Baxter Crane
Hooray! For Illustrators and Cats
Baxter Crane is an illustrator who works as the office manager at Beep Beep Gallery in Atlanta. Her work personifies inanimate objects, sweetly mocks nursery ryhme and fuses various geologic eras to create a style that’s wholly humorous and intrinsically clever.
Dashboard: Is Baxter your real name?
Baxter Crane: No, its a nickname. We go it off the side of a trash can at Laka Allatoona.
Dash: You’re lucky your name’s not Toona.
BC: Lake Allatoona is the most beautiful body of water in the United States.
Dash: Ah, yes, I wasn’t aware. So, do you consider yourself an illustrator or a painter?
BC: For the longest time I didn’t wanna consider myself an illustrator because it seems cheaper than a painter. But now I really appreciate it and would love to be considered an illustrator.
Dash: For a long time I don’t think illustration was considered a fine art, but now I feel its morphed into fine art meets communication. People have stopped reading and just see an image to make a decision or form an opinion, illustration fits in largely there.
BC: Right, it’s a fast way to get a point across. I was always an illustrator who was trying to be a painter, but I just found it so boring. I met a woman at Beep Beep who said she just throws paint around and her work isn’t necessarily about a subject – its more process-based – but I’m the complete opposite, my work is all about the subject. Its not hard to get, its just a picture.
Dash: Like stop all the boppin? I totally forgot about that nursery rhyme until I saw your pictures. And thought, yeah! Why didn’t they ever protest?
BC: I never realized the end of it went “turn you into a goon.”
Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Running through the forest
Scoopin’ up the field mice
And boppin’ ‘em on the head!
Down came the Good Fairy, and she said:
“Little Rabbit Foo Foo
I don’t wanna see you
Scoopin’ up the field mice
And boppin’ ‘em on the head!
I will give you three chances,
And if you don’t behave, I’ll turn you into a goon!”
BC: I wasn’t a big fan of turning the bunny into a “goon”, so I just had a T-Rex eat him.
Editors note: Baxter’s interview was done on video. However, Dashboard founders are dummies that can’t act accordingly in front of a camera. Neither wore shoes, one hit Baxter in the face and the other threw up in her mouth out of nervousness. Therefore, we elected to transcribe said video, making necessary omissions.
To the lovely, articulate Baxter Crane: Thank you for sitting on our couch and letting us riddle you with idiocy for an hour.
