SMILING AND NONSENSE IS MY WORK

Interview with Doris Schamp

She’s a person who loves to travel and therefore difficult to catch for an appointment. Already 2 months ago, we tried to get Doris Schamp for an interview, waiting for her at Luanda-Airport, Angola where she would have a stop but, as she only had one hour to catch her connection flight to Reykjavìk, we made our trip there in vain.
Our new attempt would be a more tricky plan. We hired one of her cartoon figures “Sticksitter“ (German: Stockhocker) asking him to sit on her head one day long in order to ask the artist some questions; here is the result:

Sticksitter: So Doris, here we are, I hope you do not mind me sitting on your head asking you questions!

Doris: This situation seems to me as if being interviewed by the voice from the off! If you promise not to pee on my head while interviewing me, we can start now!

Sticksitter: You come from the Burgenland as our readers here do, right?

Doris: That’s where I come from, right from the middle of it – from Oberpullendorf. That’s where I grew up and where I went to school.

Sticksitter: LA GUGGURAZZIA is a strange name, why don’t you sign with your real name?

Doris: I work in the design-field too; that’s why I wanted to separate both fields. Besides, I see LA GUGGURAZZIA more like a project/company name than a signature.

Sticksitter: Can you tell me how it all started with your cartoons?

Doris: It happened by chance. When I was about 18, my eldest brother gave me a book about cartoon-drawing as a birthday present, so that made me a little bit curious. As a child I was the biggest fan of „Pumuckl und Meister Eder“. I knew every serial by heart. Every year at Carneval, I would dress up as „Pumuckl“. Pumuckl was more or less my identity; I was obsessed by this little goblin. At university later, one of my professors pushed me to draw more cartoons. First, I thought that’s a joke because I thought...what?...how should someone make a living out of that?
I realized very soon that the most fun I have is when I draw and create new cartoons and I love to make people laugh, so I continued! My grandfather used to have a very good sense of humour. Whenever I spent time together with him, it turned out to be a chaos, us together as the dream-team...and anything could happen. At lunch-time, we threw around the food or we gave the finest dessert to the dog right in front of the eyes of my grandmother, who was for sure ready to kill one of us because of that. My grandfather was Mr. Disaster and I was his student.

Sticksitter: As I see, you had humour already in your genes! How do you get the ideas for your cartoons?

Doris: That’s a question I am being asked many times. It hardly ever happens that a good idea for a cartoon just pops up in my head...tataaa...here it is. Much more often, it’s work. I think about a theme, make a brainstorm, create the figure and the text. It’s like being the stage director. The interesting and challenging thing about a cartoon is that the drawing and the text have to be a perfect unity. If the text is not good but the drawing is, you will not have the punchline. The same happens for sure the other way round!

Sticksitter: What plans do you have for the next year?

Doris: I will try to find a newspaper or magazine that would like to publish my cartoons on a regular basis. That’s the only way how to reach people and to get known. At the moment, I send my cartoons to publishers, as I would like to make my first cartoon-book. Until the end of the year, I will be travelling quite a lot. The next exhibition that I am part of is in Böblingen, close to Stuttgart. I am already looking forward to going there! Moreover, there are several festivals which I will go to. What I really like about the cartoon-scene is that there is a very positive atmosphere among the artists. We often help each other and show interest in the works of others.

One thing I really regret is that caricature and cartoon is a field of art which is really neglected by galerists. There are hardly any galleries which are interested in selling humorous art...although that’s something finally everybody would understand, even the young visitors!

I really don’t understand why 99% of the art being shown is the super serious one...come on, life is serious enough!!

Sticksitter: Doris, I would really love to continue this interview with you...but my stomach is sending me important messages...telling me: food, food, food.
I know you could continue talking about cartoons for hours but I think now it’s enough.

Doris: Then enjoy your lunch!!!

LA GUGGURAZZIA Homepage: http://www.laguggurazzia.at/

by Sticksitter

2010.09.04