Tomorrow (5/13) at StolenSpace Gallery in London, Seattle-based artist Mike Leavitt will be headlining a special show titled, “Pitchfork Pals,” in conjunction with fellow artist Charles Krafft. The name of the exhibit has twofold significance. First, it’s the handle of their collaborative series of ceramic teapots, busts and mugs that have been molded into the image of some of history’s most wicked characters. Second, Leavitt and Krafft — who are 30+ years apart in age — share a lifelong affection for the macabre.

Ahead of the exhibit, Leavitt was kind enough to sit down with the Jailbreak for a lengthy interview. Inside he discusses his early departure from Pratt Institute in New York City, the origins of his brilliant Art Army series, and whether or not JonBenét Ramsey is yet fair game for edgy artistic immortalization.

Leavitt is a unique breed of artist. Thus far more concerned with continuing to hand-make each of his pieces than, say, mass market them for global consumption. His work is accessible and draws on historical characters that have impacted the way he views the world — from his accurate yet caricatured sculptures of Andy Warhol and Banksy, to his series of satirical Wedding Cake Toppers that poke fun at people like John and Yoko and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

All in all, Leavitt is primed for a major breakout. His work and execution (in both concept and finished product) are too impressive and relevant not to be considered on par with some of the most popular contemporary visual artists working today. If nothing else, his pieces depict those same artists. So it’s a win-win for him either way. Please click through to read the interview in its entirety.

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Jailbreak Collective: What was the first piece you ever sculpted?

Mike Leavitt: It was, haha, myself. That was me. I did myself in a performance art costume I used to wear. When I was still in college, and a few years after that, I was a push-button performer. I would go out as a robot with VCR buttons on my chest, or a CD-player, with play, stop, faster, slower, and I would just do music, poetry and singing all based on people out in the street pushing my buttons to control me; whether they wanted me louder or quieter or whatever.

Cool. So you were basically like a street performer?

[Laughs] Yeah. It wasn’t a day job, but it was an art project.

What, you never wanted that to be your full-time gig … you realized at some point that it wasn’t going to be profitable enough for you?

[Laughs] Yeah. Living off $30 a day wasn’t going to do it.

Was that in Seattle as well or were you in New York at that point?

I’ve basically been in Seattle my whole life. I was only in New York for a year when I went to Pratt [Institute].

That’s right. I read something interesting on your website about your time there. Did you really quit with a 4.0 GPA after the first year?

Yeah. There were a few people getting a 4.0 at that point. At Pratt, the first year, it was challenging to keep up with the workload for some kids. But I didn’t find it very challenging in the ways I wanted to be challenged.

So is that why you walked away?

Umm, yeah. I was also homesick, to be totally honest. New York City was totally inspiring and got my eyes open and lit my competitive fire. But I missed trees and grass and clean water to go swim in during the summer and all that stuff. I grew up with all that and I fiended for it.

Above: Leavitt’s Wedding Cake Toppers — Bert and Ernie, Portia de Rossi and Ellen

How soon after you stopped going to Pratt did you start Art Army [your collection of sculptures depicting artists and others]?

I didn’t start my first figure until 2002, which was Jackson Pollack (below, left). That was the one that when I showed it to people, in essence, that’s how I discovered I should continue with this thing. I mean people were really blown away with the Pollack one. I constructed him based on a pretty iconic image of him, anyways. But it turned out really good. It was really small at the time; it was only 6 inches. I was aiming for 80s G.I Joes, and I nailed him.

And from then until now, how many of them have you made in the series?

240.

And how many of them have sold?

I’d say about 200.

That’s not a bad ratio.

Actually it’s probably a little bit more than that. I don’t have many on me anymore. [Ed. Note: Some of Mike's originals are still available to purchase on his website for $700.00 to $1000.00]

What does it feel like to you to be an artist sculpting figures of other artists? Does it mean anything to you?

It definitely means something. I guess in a way it means everything to me. Of all the things I could be doing my art about, it’s one of the most important things; I think basically to cement the right people in our history. And, personally, it’s one of the more interesting things to me because essentially these are the types of people who influenced me early on. That’s who I try to aim for: my influences. All the cultural input that’s gone into forming who I am, I think, is a lot of these characters. It’s the same old story for a lot of people in our generation who have grown up with this visual input. I’m not just doing visual artists, I’m also doing musicians, entertainers and celebrities as well. It’s just part of what has formed our generation. We all know these same faces and we all had these guys’ posters up on our walls growing up.

Above: Andy Warhol, Keith Haring

I saw you have a bunch of contemporary artists included in the collection as well, ones that are still living. I especially like the Ron English one – I’ve interviewed Ron before. I guess I was just wondering with the KAWS and Ron English ones, did they buy their own sculptures?

Umm. Both are interesting stories. Ron English’s wife ended up buying the figure for him. I believe after he saw the figure and liked it. I don’t know if he asked her to go buy it for him. I think it was for his birthday. But he had already seen the figure, so it wasn’t like a big surprise. There are two different Ron English figures, and he has the second one. He has on a clown face and he’s dressed all in black, basically street clothes (below, left). He looks like a normal Ron English with face paint. But what Ron didn’t see is that I had given the figure a billboard with one of Ron’s own billboards painted on it, just basically to flesh out the piece.

The KAWS one I did for the Showroom NYC. I did a show there in 2007, and the KAWS figure (below left; below right: Damien Hirst) was specifically for that show. He saw it and initially freaked out and thought it was in production and he didn’t know about it. He called Lev [the owner of Toy Tokyo] all antsy, I guess, and you know Lev, he has one of the more serene personalities there is. So what I get is a phone call from Lev, freaking out. He said, “KAWS is freaking out. We need to cool this fire out.” And I said to him, “listen, Lev, just tell him this is the only one I’ve done. It’s not in production. It’s an art piece. It’s an homage. I love the guy and I love his work.” Lev basically agreed, so he calls him back and long story short, KAWS ends up buying the piece for himself, with the caveat that I would never make another one.

And you haven’t?

And I haven’t, which I was totally cool with. In some weird way, I almost like that for all these figures. Maybe that’s the best person it should go to … or their family or something.

I know you also have a couple of Banksys, one that’s relatively new. I guess I don’t necessarily want to talk about other artists too much more, but did you see “Exit Through the Gift Shop”? I guess … what are your opinions about Banksy?

I didn’t see the movie yet. I’ve heard all about it. It sounds hilarious. My opinion about him in general … I think he’s great. It’s interesting timing with him and Shepard Fairey, because I honestly feel like the two of them are going to take this movement to a whole new level. Especially Shepard Fairey with the Obama campaign, but Banksy’s doing his own thing and getting out there. So I have lot of respect for Banksy, too. I like a lot of his images; he’s totally smart and funny and I really appreciate his content. I guess in way, he’s one of my favorite artists out there right now … way more than Shepard Fairey, actually.

It’s interesting because there are contemporaries of each other, but Shepard’s showing right now at Deitch Projects in New York, and he’s received a ton of backlash of late. The haters have been coming out for Shepard, but not so much with Banksy — at least in the States.

I mean I think it’s definitely there with Banksy, too. I haven’t been to London yet, but I’m about to go, and in the course of promoting the show, I have a lot of contacts there now so I’ve felt some of that vibe. There are those haters there for Banksy, too. That he’s totally selling out. Because in a way, hell, the first time Banksy shows in an art gallery, for the hardcore street art kids, he’s selling out. The first time he sells a single print … there are real purists in street art. I’m just not one of them.

I guess that’s a good segue into speaking about your upcoming show in London, called Pitchfork Pals, in tandem with Charles Krafft. How did that collaboration come about?

He’s another Seattle native, and it’s a rare bread around here because most people grow up and they leave. When I find an artist like that, who has been around, he’s in his late sixties … I have a lot of respect for someone who has been around that long. We met first when I did a figure of him. He loved it, and ended up wanting the figure. So we ended up doing a trade, which was cool. That was way back in 2004. Basically ever since then we’ve been talking about a collaboration. I also really liked his work. He’s one of the few sculptors I had seen that was doing great comedy, obviously dark humor with him. But his pieces are really sharp and they look really good, and so you know we just had a lot of crossover. I also thought it was also an interesting collaboration because of the big difference in our age. It’s weird. He definitely had a weird vibe to him; he’s a whole nother entity. But we still get along pretty well.

So I know there are a number of different objects in the show, but the ones I’m most interested in are the teapots. Why did you guys decide to make teapots? I wrote a post awhile back about the show, and I was kind of pretentious in surmising that the teapots were representative of each character somehow pouring malevolence into the culture around them. Is that on point?

I read that line. That was really funny. First off, they do come in different forms, as we have them in mugs, etc. Initially, we wanted to do them all as Chia Pets, you know cast them in Terracotta and grow Chia on the heads. I think the reason why teapots is basically just a little bit more, I hate the word, but whimsical. We’re trying to do alternate art forms, or kitsch forms, in a different context. Charlie and I spent a lot more time on the characters, on our list of historical names, researching, passing names back in forth, trying to figure out who we were going to do. I spent the majority of my sculpting time and my thought process on getting each character’s biography right. The teapot thing wasn’t that international, I guess, in speaking about pouring evil out. I love that though. It was really more about what would be an interesting functional object with these characters in the bust form.

Obviously all of these characters are pretty nefarious [Charles Manson, Kim Jong Il, etc.], but how did you decide on the specific ones in the end?

Charlie is a little bit bent in the head. He won’t mind me saying that. He’s kind of, I would say, obsessed with evil. So that was really his inkling to do it. And it sounded hilarious to me right off the bat. I felt like we’re so intellectually tied to people like Trey Parker and Matt Stone. We’re not anywhere near their level, but I feel like when those guys talk about evil, it’s just like really funny right off the bat. It doesn’t ever seem evil. It’s never as offensive as it seems it should be. So it felt like it was pretty safe territory, and it was interesting, just to stick to only evil people.

And what about Amy Winehouse? Is she allowed to be in that group?

[Laughs] Well, the group will expand. The other part of this that we didn’t really get into is the whole tabloid angle. Charlie and I are both obsessed with biographies: for me it’s these cultural icons, with him it’s more about the histories, the names and stuff. So other people we were talking about doing were people who were only famous from the tabloids. Amy Winehouse definitely fits into that. I’m thinking of people like Tammy Fae Baker…

And Kate Gosselin and Lindsay Lohan.

Yes! Oh, and JonBenét Ramsey. She looked like a little doll. She was actually the first one that Charlie wanted to do this project with. He actually had another guy sculpt a bust of her because I didn’t have the time, and the guy totally missed the mark. He totally fucked up; it looked terrible. It doesn’t look like her. But still, Charlie has this bust of her that he doesn’t even use that’s just sitting in his studio.

If there was ever a case of being too soon, and I know it’s been like 15 years, but it’s still too soon. I remember girls at my school, the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she was murdered, used to dress up like her on Halloween. It’s just sort of fucked up.

[Laughs] No! Come on! She’s totally fair game. She was artificial to begin with. She was never real.

I’m still on the fence. All right, getting back to the show a little bit. It’s at StolenSpace Gallery in London and it opens on May 13^th. What can people expect?

A lot of work. If everything arrives as planned, we might top out at about 100 pieces in the show. About 80% of that is original sculpture. There’s going to be a lot of work there. It could be overkill, but we’re sort of going for a souvenir shop, trinket shop, kind of vibe; to transform the gallery like you’re walking into some old granny’s place. We’ve got all the teapots and the mugs, that’s our set of collaborations, which is only 1/3 of the show. Another 3rd is Charlie’s own body of work. He’s got life-sized ceramic shovels made out of human bone China; he’s got his porcelain artillery of AK-47s and hand grenades; he’s got a whole bunch of work. And then sort of the third tier is my body of work, and I’ve been going gangbusters. I did a whole set of cardboard shoes for the show, and there’s also prints to make your own cardboard shoes. I did that new Banksy figure for the show, and I have a couple other new figures as well. I think there are 15 figures in all. Oh and I also did these new bath towels – they’re suicidal celebrity bath towels.

And who are the characters?

Kurt Cobain was the first. I also have Virginia Wolff, Freud and the last one is Van Gogh. They’re awesome. I’m buying gaudy bright colored towels from Target for like $5 bucks a piece. They have a whole palette at Target. It’s an oversized bath towel, almost 6’ tall, and I’m hand stitching — well some machine, some by hand — these huge portraits in different colors and shapes of terra cloth and then embroidering them back together. They’re called “Dry Your Eyes”, and the idea is that as you’re about to kill yourself, you’re crying, and you have your favorite suicidal icons there to help you out in your moment of need … to dry your tears.

Man, you and Charles are like a match made in heaven!

[Laughs] Yeah, yeah. I don’t like to admit it. I try to keep it lighter than he does. Like he goes the Swastika angle, and I don’t do that. There are some things that are off limits, morally.

Above: Leavitt’s Wedding Cake Toppers — Brangelina, John and Yoko

So I wanted to ask a question based on something I read in your bio. It was sort of interesting to me. You have, in my opinion, really good and interesting views on the state of contemporary art. You say, and I’m quoting, “I’m not elitist enough to oppose the overseas out-sourcing of manufacturing mass editions of my work. The quality of product, distribution deals, ever-present middle-men, royalties, and ultimately a good living wage are still obstacles to mass production. I will, now and forever, always prioritize making my work affordable and accessible to a mass market.” Basically what I want to know is what does that mean? Does that mean you don’t have a problem with mass production but you just don’t have the means to get it done? What’s the difference between those two sentences … between mass market and mass production?

That’s a great question. The first part of that question is definitely yes. I haven’t ever in my life had $5 to $10 grand of expendable capital in my hands, which I think is what I would really want to get to get a good mass production off the ground. I still do want to make my art, my originals, affordable and palatable to the mass market. And I say elitist, which makes it sound like I’m morally opposed, and it’s not really like that. I guess the point is that I still take great pride in not outsourcing my work. I really like knowing that my hands have been on everything that I’ve done. I know at some point that’s not going to be the case anymore and I’m totally cool with that. I think it’s also most interesting to me to be making stuff by hand that doesn’t look like it was made by hand. It fucks me up also, though, because the figures have gotten so good. Like this third Banksy we’re going to have to sell for like $2 grand. I spent a lot of time on it and it looks awesome, but it looks like it could have been made in China for 10 cents. And the reason I say it gets fucked is because I have to go back and convince people: I’m standing right next to them in the gallery and I have to convince them that I actually made it!

And that’s the issue!

Right! I’ve got so good at doing this magic trick that I would have to take all of them over to the studio and show them all of my tricks to even convince them that I’m doing this. It also brings me back to you guys, and why I like seeing the kind of mass productions that you guys do. There are the rarities out there that do it right. It doesn’t feel like, obviously, the normal toy. But in a way I’m kind of more interested to go the Toys”R”Us route than the Kid Robot route. I was expecting that whole scene to get a little more mainstream at this point to be honest.

Do you think it still has that potential, or do you think it has sort of peaked?

I don’t know. I feel like it has been pretty dormant for a while. In some ways it’s still really hot. I dunno, it’s hard to say. I guess what you’re hearing from me is that I’m really a populist at heart. I’m most interested in talking to normal Joe Blows about my work. I always feel good when I can talk to my friends and family about what I’m doing and they’re interested in it. Most artists can’t even talk to their friends because nobody knows what they’re talking about. The toy culture thing is sort of similar too. You know, “I got a new Dunny and I’m on the Kid Robot forum and stuff.” Nobody knows what that means!

It’s not relatable.

Exactly. I just think it’s more rewarding for me the more people are interested in what I’m doing. In the same respect, you have to still always been doing something different. I mean you guys aren’t in every normal place I would expect to find a toy. You’re in some of these little niche places, but still mass market. Here in Seattle I see your guys’ stuff at the University bookstore. It’s weird, but a little more interesting. It’s a delicate balance because you don’t want to go too mainstream and then get lost in the shuffle. I guess what’s most important to me is that if artistic talent is there, people get paid for their work so they can keep doing it. And so as consumers we can keep consuming it and have it in our lives. I used to think ahead to the people who were going to be the famous artists of our time. And I would always come up with Walt Disney and maybe Matt Groening. And now I’m really starting to think it’s the corporations that are going to be remembered. We’re living amongst all of these companies, and more and more, with me and my work, I’ve got to talk about them. And hopefully be critical enough for people to remember what I said.

Alright, Mike. Thanks a lot for your time. Have a great show!

Thanks! I appreciate it.

“Pitchfork Pals” opens May 13, 2010, at the StolenSpace Gallery in London. It runs through May 30, 2010. Please click here for further information.