Volume 2, Issue 16 July 20 - August 2, 2000

Lindsey Kuhn doesn't mind if you can't recognize him while he's out grocery shopping or just walking down the street. He'd much rather have you recognize an L. Kuhn before you recognize him.

You've probably seen an L. Kuhn without even realizing it, especially if you've been going to Denver's underground concerts and hanging around Wax Trax during the last two years since he's moved to the mile-high city. His stuff has been papered onto walls and posts throughout downtown Denver. Kuhn prints promotional concert posters not the photocopied fliers, but the elaborate, time consuming silk-screened posters. His portfolio includes posters for Beck, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, and local bands like Blister66.

But, then again, maybe you've missed them, since people steal Kuhn's posters as soon as they are posted. Kuhn has literally seen people tear the posters off the wall as if they were wallpaper. Here, in Denver, Kuhn is adding his own influence into the Denver underground art scene.

Before I arrived, there was no one like me in Denver, said Kuhn. There's always been photocopied cut and paste, but not a screen printer. Now, Jay Vollmar, who designed the graphics for 15th Street Tavern, has evolved as a screen printer.

Since he's moved to Denver, he's made about 50 posters, averaging about a poster every two weeks. Most were made when he was a one-man operation, but he recently acquired an assistant named Ralph. Examples of his work are the similar posters that use the same colors for the GWAR tour. One depicts a lynched Pikachu, while the other shows a lynched Teletubbie. I was just getting sick of seeing them everywhere, explains Kuhn.

Kuhn is a printer first and a drawer second. A printer by training, Kuhn had to teach himself how to draw. I can't pick up a pen and draw a picture. It takes time for me to draw. It is his silkscreen expertise that brought him international name recognition as a rock poster artist. Shows in Japan, Switzerland, Portugal and Germany have been devoted to his prints. The name L. Kuhn is so big in Japan that the company Art Works contacted Kuhn to make the prints for the Go Nagai anime Devil Man. It's strange. There are people in Japan who can do it. These aren't my drawings. But they ask me so they can advertise it as a print by L. Kuhn and charge more money. Pushead, the California hard-core graphics design group, also utilizes Kuhn's magic touch with the silk screen and squeegee for their posters.

Born in Chicago, raised in Mississippi, and out of Texas, the proud skater, snowboarder and silkscreen artist moved to Denver two years ago. Discarding pleas from the entertainment world to move out to California, Kuhn arrived in Denver only to find that Californication had started taking its hold here, too. Six years later, and I move to Denver it is happening here. It's kind of funny.

When Kuhn was in high school, he loved skateboarding. He and his skateboarding buddies would gather at a ramp that was basically in a swamp. In Mississippi, it would rain for three months in a row. There would be three inches, no, four inches of rain around the ramp. It was called the Swamp. He started printing designs on T-shirts to sell at skateboarding events and to his friends almost 17 years ago. Everybody just called [the T-shirts] Swamp and since then, Swamp's been kind of the name on everything. Soon, he did graphics for skate-boarding mail ‘zines in the ‘80's and also started printing up posters for local concert events. We were just of bunch of kids running around trying to set up shows at the local VFW.

Unfortunately, Kuhn threw away all of his designs from high school when he moved to Texas more than ten years ago. Now I regret it, because there's been a couple of books wanting them. I used the flyers for Agnostic Front and the Descendants when they came through the south. His initial work was all clip art in the style of old school punk rock.

People were like, you'd better learn how to draw ‘cause you're going to get in trouble one day. Kuhn tries to draw freehand for most of his work now. On average he can fulfill a request for an original poster if he has a month of time. If not, he usually relies on clip art.

Frank [Kozik] pointed out to me that I was already printing onto T-shirts and that I could sell prints on paper, said Kuhn. I made my first poster on New Year's Eve, 1991.

Kuhn moved to Denver in 1998 because some of his friends were moving here. It helped that Denver had a more relaxed policy towards postings, a good underground scene, and access to snow so he could try snowboarding.

When I first got to Austin ten years ago, it was all cool. There were all these posters posted along the streets. It was fun, real fun, but I kind of got bored after seven years. By the time Kuhn left Austin, things had started to change in the city where psychadelic rock posters started. Posters were banned. Clubs in Austin would be fined if their name appeared on a poster. Austin also doubled in size. It was getting expensive and it wasn't as underground as it was. It was getting more mainstream; all the Californians started moving there.

From Austin, Kuhn relocated north to Dallas where he was able to find a warehouse to his liking, a 4,600 square foot studio that was twice the size of the one in Austin for the same amount of rent. At the time, there were three skateboard parks in Dallas, while there were none in Austin.

It was in Dallas where Kuhn started his skateboard company Conspiracy Skateboards, a way for him to create cool skateboards with style. It began as a fun way so we can have our own boards to ride and can give boards to our friends. But it kind of caught on. Everywhere we went in Texas, we would see Conspiracy boards. Luckily for Colorado, Kuhn recently revived the skateboard company. Right now, they are focusing only on decks, shirts and some decals. Unfortunately for the snowboarders here in Colorado, Kuhn has no plans to start a snowboard company because it's just too expensive. He was supposed to do the graphics for snowboards in Japan, but they never materialized.

Kuhn, however, recently teamed up with the Denver-based snowboard manufacturer, Never Summer, to make a limited edition print for them to sell at trade shows and use in advertisements. One version of the poster that was nixed by Never Summer is an adaptation of the poster for the surfing movie Endless Summer. Kuhn's poster showed three snowboarders holding their boards with a cold chilly blue background instead of surfers with a warm toned background. He is now working on a second version. Kuhn hinted that the new idea would involve monsters, but is not certain if a monster theme will be in the final print. The surfing version of the original proposal for Never Summer was used for a Brian Wilson concert poster. It sold out in two weeks. Collectors and fans also quickly grabbed up the Jane's Addiction poster of a green clown holding a yo-yo globe in his hand. That poster also sold out in two weeks.

Kuhn, 32, is really into toys. Not Fisher-Price, but collectible Japanese and anima-tion figurines. At his 3,000 square foot garage/workshop/home in Five Points, an entire display cabinet in his living area of his is devoted to characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas, while another is filled with Japanese figurines and Japanese monsters lining the cabinet tops. According to Kuhn, the hundreds of toys displayed in his studio are not half of what he actually owns. A collector for over ten years, Kuhn even trades his posters for toys with collectors in Japan and California.

A lot of the inspirations for his posters are drawn from his toys. He drew a lot of inspiration from Nightmare stuff. Often, Kuhn would draw a Nightmare character for one his posters.

Just as Kuhn's toys are not the typical ones found in a child's bedroom, neither are his prints. His prints do not adhere to any mainstream beliefs or to his friends' likings. One of my friends was really offended by the thought that the cat would get happy thinking of a woman holding a vibrator. He was like ‘why did you have to make her hold a vibrator?'

Kuhn likes to keep retail prices of his posters reasonable. And this isn't a reasonable that only a small portion of the population can afford. When Kuhn says reasonable, he means something anybody can afford to buy. Hollywood Posters on Colfax offers probably the best selection of Kuhn posters in the metro area, if not the entire Rocky Mountain district. Still, the best source is his website, www.swampco.com. But, once a print is sold out, Kuhn does not make them again and the value of the existing prints can soar.

His rock posters are only $8-$30 retail. Now some of his prints are worth between $150 and $300. I have a set of six posters did in ‘94 and I've sold that for $800. Kuhn has plans for another set later this year, most likely in October, to commemorate his tenth year doing posters. I would like to do a nine poster set, but that is really expensive so I would probably do a four poster set.

Still, Kuhn is not rolling around in wealth. fame and fortune were what he wanted, he would have moved out to California, not Denver. I could make more money if I moved out there but then I would have to put up with Californians -- I'm not rich. I'm not famous like Coop or Kozick or whatever, but I'm still doing what I want to do and I like it. As long as I can continue to do what I want to do and pay off my bills.

Not only does he charge reasonable prices, he also makes prints from the profits of other posters. I had to give Metallica a bunch of posters to put up, but that's Metallica, Korn, Kid Rock, it's that Summer Sanitarium Tour, so I'll sell those. So, I'll make $300, and with the money I make from that, I can do a couple little shows around here and spend the money on those that I probably wouldn't ever sell. Just use them for promotion.

L. Kuhn prints aren't run-of-the-mill prints found everywhere. Not every Red Hot Chili Pepper fan can get a hold of the Kuhn concert poster. They aren't even sold at the concerts, only at his website or music stores. The prints were already considered to be pretty exclusive with runs of only 500 to 700 copies. Kuhn recently increased the exclusivity of his prints when he decreased the number of prints in a run. I don't make hundred and hundreds of them. I only made 300 and for me that is a lot. I used to make runs of 500. Now, the prints sell out quicker and people dig it because it is more limited.

Soon to appear in vintage shops will be Swamp's new line of drinking glasses. There will be all kinds of merchandise according to Kuhn. The line will include a pint glass printed with a really friendly looking devil surrounded by multiple circles. Shot glasses will have a design of the same monkey skull used for a poster of Metallica concert in Falling Creek, Arizona on July 16. And, of course, his staple T-shirts will still be there.

Currently, Kuhn is really excited about the Andy Warhol-esque prints that he is doing, as well as looking forward to having his entire gargantuan garage back he was renting out space to a fellow printer so he can work on the original stuff and really big stuff as he calls it. Really big stuff meaning 6x18 foot silkscreen on canvas. He usually paints the background and silk screens on top of it.

He is also working on original stuff for an upcoming show in Hamburg, Germany, as well as being mentioned in the book Next: New Generation of Graphic Design, which is due for release next month. I guess that's what I am called now. Graphic design. It keeps changing. I'll just let people call me whatever they want.

One thing is certain, Kuhn and his L. Kuhn prints have redefined poster art in Denver, and the country.

Visit Lindsey Kuhn's website at www.swampco.com.