Marlon Brando via Caracas, Barcelona, and London…Catching up with Harald Meyer-Delius

Harald Meyer-Delius’ Printsome blog post suggesting my paintings might look good on t-shirts caused a ripple effect of paranoia from LA to London, and had my publisher scrambling for advice on international copyright laws, as I tried to envision, “You Have Been Disconnected” (my tribute to Alain Delon and Anton Newcombe) on a v-neck, while wondering whether Printsome was part of some art forgery ring. 

It all got pretty exciting, but then I remembered I’m an existentialist, so I decided to let actions speak louder than words and reached out to Printsome’s ambitious blogger to find out just exactly what he had in mind for the cast of characters in my noir paintings…knowing how much they prefer enigmatic to emblematic.

Not really to my surprise I discovered Printsome is a completely legit UK apparel company and art blog based in London and run by a very cool group of designers, writers, and forward thinkers, including their talented arts writer and subject of this post. Misunderstandings now passé, Harald and I decided it would be fun to interview each other.

What follows is my conversation with him about things like reincarnation, Marlon Brando, and Fight Club, obviously. So will some of my paintings ever become prêt-à-porter? To quote Chuck Palahniuk, “Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart!”

HMD: In a way they’re encouraging it because it gives us extra tools to work with, but at the same time it gives people the opportunity to skip the pen (or pencil) and paper and go straight to the computer. I think one should always sketch first on paper and then take that to the technology. Creativity flows better that way - I think so, at least. 

HMD: I don’t travel as much as I would like. Since I only write one piece per week for Printsome’s blog, I freelance from Barcelona. How did I end up there? Well, Ed (Printsome’s CEO) and I go way back, but we had lost touch. Then one day, out of the blue, he called me and asked me if I wanted to work with him. That was it.  

HMD: My dreams influence me a lot, actually. I always like to draw and write what I dream about. It has given me a lot of ideas over the years. In the end we really don’t know what’s “real” - the life we experience when we’re awake or the one we experience when we’re asleep, so I listen to both of them. 

Do I believe in reincarnation? Sort of. I believe that souls behave in a similar way to the cycle of water. Like snowflakes, souls are unique and when they melt (when we die) they mix with the other melted snowflakes to create a big mass of water and then a cloud, to later turn into other unique snowflakes. So basically, is a cycle that never ends.  

HMD: People in our 20’s tend to try and figure out who we are and what we like, so we tend to end up wearing a mix of different trends that kind of reflects what’s going on inside. Some like to think that what they’re doing is new, but in reality, like that quote from Fight Club, everything is a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. (I’m paraphrasing). Designers and magazines like to say otherwise, but nothing is new.  

HMD: I think it is necessary for me to stick to something. I don’t like the feeling of floating around with no clear path, but at the same time I’m in a moment in my life where I’m trying to figure out who I am and I understand that that doesn’t happen overnight (at least for me). I believe that what I enjoy doing the most is writing. I have all the tools to create books (I know of editorial design, I illustrate and I write) so hopefully I’d like to do that in the future. In the meantime, I’m working as a graphic designer during the day and as a writer/blogger during my spare times. 

HMD: I guess that something that I do that could be considered “OCD” is that I need a clean space in order to work. I’ve gone as far as to clean my entire apartment just to be able to sit down and work. Other than that, I need it to be quiet and to be alone, but that’s about it. 

HMD: I’ve never thought about it to be honest. I guess I would have to say Marlon Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Just the thought of him in that tight t-shirt is enough to makes my ears hot.