Street Kids newspaper, Seattle, WA, July 1983
Date
Credits
- Carl Smool 2 Illustrator
- Lane D. Hartwell Editor
Format
- Newspaper 1230
Type of Work
- Finished work 5503
Street Kids was a free monthly newspaper published in downtown Seattle in the early 1980s. In addition to being a strong advocate for the large population of young people who lived and congregated in downtown Seattle, it was also filled with news and services for that community. Local artists and photographers and writers contributed their work. Street Kids was edited by Lane D. Hartwell.
![Street Kids, Seattle, WA, July 1983](https://thumbs.peoplesgdarchive.org/static/media-items/image/20213/upto-1440x2916/638939ad/1/Street%20Kids4.jpg)
Tue, May 23, 2023
https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/visual-arts/seattle-artist-carl-smool-known-for-public-festival-art-dies-at-73/
Seattle artist Carl Smool, known for public, festival art, dies at 73
May 18, 2023 at 6:00 am
Artist Carl Smool supervises placement of papier-mâché figures that would later burn at Seattle Center as part of his “At the Crossroads: A Fire Ceremony.” (Tom Reese / The Seattle Times, 2000)
By
Charles R. Cross
Special to The Seattle Times
Editor’s note: Charles R. Cross, editor of The Rocket magazine from 1986 through 2000, remembers artist Carl Smool.
When I heard the recent sad news that Seattle artist Carl Smool had passed away, I didn’t need to head to a gallery or museum to see his outstanding artwork. I only needed to look up, as two of his pieces hang in my living room.
One shows Seattle as crammed buildings atop an ocean liner, amid swirling woodcut clouds of rain. The woodcut was a signature technique of Smool’s, but he also created with paint, silk-screen, plastic ruling tape, fabric, papier-mâché and more.
Smool died of dementia on April 19 at age 73.
“He was one of the greatest artists, and arts ambassadors Seattle ever had,” said his brother Mark Grantvedt. “His work was always like a balloon of love to Seattle.”
A woodcut print of Seattle by artist Carl Smool. (Courtesy of Charles R. Cross)
Smool’s work was shown in galleries, but he was most visible at arts festivals like Bumbershoot, the Northwest Folklife Festival, WOMAD Festival and others. His last major public art project was a work called “Common Threads” and is displayed at Sound Transit’s Beacon Hill Station.
“Carl was a gifted artist, and his influence on regional culture is immeasurable,” said curator Larry Reid. “I found his idiosyncratic aesthetic and social consciousness unparalleled.”
Norm Langill, longtime Bumbershoot producer, said they first met when Smool worked at a copy shop. “Carl’s Xeroxed art was all over the walls,” Langill said. Bumbershoot was a perfect partnership for Smool: “He was supremely happy to bring art to regular folks. He created the famous Bumbershoot poster for us that featured a juggler on a Rolla Bolla.”
Much of Smool’s work addressed social justice, but he was also an “artist-activist,” recalled friend Mark Wheaton. “He was an observer of social injustice and was involved to counter those injustices, using art as a tool,” said Wheaton. “He marched in marches, altered billboards, created installations that encouraged community involvement.”
Carl Smool’s “Theater of War.” (Courtesy of the Estate of Carl Smool)
That social activism was cemented in the early 1970s with the Vietnam War when Smool was drafted. He was born Eric Grantvedt but changed his name to try to avoid the draft. He was eventually detained by authorities, but flunked his military physical, and still decided to legally keep the name Carl Smool.
His anti-war beliefs and sense of social justice stuck as well. The second piece of Smool’s that hangs on my wall is his cover of The Rocket magazine in November 1984, which depicts President Ronald Reagan with a head jammed with nuclear warheads. The cover was one of many times Smool’s artwork earned him attention in the press, as the issue was banned by Pacific Lutheran University, which claimed it was anti-patriotic.
Reagan was a motif Smool used often, including altering a Seattle cigarette billboard to read “Hollywood bowled over by Neutron Bomb,” with an image of Reagan. Another guerrilla art piece showed Reagan as Frankenstein, which Smool placed on buses, earning him a reprimand.
Smool illustrated several covers of The Rocket, the magazine I edited, including a piece on Grateful Dead fans. The illustration proved so popular that the issue sold out, and I suggested Smool sell T-shirts. He declined because he thought that was too commercial.
Carl Smool’s Grateful Dead August 1988 cover of The Rocket. (Courtesy of Charles R. Cross)
Some of his illustrations did end up on shirts he or others sold at Pike Place Market, including his design titled “See No Evil,” showing three monkeys. But Smool ultimately eschewed the commercial art world, favoring public art, said his sister Gail Churape. “He most wanted his art to touch and represent the people,” she said. “He walked his talk.”
Churape cared for Smool in his last year when he had moved to Olympia. Even with his illness, Smool still volunteered at the food co-op. “People just loved Carl,” she said, “and he loved people. He could make friends anywhere.”
A public memorial exhibition of Smool’s work is planned for 5 p.m. Aug. 12 at Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery, in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood.
I’ve loaned my illustration of Smool’s vision of Seattle to the public memorial, so the beauty I see every day will be visible to all — just as Carl would have wanted it.
Charles R. Cross: therocketmagazinelives@gmail.com; on Twitter: @charlesrcross. Cross is the author of nine books including biographies of Kurt Cobain, Heart and Jimi Hendrix, and was editor of The Rocket magazine from 1986 through 2000.