https://floundersd.wixsite.com/littlemag/muen-luen-kir-sa

DF - Whats your name

K - Mün Lün Kir Sa

DF - How old are you?

K - I'm 24 and sometimes I think I'm 25.

DF - Where you from?

K - I've always lived in suburban houses in New Jersey for long periods of time.

DF - How long have you been making art?

K - I'd been playing with crayons since I was small. I was around music a lot then too. I didn't really have the ability to “freely” create, like inside my head. With art I got to this point where I didn't really like anything that I was making. My parents paid for and sent me to art classes, I drew still-lifes and was slightly into manga and DIY trading cards. Even in high school I had the dexterity to draw and was the token “art kid” in class, but I didn't really know what to draw.

DF - So you had a hard time creating?

K - I had no inspiration, direction, or ability to generate things from nothing. I would say around age 19 or 20 I began to gain abilities and interests. If I think back over my life as a whole, this also coincides with myself finally diving down the rabbit hole of mortality and getting to know death.

DF - Why have you found yourself with so many different mediums?

K - I think this spawns from never wanting to spend money on things, usually out of necessity or maybe because it just makes more sense. The idea of going out and buying art supplies is ludicrous to me, though I understand why people do it. I love free things too, and through the years many of my gracious friends have known this and donated things to me, and I keep everything. So whatever formal-looking art I do make is more of a coincidence of me happening to have the supplies. If I was smart I would sell the supplies and make art for free or out of supplies that have no monetary value--but I still have some deep-seated sentimentality to “real” art supplies.

DF - What things inspire you to create these types of art?

K - I get a lot of ideas that come to me, I try to write them down in lists. I think there are overarching basic themes too like spirituality, metaphysics, Internet culture, Fortean and other high strangeness topics. I used to not get any ideas, but now I have an abundance. I'm not sure if all of them are good, and I suspect I have the tendency to act on everything I can foresee as being possible to execute.

DF - Do you think anything from your childhood took you into this direction of artwork?

K - Usually I feel like I'm breaking out of my childhood. Besides having trouble with school it was a very idyllic time. Transforming into an adult brought many more interesting or scary questions and paths. That being said, I do have a few reoccurring motifs that connect back to when I was small. I use these cherished things very sparingly and keep them well hidden.

DF - Any big art shows coming up for yourself?

K - I wish, I'm awful at badgering places to let me show. I'd rather be asked, but I know that's not a plausible reality. Shows have been affecting me in a bad way recently. Things just seem empty--when I show my own work, when other people show their work. I'm beginning to think that the visual art “game”, as in big time NYC galleries, is all just a strange money game.. That the contemporary visual art isn't even being made to say something new. Also, a lot of things have been "said", and even if you do something new, no one will notice because there's too much and there's no way to keep track of it all.

DF - How did that one art show go in New Jersey? It looked really cool wish I could have made it out there.

K - It was ok! No one came and nothing has sold BUT I had a really good conversation with the other person I split-showed with and their friend who came by coincidentally. I visited the friend of the artist the other day with my partner and “hung out” like normal people seem to do.

DF - Taking a Hard left… Why have you decided to create a youtube channel?

K - I've had that channel (4biddenvids) for a while. I used to post digicam skateboard edits on it when I was younger. In the past few years I've uploaded some other themed content to it as well. Last year I was given an old Windows Lumia 920 that could handle movie editing, so I was taking that with me when I went out and making mini video experiences. Recently I've been making a live painting show on the channel.

DF - My personal favorite to watch is Kir Paints Pitchers.

K - How do you go about creating these “podcasts” I guess I’ll call it? That show started off as me trying my hand at YouTube. I can talk to myself for long amounts of time, and I can make a picture from nothing or from pre-existing images easily. I combined that with a LGBTQ+ slant as well. Maybe a few months before I started KPP I got really interested in topics around queerness, and I let myself dig into some stuff around my own gender and sexuality that were deeply compressed and hidden. So with that process of discovering wonderful labels and online community, I realized that
1. As a nonbinary/gender non-conforming person, there are very few down to earth artists/musicians/creators to look up to.
2. A queer artist YouTuber making live digital paintings surely isn't a thing, yet.
So again, it was one of these ideas that my brain proposed to me and I had to at least try.

DF - Anything else on your YouTube you think people should go watch?

K - There's a lot on there. I'm not sure if anyone saw this but 4 months ago I posted a video giving the key to my writing system. I don't fully explain it out, more just show it and go through each sound-to-character relation. I know it probably seems like a replacement cipher, but it's more than that--it’s all meticulously crafted and balanced.

DF - How do you keep yourself posting even if you aren't seeing the biggest return on investment?

K - With YouTube, that's a great question. I used to see possibility of monetization, but recently YT changed their policy on that and it seems utterly hopeless. I also get a creeping suspicion that they repress anything related to LBGTQ+ topics. Kir Paints Pitchers used to be a routine, but I took a break for January. I made a whole new format for the program with three different rotating themes and better features. I think I'll pick it back up again soon, but I'm not sure. It’s not even that I’ll never get paid for it, I’ve gotten like three peoples feedback after 30 15-30 minute episodes. I’m sure small YouTubers do that all the time, and it’d be dumb of me to complain about it, but I honestly can’t discern whether it’s worth my time or not.

DF - Anything you doing on the side?

K - Currently instead of filming more, I’m finishing up a fiction book I started writing last year. It's been weighing on me and I just want to release it, record an audiobook, and be done with it. It's another instance of feeling guilty for wasting so much energy on things that will yield nothing (or maybe they’ll yield everything, it’s literally the lottery.) It's all even more frustrating because I genuinely enjoy making a show like KPP or writing this book, or anything that I actually want to do.

DF - Anything you want to say to the 2 people probably reading this?

K - Haha, two people, I think we might be on a similar wavelength. I want to give encouragement to people who are fans of art and music to get into that local pocket more. Not even just geographically either. I feel like a local Internet is a thing, like the tribe of people you really enjoy following. Support the artists, musicians, writers, and curators there, be a part of that scene whether it’s IRL or virtual.

DF - What do you think about consumer culture?

K - Consumer culture has always been this thing where the famous people making content are way at the top, unreachable and possibly manufactured/goaded on by suits. But now, especially with such a freedom and connectivity that the Internet and open-source software has provided, we have the ability to be our own creators for free with varying levels of visibility. In this new reality, money is still real, vocal validation is still real, sharing is still real--just as it is/was for the possibly antiquated model of celebrities being nation-wide god figures collecting big checks. I am clearly a little too biased and embarrassingly distressed, but I think it makes sense that supporting your creative friends is a much better option than supporting artists who have basically transformed into large brands, dishing out art to fans that isn’t even made by them. That’s an age old theme and point of contention, but I feel like the rise of small scenes actually provides an answer.

DF - Any shameless plugs you want to give?

K - I recently remade my website and made many different past projects available for stream or download. Basically that’s my hub and everything else branches out. I’ll leave a few links for anyone interested:

special-rutaba.ga
4biddentunes.bandcamp.com
4biddenvids on YouTube
@specialrutabaga on instagram
patreon.com/specialrutabaga

Thanks Little Art Mag!

https://thefivewsof.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/coral-florist/

5W: WHO is he?

“I’m Jon Prokopowitz, and I’m a musician and artist from northern New Jersey. I started playing bass as a teenager, and since then have picked up many more instruments. I’ve always greatly enjoyed listening to music and seeking out things that I like. I get inspired from what I hear, as well as ideas about what I’d like to hear.”

5W: WHAT is his creative process like?

“For myself creating in a more pop-oriented format, I utilize my brain’s ‘fill in’ function for many things. I record all the non-vocal instrumentation first, and then move on to figuring out the melody and words. Even in the beginning stages of a song, I’ll hum the parts into a voice recorder- usually pulling the notes out of the ether and then revising them. I’m just using pareidolia in small layers to come to a seemingly original point. I feel especially when doing this in a pop format however, I’m just building on the years and years of music and melodies stored in my brain and mashing bits and pieces together subconsciously.”

5W: WHERE is he based? “I still live in the home I grew up in. It’s in a fairly suburban but also sort of woodsy area. I don’t like venturing out too far a lot, I’m kind of an introverted person in that sense. I think having a specific place to call home has given me a nest to stash all my resources that I can use for artistic purposes.”

“To be honest, I’m not really sure what the music scene is like around me. I’m certain that directly locally there isn’t very much, I haven’t met too many artists that come from and enjoy working here. That being said, I am close to New York City, but the stress and intense vibe levels of going in aren’t worth it for me. I’ll tag along with friends when they go, but I’ve never sought out going to the city before like some of my friends have.”

5W: WHY is he called Coral Florist?

“I think like any artist who has a large number of projects, I keep lists of good names. I believe I had just the word “Coral” written down as an inspiration point, and I searched for a back end to the name. It’s a sort of zany name when you think about it too much.”

5W: WHEN can I see him live?

“I’m not sure if I’ve ever been comfortable performing. Even if it’s telling the guy at the gas station what to do (We can’t pump our own gas in NJ), I’ll rehearse it in my head beforehand and still say something funny. That’s why I like being a visual artist as well, I can show my work and it is how it is, there’s almost no chances of messing it up when showing. I suppose I have fear of messing up, haha (FOMU).”

“In terms of music I’m a perfectionist, I want my music to sound exactly how I imagine it. Because I have really big ideas for composing, I love the way I can sit down and work on a song for hours, building it up in layers and really sculpting it into something I think sounds good.”

“For myself right now, I imagine playing live would be full of compromise and anxiety. Also, everything for me is by ear, I can’t read music even if it’s just chord letters. For me it comes down to the question, “Can I jam?”. I can jam along on bass, and hence I’ve played live many times along with a band. Keyboard though, which is really the crux of this music, is still very un-jammable for me.”

I don’t really write with the intent of playing it live, I write it for the sake of creating something I want to manifest from my head and into the real world.

HOW can I get to know him better? Listen & Read: Bandcamp // Lyrics Like & Follow: Facebook // Instagram

Listen to Coral Florist’s latest release entitled Zodiac Time here.

https://lofimx.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/interview-to-coral-florist/

(Lost to the internet, it's not evey on WayBack Machine. If you have a copy please send!)

http://softhoagierolls.tumblr.com/post/119286442625

1. NAME AND LOCATION-

My name is Jonathan Prokopowitz and I’m from Ringwood, New Jersey.

2. FAVORITE PIGMENT-

In terms of pigments as medium, I enjoy working with whatever is on hand. This includes wet pigments like paint and ink, dry pigments like pencil and crayon, virtual pigments on a computer, and prefabricated pigments like paper or thread. In terms of pigment as color tone, I enjoy hues between the colors pink and orange. Blues are also very nice.

3. WHATS YOUR DRIVE -

I think my drive comes from a fear of the future and of death. I don’t have too much money, and even though I don’t mind that, it’s very necessary for being a self sustaining person. Being only able to afford gas drives me. Also puns. People getting excited about things I make is really cool too.

4. WHO DOES IT RIGHT- Ray Johnson, Mogu Takahashi, Joe Rogers (Colourbox), Jean Michel Basquiat, Booger Brie, Clay Hickson (Tan & Loose), Misaki Kawai, Ben Jones & Paperrad, Kendra Yee, Chris Milic, Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, Emmi Riikka, and most of all my talented friends like Brian Cordes, Summer Arnold (summerbat2026), Juno Zago, Klando, and Morgan Boucher. There’s so many good ones I probably forgot.

5. FAVORITE ALBUMS-

It’s tough to find music in long album format that is all top notch. Here are some favorites. TOPS - Tender Opposites, Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing, Ariel Pink - Pom Pom, Steely Dan - Aja, Donald Fagen - Nightfly, Kero Kero Bonito - Intro Bonito, Virtual Kiosk - Contemporary Saporo, James Ferraro - Nightdolls and Hairspray, there’s more of course.

6. IS TRAVELING NECESSARY- I think traveling is good for hands on inspiration and experience. It’s good to be exposed to places, cultures, and ideologies other than your own. That being said, travel is quite expensive and makes me nervous. Traveling makes great memories, but it’s not something I seek out all the time.

7. SELF DOUBT-

I have a lot of self doubt about selling work. I think I just don’t usually show to a buying audience. Work piles up because I constantly have to make something better than the last thing I’ve made. I don’t think I give much thought to this, but I’m ok with spending hours working on stuff and getting no compensation for it. People’s excitement is always the best payment, but sometimes no one ever sees/hears/experiences things I make. I think I’m content with just having made and released those things, it’s weird to think about though. image

8. BEST AREA TO CREATE-

Any place can be a space to make things. I think once you make a bunch of things in one space then that becomes the best. For me it’s my bedroom, which makes it terrible to actually live in. I think having a big studio would be really weird, probably much better.

9. 10 YEAR GOAL-

Over the past years I’ve put a lot of effort into getting good grades in school. I live with my parents, so graduation next year will be a period of transition. I want to be a responsible functioning adult who’s independent. I don’t want to be seen as lazy. The future is really strange to think about, but I have great friends to travel through it with.

10. THANKS/ SHOUT OUTS -

There are so many cool people. I give much thanks to everyone who is interesting in things I make. To my wonderful friends that I get to spend this lifetime with. To anybody making interesting creations, I say please stay inspired and never ever stop.

Website: Jonprokopowitz.com

Blog: Fengshuifriends.tumblr.com

All my musical projects: http://moneyhouseblessings.bandcamp.com/

I made a radio show for a year: http://badplantzine.tumblr.com/tagged/radio

Subscribe to my weekly email club &heart; fengshuifriends.tumblr.com/emailclub

Thanks be unto Soft Hoagie Rolls!

http://half-gifts.blogspot.com/2014/12/jon-prokopowitz-interview.html

JN - Your bandcamp page, "Money House Blessings" is home to many releases under different names. Can you tell us a little about your music and your different projects? How did you get started?

So I've been fixated with the ease of home recording and music making since high school. Even though I didn't realize it then, the internet coupled with open source and stock recording software has made it wildly simpler to create and distribute music for free. Now the concept of owning a label doesn't necessarily mean you mail out CDs or tapes, it could be just a collective of artists on a bandcamp page. That's a bit what I was aiming for with MHB, but at first I was thinking of having other people be a part of it. Now it's ended up as a sort of faux record label- bar one of the projects on the "2k14 Mixtape" called N@ Geo (some tracks my dude Carson made), the rest is all of my doing. The reason it does sound like a fake record label is because the sounds vary greatly from project to project. I can put a lot of hours and time into a project like Coral Florist, or I can make long mix tapes of reworkings of bad pop songs like the Dusk .FM series. That option to create something from scratch or to play with something I find is freeing. Plus there's no money involved, so I can make whatever I want.

JN - In addition to the label, you also run a webstore called BADPLANT. Can you tell us about that?

Yes! As well as making music I also make a lot of art and I skateboard. A few years ago I was on blogspot with a site called The Jersey Deli, it was all photos and posts about skateboarding around my area in North Jersey. It had fizzled out a little bit, but soon I got heavy into zines. One of the first ones I made was called Badplant, and it's a skateboarding/diy/art project in an 8 page zine. At this time tumblr became a thing, so I made badplantzine.tumblr.com. Eventually I wanted an online marketplace to put up things me and friends were selling, so I made badplant.storenvy.com. All of it's about having fun and getting stoked.

JN - What other zines are you into?

I wish my collection was bigger, but I do have some favorites. Booger Brie makes amazing drawings and has a bunch of zines out, Later Dudes and all the hamburger eyes stuff, Fun Fun Fun skate zine is rad, Karate Foot, Skate Jawn's a good local skate zine from the tri state area. My friends have made some amazing one-offs- Pizza Party by Brian Cordes, Maris by Carson Cooper, and some fun skate and music related ones by Euan Lynn. And duh Half-Gifts.

JN - You covered an Ariel Pink track for the Half-Gifts Halloween Compilation. Why did you choose that song to cover? What other bands are you into?

Yeah dude, I love Ariel Pink. In that same vein I can get into people like R. Stevie Moore or Martin Newell, there's something about a good pop structured song that isn't recorded in a professional studio, and is self aware that it's a pop song.
As far as other music, it's always tough. I've been doing an online radio show for the past 30 weeks, so I'm constantly sniffing out new stuff. I do have all time favorite groups and people I've really dug into over the years, but it's just the tip of the iceberg as far as the amazing things that floats around out there. So some newer music, TOPS, Punks on Mars Ariel Pink, Chairlift, Yeasayer, Neon Indian, Mac DeMarco, Gang Gang Dance, James Ferraro, Sam Mehran and Outer Limits Recordings, Software Blonde and Adeodat Warfield, Sun Araw, Tallest Man On Earth, Thievery Corporation, Zonotope… Then there's older stuff like Steely Dan and all Donald Fagen's music, DEVO, Cleaners From Venus, MF Doom, Talking Heads, Spike, Zappa, Pat Methany, Wu, The Rippingtons, Värttinä, and for some reason I really like Fleetwood Mac. Some of those groups I feel like almost every thing they've made is spot on, which is rare.

JN - Awesome, digging that list! What other stuff are you into besides music and skating?

I create a lot of things, like art wise. I like painting and drawing, I screen print on skateboards, sculpting's really fun. I post all that on my main site jonprokopowitz.com. Other things I'm into, I like learning about what other people have gathered about the unseen nature of this place. People could label it paranormal, but the nature and possibilities of dimensions and planes, and what people have found about energy and techniques like meditation or lucid dreaming. Condensing it further, ideas about life, death, and creation. I think it's good to think about these things, what makes sense and what doesn't. I'm not saying the internet has the answer to everything, but it does creates a peer-review system where evidence in favor or against these controversial topics is readily available. I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there, but gradually people are starting to learn and focus on the right things in life. It all starts with questioning and conducting thought experiments. We just gotta get that spark to want to know what's going on and what's actually important.

JN - Your bandcamp makes reference to Pajama Sam and Lego Island. What are some of your favorite old-school PC games?

Yes! We have the funniest connection with that. So I grew up in a time where a home PC was beginning to become a standard thing, so naturally I got games and played them often. Through my grade school and library I was introduced to stuff like the jumpstart educational series, the Magic Schoolbus games, Kidpix, Mavis Beacon Typing games, Math Blaster, etc. I also had fun games like you said, Pajama Sam, Lego Island, Lego Racers 2, so many pinball games, Extremely Goofy Skateboarding, among others… I think one of my favorite I got free with a box of cereal- Dirt Track Racing Sprint Cars. That was my favorite game because the in game physics weren't exactly right, so you could race the track backwards and try to slam a car, but if you did it right your car would launch spinning high into the air. That was really fun to me, I don't know why. It's funny how those crappy weird environments from the games get stuck in your head though. I don't play any video games now, so those fake experiences are still stuck in my memory. Especially with beautifully bizarre games like pajama sam, the feeling of being in the game is what lasts. It's like reading a book, but not really.