Interview // Lee Hodges of Micasamovi1

Bringing his creative flair to the Jelly Jazz presents Night of the Dead event on the 30th September in Portsmouth, visual artist Lee Hodges, talks to us about his influences and current projects, plus his involvement with The Rambunctious Social Club…

Hi Lee! What’s your overall artistic style for the work that you produce?
Chaos mixed with Artful play.

Who and what are your influences?
I love street art and Graffiti, it has a sense of spontaneity and freedom that a lot of art sometimes lacks. I love anything that is playful and inventive, which gives a sense of wonder. I’m really into lots of the old Zoetrope/early animation techniques at the moment. I’ve always liked the surrealists but mainly I’m influenced by the world around me and what weird and wonderful ideas it can give me.

Were you always good at art when you were a kid?
Yep, I was an incessant scribbler at school, I covered everything I could get my hands on, I’d fill my exercise books with full page doodles instead of words.

Since you’re known to be multimedia taught, which format do you enjoy being creative with the most?
I can’t really say that there is one particular medium I enjoy most, what’s fun is seeing how 2 or 3 different mediums can marry together in unusual ways, I experiment a lot. I’m enjoying fusing old style animation techniques with a modern twist, I’m also getting more and more into creating stuff for set design/visual extravaganzas.

What organisations have you worked for in the UK?
The Eden project, New Perspectives theatre company, Real ideas organisation, Exeter Phoenix and Aim Higher.

Can you tell us about any projects you’re working on at the moment?
A Mexican themed shop window display, plans for developing more live antics including more live turntable visuals….oh and I’m writing and illustrating a picture book about a sofa.

You also do freelance tutoring and host workshops, do you find it rewarding passing on your own knowledge to other people and how do you help them tap into their own creative ability?
Yeah, people forget how to play, we are all creative so it’s cool to see or help them get back in touch with that. It’s great to see people of any age realize their potential and gain confidence, being creative is a big healer and a fantastic conduit for us all to express ourselves, something like that should never be under valued.

What’s your involvement with The Rambunctious Social Club?
Myself and my good friend Glyn (DJ Griff) created it together. We wanted to create a club night that was interactive and fun. I’ve dubbed it ‘clubbing for the creatively curious’. As well as being co-host/organiser my involvement is the visual side of things (although I do like to DJ too!) I’ve been penned as the ‘Art Wizard’!! – so film/animation, posters, the over-all make and design of each night, live’ non-VJ’ visuals. We theme each gig, which inevitably fuels my obsessions and I get carried away making and coming up with ideas, we did a sci-fi B movie the other month and I made a robot, amongst other things…so each gig I appear with a load more inventions and my house gets messier! We like to think of Rambunctious being quite unique in the south west scene.

Do you ever get writer’s block when it comes to producing your own material or is there always a consistent flow of ideas?
I love, love ideas, they are pretty non-stop, I keep falling over them in my house all the time!

Is there any pressure when it comes to producing commissioned work?
I guess there is always an element of that, but it’s also kind of counter productive in some ways, so I try best to avoid that and just enjoy it!?

The Halloween charity event in October sees your vision of the ‘Day of the Dead’ come to life as you’ll be doing the set design and live visuals to compliment the sounds of Jelly Jazz, how will you be working with textures to enhance your ideas and the atmosphere?
The Mexican Day of the Dead is bright and colourful, it’s a celebration – so no Halloween greys or blacks anywhere! So I’ll be thinking bright colours, smiling skulls, a fusion of folk and street art mixed with the funkiness that sits with Jelly Jazz. I’ll probably end up listening to loads of Mexican funk and ska while I’m doing it, plus some Mariachi -hop (made up genre), that’ll get me in the mood.

What else do you like to do aside from being creative?
I like to take my imagination on frequently long walks!

And finally, what costume will you be wearing to the Halloween charity event, or are you keeping hush hush about it till then?
Well…hmmmm…I’m not giving too much away, but let’s just say it involves shrunken heads!

MICASAMOVI
THE RAMBUNCTIOUS SOCIAL CLUB
lee@micasamovi.co.uk