Daily Inspiration: Meet Buttcoffin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Buttcoffin.

Hi buttcoffin, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started drawing when I was really young and pretty much never stopped. It’s how I made friends early on in kindergarten through high school. Without drawing I think I would’ve just been some strange cinder block of a person, I graduated college with a Bachelor of Fine arts in printmaking at Ohio University. I was a graphic design reject and was told a specific major would allow me better job opportunities. So I applied to the printmaking program and got in. Through that I felt like a found a vehicle to dump my bullshit into. I predominately made etchings of the stuff I’d get in trouble for drawing in high school. Just a wobbly regurgitation of the cartoons punk and metal music that gave me a sense of self slapped onto copper plates then smashed onto paper. After I graduated I dumped milk into a 3000 gallon stainless steel tomb to be reprocessed into 3.25% fat chocolate milk for a year then moved to Cleveland to live in a store front/art gallery studio space. I did an 8ish year stint in screen printing t shirts for big and small companies. Throughout college I worked at the steel mill my great grandfather, grandfather, dad and both brothers worked at. I’m kinda trailing off now but all this is to say that I continue to work in warehouse/factory jobs and still draw goofy pee pee poo poo devil stuff when I get home. It’s my little whimper of rebellion.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not at all. It’s just a hobby I’m too melodramatic about. As I get older, chalking up 11ish hours at a job, getting home and ripping drawings til 4am isn’t sustainable(feel like a wimp for saying that). At the same time, I have to keep pushing it because it’s something to allow me to process the world around me and feel like I did something productive. It’s pretty similar to doing a sudoku or crossword puzzle but I create the problems, try to solve them and then I finish the drawing and see all the failures instead of the part of a feeling of a resolve. And then move onto the next trying to not make the same mistakes I did in the one prior.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My drawings are a vehicle to process my thoughts and the world around me. I don’t do intaglio anymore due to time/space/money constraints(I like to think ill do it again one day but time is ticking faster than I realized) and just stick to drawing on Bristol or canvas with pencil and brush pen only using black and white. I mess around with color sometimes. Just oil pastels and acrylic paints but it’s few and far. I think I still have a lot of a room to keep exploring using just black and white.

buttcoffin resides in Cleveland. His work is a rebellion against the monotony and perpetual dread of life via a scrambled regurgitation of the cartoons, pro wrestling, and heavy metal he grew up with.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
the photograph of myself was taken by Joe Varanese. can that be credited please? also please don’t use my real name. I know that sounds diva-ish but I don’t want my parents to be embarrassed or coworkers to know I draw this wonky juvenile devil shit lol. thanks.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.buttcoffin.com
• Instagram: buttcoffin
• Twitter: butt_coffin

Image Credits
all these files were drawn or taken by me except my portrait which was taken by Joe Varanese. The artists/bands and companies in the drawings were commissioned. No legal contracts were written or signed specifying boundaries of these images. I’m uploading these to show examples of my work for that past few years. I’m not selling these images in any facet