Interview: Ash Beyer

(November 2021)

I like the bendy way Ash draws legs (reminds me a little of those inflatable dancing figures outside second-hand car dealerships), but also love Ash's work in Loose Ideas, an indie magazine tackling subjects as broad as how to be less of an asshole and lockdown photo essays.

I’m a freelance visual artist and storyteller, with most of my creative energy going toward editorial illustration, documentary photography and magazine production, although I dabble in rustic animation techniques and video production as much as I’m able to. I really like making maps of my travels, creating vibrant illustrations and shooting 35mm film on the point-and-shoot camera that’s just about always in my shirt pocket.

I recently finished up an illustration for a feminist magazine back in the US, so that was pretty cool. It’s a publication that’s been around for a while that I’d read as a young college me, so making art for them as an adult was a really neat experience. I’ve got a great illustration series in the works for a super cool Latvian publication that I am really excited to work on, so I’ve been enjoying the early phases of planning that one. I started independently learning to tattoo last year, so I’ve been preparing to spend a little more time on that now that it seems the sun has left us indefinitely. It’s a really humbling experience, designing a piece for someone to have with them for the rest of their life. It’s also another iron in my fire as a visual artist, which always help the whole survival thing.

I’m a bit of a loner and don’t know anyone here in Berlin, so I’ll work mostly on myself and my partner this winter and build up some kind of portfolio in the process. It’s always fun to emerge from the cold season and be like “whoa! I forgot I got all these tattoos, guess it’s time for shorts!” Heh, heh heh. I also just started planning Loose Ideas #3, which will be released sometime in the spring. I have a ton of fun with the magazine, and once I get started it kind of feels like nonstop birthdays because I’m creating this tangible collection of my own work, driven by my own interests, for fun. I’ve got about 15 rolls of film to get developed for this issue, and I’ll make a bunch of illustration work for it, put together some Berlin-centric features to make up for the lack of travel content, and I think I’ll get a bit experimental with the design and typefaces this time around. I’m super stoked. This is probably the thing I’ve enjoyed working on the most lately. I learn so much with each issue and it adds a good amount of non-client work to my portfolio. 

If you could have a magical power, what would it be?
It would definitely be to flip a switch in my brain and be able to speak whatever language is necessary to chat with anyone, anywhere. Maybe including dogs. I’d say cats too, but we know how they are. Runner up answer would be having the ability to turn concrete into wildflower prairie or grasslands or something. I am completely exhausted by city life, coming from about eight years in Chicago and now living in Berlin, and all I want to do is sit next to a wood burning stove on some irrationally fluffy rug, look out the cabin window and say something like “looks like we’re getting snowed in today” to all my pets while knowing I have absolutely nothing taking me out of the house until several days from now.

I love telling stories, whether it’s a comic, a photo series or a full-on written bit, and I often combine these art forms to do a bit of “sensory storytelling.” This came in handy last year when my obsession with print media boiled over and I started publishing Loose Ideas, an independent paper magazine about art, life and the in-betweens. I’ll be spending the next year focusing on those three big boys (illustration, photo, magazine), but I’m hoping 2022 throws me an opportunity to paint a mural somewhere (public or private!), design some really experimental infographics and make a slew of custom animated GIFs for someone to use on their social media or whatever. We’ll see how that pans out.

Is there a particular tool you like to work with a lot?
Sigh… I have to say Photoshop. The most uncool answer! A lot of my work begins as frantic scribbles in impractical sizes on scratch paper which I’ll put into Photoshop and then build out from there, even sometimes remaking a decent physical piece of work into a digital version. As embarrassing as this is, I was still using whatever Adobe CS came out in 2006 up until last year. It’d stopped updating like ten years ago, the interface was super wonky, and half the tools no longer worked properly. I had this big list of commands, tools and buttons I couldn’t use or the program would crash.

I don’t know how I made it work for so long, but I did. Then one day the brush tool stopped working and basically rendered the entire program unusable, so I had to give in and subscribe. I use Photoshop and InDesign almost daily, and the difference between those programs now, all smart and efficient and far more compact than ever before, it’s like night and day. It really made me realize my time is maybe a little more valuable than I sometimes let myself believe it is, and that it’s okay to invest in yourself, your art, your freelance business once in a while. To anyone who received a file from me in the last 15 years and did not ask why it was an outdated format, thank you, and I’m sorry / not sorry.