Michael J. Micha: On the cutting edge

Michael Micha did not set out to be a visual artist. Music took up much of his work and personal life, as it had for many years and still does. But sometimes fate has other ideas and life throws you a curveball. Tamp down creative energy in one area, and it pops up somewhere else. But that is Michael’s story, and no one can tell it better than him…

“I was born in Johnson City in the late 80s, attended high school at JC - generally a typical high school experience. I didn't fit into any one group: first trying to fit in with the athletes, then trying to fit in with art room kids, then finally fitting in with some other kids that were starting a band. My parents bought me a guitar in tenth grade when I showed an interest in playing. My senior year I stopped playing sports altogether and started playing in a local pop-punk band. That quickly became the most important activity in my life. It helped me meet other creative, likeminded people, and was the first time I felt the real satisfaction from artistic expression. I continued to play music, which continually got more and more experimental as my tastes changed.

“After getting a two-year degree in communications at BCC, I decided to attend SUNY Oneonta for audio engineering. After returning from Oneonta, I started running a recording studio in Johnson City above Spool Contemporary Art Space. Sessions started to pick up and I was beginning to really sharpen my skills in the realm of recording and mixing music. In August of last year, only about a year into opening the studio, I severely injured my back. I had to take weeks off of work and couldn't play or record music. I was in so much pain for the first two weeks I couldn't do anything except go from my bed to the bathroom, literally crawling to get there. In almost an instant, all of my creative outlets were gone. I started to feel extremely depressed. During that time, my incredible wife introduced me to some surreal collage artists she discovered online. Something about the surreal imagery and the way the artists used found images to create this otherworldly imagery really stuck with me. This is when I started collaging, because I was stuck at home with nothing else to do and no creative outlet. In a way I am grateful for my injury - although I'd never want to experience it again - because it led me to another very fulfilling creative outlet.

“At first, the images I specifically wanted to work with were National Geographic images paired with astrophotography. I was more trying to mimic some of the collages I've seen and loved, trying to find my own style. Lately, my collages have been a combination of portraits and nature or astrophotography. I enjoy removing faces from the images I use because it forces the viewer to imagine a face there. They draw on their own experiences, and each viewer might see a different face. It also creates a feeling of anonymity or mystery. For a while I was using only images of non-manmade objects; I enjoyed the connection between humans and nature. I've always had this theory that for humans to progress beyond the constraints of our physical domain, a higher understanding and respect between us and nature is essential. A lot of the collages I make stem from this idea. I enjoy the process of making these collages more than anything. Sitting down listening to music, all of my thoughts about what’s going on politically or in my personal life drift away, and I get caught up in creating something that can't exist in our world.”

TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: Which artists have the most profound influence on you?

MICHAEL MICHA: A lot of the collage artists that I’ve found - it’s just online - and they actually go by aliases. One artist is Chad Yenney - he goes by Computarded. He’s got a really interesting style: he uses a lot of vintage magazines and it’s got kind of like a sweet-psychotic feeling. It’s really strange, almost like Willie Wonka seems just a bit off in the original movie, and that really speaks to me a lot. And there’s another collage artist that goes by The Human Wreckage. I saw him using this old portrait photography from the 50s in Hollywood, and I really loved the way he would juxtapose those images with something from nature or something from astrophotography. He has a bunch of old imagery, I want to say late 60s - laboratory photography - bacteria and chemicals and things like that.

TCC: Are you involved in photography or do you draw strictly from other sources?

MM: I have never used any photography that I’ve personally taken, but I do enjoy photography. When I met my wife - she’s a photographer - she introduced me to shooting film. She’s actually a filmmaker as well, and so she kind of introduced me to shooting in 16mm and she showed me some techniques of how she manipulates film. I’m definitely interested in that realm as well. I haven’t incorporated it in my collages yet.

Many of your pieces feature old photographs of Hollywood screen stars; what appeals to you about them? I’m really drawn to the aesthetic of the look - the way they used the lighting, the way they have the actors sitting, the posture - the aesthetic techniques they used back in the 40s.

TCC: Worlds Colliding 2, on the other hand, has a very complex architectural element.

MM: That was one of the more recent ones. I’ve done a lot of portraits, now I’m kind of trying to go into a different realm. I’ve always loved the collages I found in the early months - they have really interesting scenery. They would take four or five different elements and make this otherworldly scene, and so that kind of stuck out in my head. I thought maybe I can try and do a twist on it. So, yeah, I’m kind of going in a direction of trying to make very realistic, surreal scenery. So that idea of using the church and the cityscape, I loved the idea that the ideas, and generally what happens in a church and in a big city like that, are probably vastly different, and so I loved the idea of just trying to smash those together.

TCC: Where does the idea for a new piece come from?

MM: Most of the collages that I make, I go through each book or magazine that I have probably six to ten times. I’ll go through and make a first pass and cut however many images stand out to me. And then I take another pass. And so I think what ends up happening is I go through banks of photos that end up just kind of swimming around in my brain. And then I’ll get an idea, I wonder if they’ll work together. So then I’ll sit down with those two images and see if there’s something I can do with it. I think I kind of create a bank of memory photos in my brain and then I go through them in lulls throughout the day.

TCC: Have you ever considered using your images for album covers?

MM: Never, until someone came to me asking me if they could use a collage on one

of their albums. It was a close friend who recorded their album at the studio and told me they had loved “Garbage of Eden” and they would like to make it their album cover. The only specific collage that I designed was a skateboard - a local skate company called the Barren Company. In the spring, it’s looking like there’s going to be a series of three skateboards that I designed collages for. Two of them are already designed and then the third I’m currently working on.

TCC: Do you have any shows in the works?

MM: I’ve shown maybe 13 of my collages at the Garage, a great place that some friends of mine own. I really would like to display my art more, locally. I don’t really have the connections necessarily to book shows. I volunteer for Spool Contemporary Art Space in Johnson City, and so maybe there might be something in the works for next year.

TCC: Is there anything else you’d like to say?

MM: I’m really excited to be in the Carousel. I’ve absolutely adored the Carousel for a while now - I think it’s such an essential thing for this area.

Aww, shucks, we’re blushing. In addition to being an artist and running his own business as an audio engineer, Michael is the broadcast engineer at WSKG (recently moving there after many years at WICZ), and performs with Joe B. Springsteen in a duo called Archemist. His collages - compelling, eye-catching, and exquisite - are like potato chips: one will never be enough.