ALL OUT IN THE OPEN – My life as fairytale means – when I look at my drawings and writings, they were always meant to happen
I am starting to see a pattern against comparative thought, I am starting to see a pattern in circles around the neighbourhood, becoming a Star in my head
If I look at my notes and see something I don’t remember, no idea where it came from but I can’t judge it too harshly, it can emerge as something new
Insists on the blue notebook – capturing extreme emotional states on the blue notebook page
My drawings and writings happen After the storm
Using pop culture and music to the advantage of the artwork because letters in caps pop to the eye
After each line of my poems I imagine a head turn – It counts both as recharge for the next line and a much-needed travel back in time in order to restore
Star turn Star turn for many tales of stars under the sun
I champion the raw, the half-made
If I think every word is worthy then it is – openly betting to the word that dazzles, refusing to polish, keeping the mistakes in…
Playing not only with memory, but with screens, headphones, visions, sends signals, allowing you to be
Taking pride in your work in the moment means that it will expand and tons more will come
After a while, a while after the creation, the drawing and writing, they feel like they were always meant to happen
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My drawings and writings will be unearthed – I look at them as placeholder until true release, action comes – movement towards my dreams so they have open ended quality. You can for sure see yourself in them, it is not hope but I am sure they feel like mirror or secretly transmit ideas so you free yourself. The rough edges of the drawings end up in right looking whole final image so I know I am free. Not long after I complete the drawing without prior thought automatic style it feels like it was always meant to happen. I put it away, hide it and I unearth it months, even years later – when I do I don’t remember how it looks or when I did it. It is born again, like every time you place it somewhere or you look – so I am free
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All Out in the Open @ Sweat Drenched Press
Excerpts from All Out in the Open
Awful mirage
I wrote you a letter in italics, so I am able to go on with my life
I carry your letter in my pocket, I show it to every one I cross paths with
I don’t see you as towering figure anymore so I am free
I can do it I can do it
Drawing against comparing yourself to others
and others between them
Stars – seems like I’m going places
No ear pieces
go up in ears
before we meet
so don’t be cruel
don’t kill my spirit
Missing drawing called SKIN DEEP
My face finally relaxed after years of doing spins
Ode to my rosy cheeks
A Conversation with Charalampos Tzanakis
Zak: For many years you have referred to your book as being witchy, special, and iconographic, which seems rather extreme, when it is coming from the author themselves. You are often heralding it as iconic, and creating a fantastical myth around your images and drawings; is this fantasy being made into reality? Or is it a new mode of creative extrapolation and identity?
Charalampos: The method of creation I followed came completely naturally, as I was coming up with lines doing purposeful thankless walks. At the same time, I did automatic drawings, so I hide them and unearth them a long time after.
This was very exciting to me, and it became clear to me that thing I say, “they were always meant to happen”.
It truly felt that way as I was looking at them, like I had visions of them years ago and that they are fated. The words you say are rather extreme, but they describe states of mind that have to do with the creation of the book which is so open and freeing.
I like to do experiments like visualising the reader choosing their favourite drawing, so a light appears to me, and I know what they like for example, and sending energies to the artwork that are not always visible there. Sometimes I like to send energies that are not mine either, guessing other’s feelings and having fun with the creation process in so many ways.
Zak: You seem to have an almost obsessive and impulsive need to screenshot and photograph your artwork/to carry across your images via digital platforms, that they are often blurred, and raw in their execution and delivery. Why is this/what does it achieve for you and your audience?
Charalampos: I am obsessed with pictures I take with my phone, and I use them to go back in time and explore stuff. Also I am even more obsessed with repetition, I used to repost selfies of mine and different pictures of the same drawing many times over so they stick to the eye, transform, revel in the sight of them again and again so there is possibility that you see it in your dreams, work as portal to you or remember it exactly like an afterimage works when you close your eyes. This raw way of creation is very inspiring to me like I feel I can do this book over and over with different material. My latest catch phrase is “I preserve my selfies, I preserve my T-shirts, I go back to this day like every day is the same and open a thread to now”.
Zak: You are very much a fantasist, aren’t you? Do you think this is dangerous for an artist or further fuel?
Charalampos: I definitely feel the danger, but then the sweet feeling of creation comes, and everything is fine. When I feel uninspired or dragged down by real world BS or the downsizing effect of words, a new idea is so exciting and comes out of nowhere. I see no stop or end in the creation process, and I am in such beginning stages as artist. I am excited for the future and fight every day for myself to be free and create. Also, one of the best things is that what I see as result be it words or image is something I did not think I could come up with. It makes me not only curious about its source but eternally excited for pure creation.
Zak: Are you a fan of the work of Andre Breton? His work with automatic drawing must have had some influence on you. For myself, my friend, your work is very similar to Jean Cocteau’s sketches/doodles/drawings. Is he an inspiration as well, or am I making comparisons when there are none there to connect your work with/to?
Charalampos: Yes, I like their work and the other people you told me. Cocteau’s name which made me happy. Sometimes people see people’s influence in your work that you would not think of but after they say it you see it, something that I find very freeing and true to the soul of free expression and connections among artists. I like to see things from other’s eyes, and I am curious to do it. I feel so many artists have similar imprint yet completely unique. These things are fascinating. Right before I started as hypnotised the adventurous creation of what ended up being this book, I was reading about artist Unica Zürn and reading the biography of Marjorie Cameron, so they definitely had influence on me.
Zak: Putting this project together was pure chaos. Pure and utter chaos. Do you think the witchy vibes have anything to do with this? Is there a cosmic, mystical, spiritual side to everything you do as a writer/photographer/artist/individual?
Charalampos: I definitely see not only the beauty in this chaos you say but the spiritual aspect. I find signs every day like butterflies, hearts, cards, letters, stars, and they send energies to the artwork. But for me this all is pain tinged because yes it informs the artwork, but I see a thankless nontangible element that troubles me.
I say all the time the phrase “Signs without outcome.”
I see the outcome on the page, but I need more. It is a constant chase, and I can’t sit still.
Zak: As Dennis Cooper is kindly hosting us on his blogspace, a place where many sensational artists and writers and creators are featured and referred to, I really wanted to use this opportunity to, not to encourage a public brown nose session over DC, but to allow you to express what DC meant/means to you, and specifically his blogspace. As I know you are quite fond of him, his work and everything he does.
Charalampos: I remember discovering Dennis work when I was growing up as young boy in Crete. I felt intrigued to the max but afraid to go near the books. Also, I knew that I would do it later. Everything about his work spoke to me and I don’t talk cynical here.
It was always unexpected and adventurous going from the one sentence to the next and from the one book to the other. The film Like Cattle Towards Glow, that Dennis did with Zac Farley was big inspiration to me for the creation of this book.
In a very hard period for me because as I have said I was in creative block for many, many years while I was living in grim Athens, I saw this film and I felt seen an allowed to create outside of the pressures of boring real world and culture I am used to. Going back to his books is always a trip and after I read them all I started coming up with lines instead of reciting full unrealised novels of mine in my sleep, that I would forget as I opened my eyes.
Zak: You have a very wide range of tastes and interests, and appreciation of all artforms; what is your favourite medium, and which is one you have yet to play around in/with?
Charalampos: This question makes me go back to the fantasy world you talked about earlier as in my mind the one time I am a pop star, the other a painter, next I do novels and films too and I become an actor, all of that.
I transform around all these all day long so thankfully some real material comes out of this madness. But I say to myself why can’t I do all that in the real? It’s possible. I am used to a culture that limits your spirit and shouts at you to speak but when you do tells you to shut it. So, the fantasy world is what you have, and art is connected to that, it is what I used to return to every day to take care of my spirit and now that I can express myself it’s even better to devour art. I am in very early stages, so the answer is so many, I dream to try many things. This book as I see it like the hidden track zero before the album starts or a sendoff to youth or as me posing as brooding artist churning lines or being the pop star, I could never become is maybe a good start.
Zak: Do you think that you should spend less time thinking, dreaming, and maybe more time in trying to attain those roles? Or are you already?
Charalampos: It’s hard for me to define a line between dreaming and doing as I live in my own world with bubbles popping over my head. I believe I did a start creating out of thin air, but I dream to do so much more. I say the phrase “There is always time.”
I still don’t know how to attain these things like with order and stuff so it’s always a wild trip. I hope things resolve and my deep desires come true with time.
Zak: Do you have any other projects you’re working on now? You recently have been helping me out as a voice actor for my feature film SHEET, which I think you absolutely lend a great mysterious aura to, and the powerful readings lend the whole feature an emotive core; do you want to get into performing; whether as an actor or reading your work live to an audience?
Charalampos: I am thinking of doing a whole book with drawing over prints of pictures like the ones I did that went to Feral Dove feature with captions under and new poems.
I daydream all day long about possible books and I will do them all with grace and time.
I loved doing the voice for your film, I could not wait to do the next reading. I think I have so much within me, and I would love chasing roles in the real.
Theatre I am afraid to it, a bit, but film definitely, as I am film maniac.
I do so many transformations inside my head shifting roles with each step of my feet and doing drawn out monologues and head turns with expression and stuff.
I feel like these things happening hidden is good thing.
I am fascinated by things earth shattering to you but never captured by cameras or someone else.
I am not ready to give up everything, I am very interested in what I feel as true spirit of creation, which is not very conventional, not very expected.
So, I go with wild instincts.
Zak: Why did you want to publish your debut collection with Sweat Drenched Press?
Charalampos: This book is definitely atypical and contains experiments. It felt like a great fit to me. Doing a chapter for your anthology Darling Delinquents had me very happy as it was the very first credit of me as writer, I saw printed. So, from then on, I daydreamed about doing book with you, but I didn’t have the book. The creation process here was very wild and it’s just amazing to me it all ended up going in one book.
Zak: You mentioned walking, and I too walk a lot, and often get inspired when active. Has this always been the case, pertaining to inspiring random verses of prose and visions? What else gets the creative id flowing?
Charalampos: I used to walk so many hours that my shoes would melt. All of that while sweating and my head doing crazy connections and associative thoughts, talking inside my head, overthinking, or getting visions. I like doing purposeful routes so I do an obscure experiment that would later scare me that it would be lost in time, like the Divination game that tells me the truth.
These things scare me a bit now and I still do them. I love things like taking what I call portal pictures, doing experiments that will never be captured by anyone and then translating them into artwork raw art style.
I just always do all that but crave for more, I rarely feel content or satisfied really, maybe sometimes when I see artwork published feels like that but other than that I live in this state of exploration, crave, and need for desire, all out in the open style.
Zak: You have a very obsessive way of working, thinking, and communicating with me.
Like an overfilled cup, deliberately spilt everywhere. A chaotic energy and nervousness.
Though you are extremely free in that sense/in the sense that you personify a very scatological individual, and express as you feel you must/need to, but when it comes to your prose, that mania and that obsessiveness is honed into a very defined, specific, structural formalism; a tidiness that is lent to your prose and image. Is this part of your personality or something you wear like a mask, to get you into the artistic headspace?
Because I believe though you are open, free – there is a wall, an almost block between you and reality, and it really intrigues me. Do you wear a mask or is that just an aura I have created or defined for you by myself?
Charalampos: I am intrigued by the way you see me, and this question got me in my head. Growing up in such a culture like Greece it’s so much he said, she said, that if you are rebel sometimes like me, one way I could deal with all that is transforming around what the other person thinks or feels, or going with the wind of current affairs around, instead of solid plans or whatever.
I don’t wear masks in cynical way as I like to think I would not do calculated things like that, and I am just being myself but… I play with masks as constant transformation like doing a circle around myself churning lines like bam bam and creating a much-needed protective veil for me.
I can say that I am very pleased if that you describe expresses itself.
All that literal madness expressing itself through an icy poem with high emotions in harder lines, sounds amazing to me. I only respond to lines and ideas that come out of me that feel exciting, true to the feeling, get me hot as I say.
I am excited as we talk. There is no intended formalism like academic style, it’s all feeling but ending up in an icy poem with high emotions makes me so happy.
I dream to do tons of poems, tons of books.
Zak: When your physical copies of All Out in the Open arrive, how are you going to celebrate?
Charalampos: I feel like taking pictures of them and sending them to people I want to see the books just to share the good news… Showing them to my mom is pretty big. I daydream about that stuff, so I open a thread from this question to the moment the books arrive to my house, I do it now, it’s done. I will probably celebrate doing a little party with my dog Ireli and post pictures of us and the books on Instagram.
The Mind of Charalampos excretes his influences between each line and each drawing… here is an assemblage of links, film stills, and lists of said influences.
THE PORTALS
Inspirations:
Like cattle towards glow by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley
Wormwood Star The Magical Life of Marjorie Cameron by Spencer Kansa
Artwork is by me, (Charalampos) picture is from the film LIFESPAN (1975)
Picture of actress Tina Aumont –
Charalampos: I mingled my (his) tale and her tale for my poem Awful mirage
One of the mysterious findings
Charalampos: I wanted to put one picture related to Rose king
I use heavily rose motif
The Wormwood Star by Curtis Harrington
Louis Janmot – Fleur des champs (1845)
Charalampos: I used to look at it every day throughout the creation of the book.
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p.s. Hey. Today the blog reconfigures its main space into an entranceway to help the first book by poet, artist, and distinguished local Charalampos Tzanakis crack open the real world, courtesy of publishing’s wildest press, Sweat Drenched. I hope you’ll peruse the display and consider plunking down to get this highly original tome in your homes. Thank you, and many thanks to Charalampos and SDP for choosing this door. ** Ferdinand, Hey. That video was amazing! Great work, sir. Really boggling in the best way. Kudos, kudos. Yes, today and tomorrow we’re fashioning a trailer with an outsider editor’s help. There’s not much out there about our new film yet, but there will be ere too long. ** ellie, Hi! Yes, opportunities galore, and hopefully we’ll max them out. GB is pretty amazing, one of the best galleries out there, I think. They show a lot of my favorite artists. I live two blocks from Paris’s gold standard park, the Tuileries. So I’m lucky, for sure. NYC’s parks are especially jewel-like somehow. I guess because of how they’re so boxed in. Excitement and terror in combo can be so creatively lucrative. Or, well, I’ve found them so. I would definitely like to see that once it’s on YouTube, and your input is, of course, a big draw. One’s person’s annoying is another person’s hooray, mine in this case, I bet. ** _Black_Acrylic, The paranormal, old school style, is very primed for a big comeback. Someone just has to figure out how to spookify TikTok. ** Misanthrope, It snowed here last night while I was zzz’ing, so I have to remember to walk like Frankenstein today. My leg thing is a nerve thing, like a pinched nerve or something. It mostly hurts when I’m sitting like I am right now, and like I will be all day in an editing studio today. When I walk it feels fairly normal. Probably going to have to break down and go the chiropractor route, but I’m remain stubborn so far. Thanks for the curative thoughts, man. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Mr. Edwards, yes, that would be one very interesting conversation. Me? If I’m going to be honest I’m also going to be totally predictable and make that call to George Miles. I don’t know what Palaye Royale looks like, but, hm, maybe I’ll just look at some photos and skip the vids? Love teaching me how to give myself a perfect haircut or even a half-decent one, G. ** Steve Erickson, I think that innocent paranormal stuff is going to make a big comeback. I feel it in my bones. I think we’re ripe. I was a college dj in 1975, and actually that’s when it started getting interesting again. ‘Horses’ came out then, and ‘Little Johnny Jewel’, and some other punk-predicting stuff, and there was still some late glam/prog weirdness going on. I remember it being not too bad. Cool about the remix. I’ve only listened to your EP once so far, but I’m really intrigued by it, and I looking forward to ‘spinning’ it further hopefully this weekend. Everyone, Steve Erickson shares a cool find. Him: ‘I keep meaning to post this hysterical Christian rock video I discovered recently, Lust Control’s “The Big M”. When I first watched it, I thought it was a comedy sketch. The fact it’s not just makes it funnier. My leg is a mixture of seeming to be getting better then backpedaling. Exercise (walking) is good. Sitting is not. Thanks! ** Mark, Hm, my guess is they’re intimidated? Silverlake used to be a gar bar beehive. I never really did the bar scene other than hustlers bars, which I liked hanging out in because the vibes were so fraught and organised at the same time. LA had maybe six fun/weird ones, all goners now. I do miss them. ** Uday, No, on NC? There used to be a really good indie rock scene centered there, and I think my impression is still colored by that a bit. Kentucky had good caves. That’s all I remember about it. No, your approach to books makes total sense. I agree. I guess if one collects books planning to sell them in rare book contexts, that would be the only argument for using preservatives. But, yes, sexier, wow, it’s true. ** Gee, Hi. No, I don’t believe it. I’m a very practical guy about stuff. My leg thing is a pinched nerve. I’m pretty sure. The cold isn’t at fault, but it doesn’t make things easier. Hm, I think I know what kind of poets you seek. If I wasn’t in a rush to get to the editing studio this morning, I’d sort some prospects out of my memory. You’ll find them. New poem, yay! My poem soon: double yay! xo. ** Right. Please give your full attention to the book up there that’s being proferred to you, and I will see you tomorrow.
!!! ** Gee, Cheers. Yay about the weird poem’s near birth, or probably even birth by now. Oh, you know, I think I can handle whatever weirdness you manifest. My leg is a little better, but it’s still threatening to re-explode, so I’m being very cautious. I haven’t read the Spicer book yet. There are so many great poets out there. What kind of poet are you craving? xoxo ** Uday, Hi. Oh, yeah, I’m very attentive to words. Not when I talk aloud very much, or not enough, but when I read and write, I get microscopic sometimes. I’ve never been to North Carolina. I was in Kentucky once, but that’s as close as I got. Wait, so Buddy Holly didn’t have his glasses on the plane even though he was … I forget … just post- or pre-concert? So strange. I think I only inscribed books when I was pretty young and didn’t yet have the respect for the book I did later. It seems kind of sweet in theory, but also kind of an encroachment, on the book but also on the recipient. I don’t know. Do you ever wrap your books in plastic to protect the jackets? I used to, and I do always like it when you find books wrapped like that in used bookstores. ** Даrву 🐻, He’s smiling? It’s my eyesight then. I take full responsibility for my eyes’ failings. Okay, cool, about the email. I think you mostly don’t have to show your passport when you travel in the EU now, yeah. I’m pretty sure. I like it when people inscribe books to me. It’s a weirdly complicated choice. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. No, I beyond maxed out all possible investors I know when raising funds for the shoot. The big fear is that Fuckhead will bullshit us that he has the funds and then when it comes time to pay the technicians, it’ll turn out he was bullshitting, and we’ll be fucked. That’s happened a number of times. He’s really cornered himself in this situation though, and we just have to ‘pray’ that forces his hand. Anyway, thanks for the concern. Pretty much everyone I know whose opinion I trust has told me to avoid ‘Saltburn’ like the plague, so that’s what I’m doing. Snow at last! Be careful. Normally I would envy you galore but with my fucked up leg, snow/ice is the last thing on earth I need right now. ** Bill, Haha, thanks. I’m pretty damned positive that Bill wasn’t you, you loveable fella, you. Is the new class something you’re interested or even excited to teach? ‘Blood Tea and Red String’: quite a title there. Okay added to my hunt. Thanks, Bill. ** Right. I decided to restore this very old guest-post made for us years back by a generous silent reader of this place. It seemed like it should be alive again. I don’t know. Please have at it. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 