  "Does this communicate what I think it does? Why am I making this? Why did I make this?  Should I bother dragging this discarded chair back to the studio? Where should this be placed? Is that red enough? Should I burn it or paint it?" I doubt everything from material collection to exhibition. Of course there is also the doubt that you'll be able to make your student loan payment if you are an artist.  I'm not sure it's  a  matter of making a living as much as it is living with what you make.   I have to wear a lot of hats to make it work. I have a part time job building homes with Habitat for Humanity, make commissioned  furniture , sell sculpture through galleries, help other artists with their installations, etc. People hire me for all sorts of creative carpentry solutions. I'm always working but, I really do find meaning in every job I have and if sculpture-time has to happen at ungodly hours then it does. It often does. I live simply and drive an old truck.

However, if I'm giving out advice based on life experience I would say that the best hacks to living comfortably as an artist are to marry somebody with a degree outside of the humanities & more earning potential than yourself. Move to an artistic town and happen to have generous siblings, neighbors and friends that buy your art. It takes a village.

You and I train Jiu Jitsu together. How, if at all, does that inform your process as an artist? Does it help with creativity?

Jiu jitsu is the perfect supplement for making sculpture. I found this to be especially true after getting accustom to training early in the morning* on some of days that I dedicate long hours in the studio. It's almost like taking a magic pill that clears all the B.S. out of my head and so I create with less doubt or tension. In that way I think it facilitates the aha moments for me in the studio. Jiu jitsu is also great cardio for sculpture. I lack the discipline to exercise unless somebody is trying to strangle me.

 Jiu jitsu  absolutely helps expand creativity. Both are creative processes that contain limitless amounts of  problems and solutions so you exercise allot of the same mental muscles, have the same mental practice as a goal. When you are a student and you see the work of a Jiu jitsu master like Marcelo or a master sculptor like Brancusi you can see that they've really found the "flow state" in their process. Their work doesn't just synthesize the fundamentals to an artful level. Masters expand the Art and their process becomes their language. Masters can find that Zen state, open up to all possibilities and their honest, informed and experienced reactions don't have to be calculated just released. It's beautiful to see when somebody is that good. Students of both arts have these experiences in small doses. When muscle memory leads you through a guard pass or when you have an "aha moment" making sculpture. These are very similar rewards. Most of the time I'm on the receiving end of somebody else's jiu jitsu "aha moment," but it's all fun for me.

*PBJJ 630am Tuesday and Thursday. Be there.

Do you ever feel blocked, creatively? How do you deal with it?

I haven't felt blocked creatively since my panic early in grad school. This is because I've gotten totally comfortable with failure and I dropped the silly notion that sculpture can't be whimsical at least in part. My materials are all recycled and recyclable. So there is also this built-in "smash it and start over" button in my process. Some of the sculptures that work best for me came from failing at another sculpture and hitting that button. Also, like I said, I wear a lot of hats so I always have a wide variety of projects on my bench. If a sculpture is being obstinate I move on to something that can be accomplished and I then return to the problem with a different perspective. More than being creatively blocked I feel blocked by not having enough time or space to make all the sculptures.

Ripoff question 1: What's something unconventional or unpopular that you believe is true?

I believe it is entirely possible that we are living in a computer simulation.

Ripoff question 2: You can put a billboard in Times Square. It can say anything you want. What does it say?

This would be a job for a poet, not a sculptor. I would quote my brother, poet/philosopher/rapper M.C.Capone.

The only rules I follow
are beautifully written love letters in
an ocean bound bottle,
signed, 'Know thyself.'

--M.C.Capone

Write, and edit, like a sculptor.

I lack the motor skills required to be an artist. So I'm in awe of anyone -- artists and musicians -- and their creations. Sure, I play a little guitar. But who doesn't? To me, a guitar is just a G-chord machine.

Sculptors especially impress me. As a teen, I was fortunate enough to go to Italy and see Florence. One of the most vivid memories of the trip was seeing Michelangelo's David. I don't know anything about art, or sculpture, but there's something appealing about the workman-like nature of the form. Hammers. Chisels. Blow torches. Take a perfectly good piece of material and find the gem that's hidden inside it. The paradox of creation through destruction.

That's what struck me about the sculpture. Michelangelo chipped away everything that wasn't David.

That's a lot like editing. John McPhee wrote this fantastic article for The New Yorker two years ago about the agony of writing, and the satisfaction of editing. Like Michelangelo, he describes the process of taking away everything that isn't the story, and how the drafts progress from intolerable, to just plain bad, to OK, to maybe good. Leave the last part up to the reader.

I make a living editing. When I write, it's hard to get the editor out of my head. But like McPhee, writing is the hardest part. Getting that first draft out of me requires some procedures outlawed under the Geneva Conventions. The workmanship, and the fun, comes in the editing process.