When it comes to reimagining vinyl toys, few artists have as much vision and offer as much creativity as the mysterious Doktor A. Hailing from somewhere east of the Atlantic, the dear Doktor has been churning out custom toys based on some of the greatest creatures that ever existed---Frankenstein, Dracula, and many more. His work looks dirty, grimy, and dusty, and his characters seem to have been born from a world long lost. To say Dok A is one of the best customizers in the business wouldn't be an exaggeration. His work is sought after by collectors around the world, and no true collection is complete without a piece from his laboratory. This is an older interview I did with the Dok, but I think its worth revisiting since he just launched a new line of toys.

How did you become interested in toys and customizing? I have always loved toys and collected them all my life. I have a huge Tim Burton toy collection and a rather large Batman collection too. At one time I had several hundred robots but they have been severely trimmed recently. As a teenager I was keen on fantasy wargaming and set up my first company selling hand painted metal miniatures. I was hired from there by Games Workshop to paint the figures for their promotional items and packaging and games books. I then trained as in Industrial Modelmaker and got a job right out of college as a "blue-sky" toy designer in London. I not only came up with the ideas for new toys but also designed and sculpted working prototypes as part of an in-house team. We then pitched the toys to the big manufacturers. So the customizing of toys is just a natural progression for me really. Its nice that for the first time the craftsmanship I put into my work is being considered as art.

I've been photographing rock bands for some 15 years now, but I always wanted to do more with video. After years of pussyfooting around, I finally got a compact HD video camera with a cockamamie plan to do video portraits of artist, musicians, and underground heroes. I basically want to combine still images from portrait shoots with short, first-person interviews with the artists. So far the results have been mixed, but I'm still experimenting.

 This past weekend, I got the change to interview two members of the British punk/hardcore band the Gallows. For those wondering what the art connection is, the band's singer, Frank Carter, is an accomplished tattoo artist and has stated that is full-time job is tattooing, not music. That said, as the Gallows begin to blow up the metal charts, Carter might want to reconsider his career ambitions. 

The photo world just lost one of its masters. According to the Los Angeles Times, photographer Julius Shulman died yesterday from being really freaking old.

Shulman is best known for his architecture photography. I look at a room or a house and I just see a box. This man could look at building and turn a photo of a wall into a work of art. He spent most of his life documenting the modernist movement on the West Coast, photographing hundreds of homes made of steel, glass, and corners sharp enough to cut the camera's lens. 

I remember hearing a story about how he would charge a fortune to photograph someone's home and then spend an entire day roaming the grounds. By the evening, he had taken only a handful of images, but every one of them was stunning. 

Last week, I got the chance to video tape WK Interact's Q&A at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York City. The event was technically a book signing, but WK took the stage and delivered a helluva speech about what it's like to be both a street artist and a fine artist. 

I did a short interview with him prior to the signing, which I'll try to get up on the site in a few days. The sound quality on this video is shaky at best, but I think he gets his point across.