take us with you!
for this month’s colectivo futurist feature we’ve chosen paul windle. the Texas born and bred is a recent graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington, with a BFA in printmaking and graphic design. paul’s style comes from finding inspiration in his friends who also make things, oddities sprawled across the city he lives in, as well as vivid childhood interests, i.e. 60′s/70′s era baseball, dinosaurs, and drifters. also, paul has been spending a lot of time and effort in his latest endeavor, winners! press: a collaboration between a group of friends focused on hosting art-making events and workshops centered on the fun of making things with others, with an emphasis on limited runs of zines.
PAUL WINDLE (illustrator, Arlington, Texas)
*who is paul windle? why did you choose printmaking and graphic design as a degree?
I just turned 23 yesterday! I’m from Arlington, Texas, I recently graduated from UT Arlington and I run Winners! Press a small zine publishing collective with my friends Spencer and Whitney. I started out as just a graphic design student but I began taking printmaking classes and really got into it. It had me thinking differently. I felt like printmaking was helping my design skills and vice versa so I just ended up doing both. Plus printmaking offered a lot more standing and walking around than graphic design did and I can’t sit still for long.
* where do you normally draw inspiration from? is there much of an arts scene in your current town?
I draw a lot of inspiration from my friends, things that I think are funny, things that happen to me, people I see, childhood memories… I recently broke my clavicle so I’ve been drawing a lot of dudes in slings.
There’s a small but growing arts scene in Arlington. I think a lot of it comes from the school. Even though Arlington’s just a suburb, it seems to breed creative people. While growing up it seemed like all my friends were making art, in bands, shooting movies, or skateboarding. There just isn’t a whole lot to do so you kind of have to make your own fun.
* tell us about your recently founded Winners! Press collective. what sort of projects are you working on?
Whitney, Spencer and I had been doing some collaborative work like making screenprints and zines together so we just decided to come up with a name for it. Then we started hosting workshops and other events just as a way to get more people involved. Basically we started it because we like hanging out, meeting new people and making stuff.
Right now we’re working on a collaborative zine, with several people, called “Winners Losing” it’s the sequel to our last zine “Winners Winning” and we’re also preparing for our zine workshop tour, Zinescapes, which we were fortunate enough to receive a grant through UT Arlington to fund our trip up the west coast. We’ll be doing workshops starting in Arlington then on to Albuquerque, LA, and SF. We’ll also be at the Renegade craft fair in SF on August 1st! If you go, come say hi! We don’t have a booth but maybe there are nametags. If there aren’t nametags we’ll be wearing a red dress with a flower in our hair sitting on a bench, waiting patiently for you…
* if you could soundtrack your work, what would you choose?
It would start out with a few Jana Hunter songs, which ones I’m not sure, after that Peeps by TacocaT, then I’d sprinkle in and an episode or two of This American Life followed by the entire E.T. soundtrack and I’d end it with Hooka Tooka Soda Cracker, the Judy Henske version but everyone I know would be singing along.
* what is your favorite thing about living in Arlington?
I have a lot of friends here. I also like spotting people who have the city of Arlington logo tattooed on them, and it’s easier to spot those people here.
* tell us about your future plans? what sort of projects would you like to find yourself entangled with?
Well, I have a doctor appointment this Friday other than that I’m not completely sure. I’m not really good at coming up with future plans. Does that make me a bad colectivo futurist?
I’d like to be doing even more collaborative stuff with friends. I guess just more of the same stuff just on a grander scale.
