Red Door Magazine 23
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But back to The Man in Camo. On Episode<br />
#14 of the <strong>Red</strong> Transmissions Podcast, I<br />
asked Ethan to take us all the way back to<br />
the beginning of his career as an artist and<br />
to explain how he evolved into the style and<br />
independent creator methods that he uses.<br />
Ethan grew up in Washington DC during<br />
the 70’s and 80’s, when violence was escalating,<br />
and his dyslexia learning disability<br />
led him to be picked on and lean on the<br />
punk rock scene and the creative community<br />
to cope with this, where by doing small<br />
fanzines he could find his own space. He<br />
moved to NY to go to the school of Visual<br />
Arts where he studied Fine Arts and Film,<br />
and afterwards worked in various jobs, such<br />
as bartending, doing film production, art<br />
handling, and most recently, working as an<br />
editor for cable broadcast television.<br />
“You move to NYC and you have these<br />
hopes and dreams of making art but<br />
then you realized you are enslaved to<br />
your work to pay rent. (...) I felt that<br />
there was an overwhelming need for<br />
other artists to be able to create without<br />
the limitations of the monetary<br />
things connected to the Art Market<br />
of the city, so I banded with other<br />
creative types and seeked out venues<br />
and locations that would be donated<br />
to us to put on art events”.<br />
This is how the Antagonist Art Movement<br />
was created, which featured over 3000 artists,<br />
many of them who moved up through<br />
the art world. Ethan says this was a great<br />
way to service a community, it gave him the<br />
network to work on his projects, but then<br />
later created an international network of artists<br />
where shows resulted in Berlin, Australia,<br />
Portugal and other projects, including 8<br />
feature films based on group collaborative<br />
projects. Although the group officially ended<br />
in 11, additional projects have been created<br />
by Ethan Minsker, who names Francis<br />
Bacon as a compeller to make art, Lakes<br />
McNeil and Bukowski as some of his writing<br />
influences, and the combining of writing<br />
workshops with film and exhibitions in<br />
those events as very influential to his work.<br />
“When you are creative, I feel you<br />
should exercise those creative muscles<br />
every day. When you do that over the<br />
course of many years, you build a huge<br />
body of work. Currently I have a feature<br />
film I am working on, a fanzine, a<br />
script, the NY I love you, and little dog<br />
heads I have been making out of paper-mache,<br />
as well as Isolation TV”.<br />
Ethan Minsker says that he has a psychological<br />
compulsion to express his emotions and<br />
feelings creatively, from September 11 to the<br />
current times, art serves as a therapy to help<br />
him move forward.<br />
You can listen to the whole episode of <strong>Red</strong><br />
Transmissions Podcast by subscribing on<br />
Spotify, iTunes and most podcast providers as<br />
well as on the magazine’s website, and follow<br />
Ethan Minsker’s work via the instagram link<br />
below or by googling his name. His current<br />
film, “A Man In Camo”(find it on amazon) a story<br />
of his crusade to make art, is a must-see for<br />
those seeking to be inspired and in need of a<br />
fresh source of ideas and true, gritty, colorful<br />
motivation, of the type that actually gets you,<br />
gets to you, and gets you out of the darkness.<br />
Follow Ethan Minsker:<br />
https://www.instagram.com/ethanminsker/<br />
ISSUE # <strong>23</strong> - LANGUAGE<br />
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