(Photo courtesy of Joshua Margolis)
Joshua Margolis started showing his unique sculptures to the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area Community in 2010 to visitors of his art studio and he knew his characters had a story to tell. Melvin was born! Along came the supporting characters and Melvin the Sad…(ish) Robot started entertaining stories that children and adults alike enjoy reading. His latest book Melvin the Lost Robot has a Kickstarter and is fully funded already!
Yes, Margolis constructs these amazing sculptures and photographs them for his books. Painstaking, no doubt, but definitely work it as the artwork in his books is stunning. I met Joshua at a craft fair in Denver and was blown away by the meticulous artwork on his sculptures. Upon learning there were stories behind these little guys, I had to interview him. Get to know this unique and talented author and artist in our December interview.
Who is Melvin?
Melvin the Sad…(ish) Robot is a story about one robot’s longing for love and happiness. Melvin wakes up each morning with a familiar sense of sadness and loneliness. He goes to school each day to learn how to be a fixer bot, but as much as he loves what he is learning, he is failing all his classes. He has friends that ask him to join in on fun activities, but he has trouble accepting their offers for fear of new experiences. What happens one day when he gathers the courage to confront those obstacles? Will he succeed? Will he fail? Fall in love with Melvin and find out.
Colleen Bement: Welcome to Colorado and I hope that you’re enjoying life at a mile high. You’ve had quite the adventure growing up in New York, then giving Florida a try, before enjoying what San Francisco had to offer. That is a lot of adventuring!
My first question for you is, what did each part of these living experiences contribute to your career as an artist?
Joshua Margolis: Wow, what a great question. All those places, good or bad, each had their own epic impact on my development as an artist. Growing up in Saratoga Springs, New York, I had the opportunity to take classes during the summer at Skidmore College. I followed my best friend at the time to a summer arts program. He took ceramics, so I took ceramics. At the end of the session we had a big art show and one of the visiting artists, Toshiko Takaezu, came up to me and told me that she really like my work and that I should keep on creating with clay. This ended up being huge for me, as at the time I don’t think anyone had told me I was good at anything, ever! It was true that encouragement that led me to continue with clay in high school and then in college at SUNY Buffalo.
After college, I followed my parents on their big move to Florida. I thought, how awesome would it be to move to the beach! I beyond hated my time in the Tampa Bay Area, and I think I went to the beach maybe 3 times. But while there I continued my studies in clay at the University of Tampa under professor Jack King. In Jack, I had finally found a mentor that taught me how to actually be an artist. I think I had found my voice as an artist, but he showed me what to do with that voice.
When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area I was able to push myself both creatively and professionally. I quickly realized that part of what I loved most about clay was teaching it to others, and helping students gain the skills to find their own artistic voice. In my role at the JCCSF I was able to work with kids as young as 4 and as old as 99. Many of them grew up in my classes and went through major life changes. I was able to create a meaningful community based around art and creativity, all while exploring my own creative paths.
CB: What was the inspiration behind creating “Melvin the Sad…(ish) Robot?” What made you create the sculptures and what made you write the stories?
JM: I have always had a huge love for monsters and robots, and for my final senior project in college, after spending a few years as a figurative sculptor, I created a life-size ceramic troll named Larry. Larry looks about as alive as anything I had ever seen in my favorite movies, and I knew that was something I would want to continue to explore down the line. Fast forward to my early years teaching in SF, and one of my little students loved the creatures I was creating in her classroom, so she brought me a drawing of a monster and asked if I could make it out of clay. That request blew up into the Monsters and Robots project which ended with a month-long Artist Residency at the de Young Fine Art Museum in Golden Gate Park.
After finishing the Monsters and Robots project I had a lot of interest in my work, but not every fan of my work could necessarily afford a unique handmade sculpture. So I thought it would be interesting to create a coffee table book of my work that would be an affordable representation of my art. Since each one of my pieces tells a brief narrative, I decided to see if I could focus on one of my characters, expand the narrative, and tell a complete story. That story, Melvin the Sad…(ish) Robot, ended up being a very personal one about anxiety and depression, and ultimately the story of me adopting my dog.
CB: The process of creating those magical sculptures and photographing them must have been incredibly difficult. Two questions about that:
1.) Describe the process of creating the robot sculptures and photographing them.
JM: I’m a sculptor, that what I’ve been doing for years. If it’s in my head, or I see an image, I can sculpt it, and usually pretty fast. What I am not, is a writer or photographer. So for Melvin the Sad…(ish) Robot, I was basically teaching myself(and asking for as much help and input as I could get) as I went along.
I remember taking the original Melvin out into my neighborhood with a photographer friend to see if this idea I had would even work. Art is usually photographed with a steril background, but I wanted to see if my work could pass as living in our world. I was blown away by how photographing outside added to the narrative I was trying to tell.
My friend wasn’t available to help me shoot when I wanted, so I basically just bought his exact gear and went outside and figured it out. Shooting around my former home in San Francisco and Oakland provided so many iconic locations that really helped ground the imagery in OUR world.
2.) Did you ever take a break and wonder if you could have taken an easier way?
JM: Never. It’s just not in my nature to sit back. I’m the “lying in bed at 4 am with a killer idea” type of person. The past two years have certainly forced me to shift and scale back what I would normally be doing. And moving to Denver has really slowed my production with no studio, job, or events to motivate me. Things have finally started to ramp up in the past few months and I am currently looking for a space to open up my own teaching and retail studio.
.CB: You just launched a Kickstarter for your newest book Melvin the Lost Robot and I believe you told me that you are already fully-funded. WOW! Congratulations! Tell your fans about this new project.
JM: So I successfully ended the Kickstarter for my third book, Melvin the Lost Robot in late November. This 72-page hardcover book will actually be two stories in one. It will have the 40 pg Lost Robot story and then be followed by Melvin’s second book, the Super(duper) Robot. It should be out by April of 2022.
The Lost Robot was partially shot over the past four years, flying back and forth to New York City. I would take a few ceramic sculptures with me each time in my carry on, venture all over that vast city, and try and get some shots of Melvin with massive landmarks in the background. It tells the story of monsters and robots building bridges over barriers that divide us and is ultimately a story about kindness.
The Super(duper) Robot was something that I put together in between the massiveness of the Lost Robot production. This story is Melvin imagining what type of superpower he would like to have, while ultimately realizing that true superheroes do exist in this world. They just happen to be people like nurses, firefighters, and teachers. People that help us heal, and fix problems that are real. This book came out as a small softcover, so I am excited to have it in a hardcover format as well.
CB: Do you attend comic cons and fan conventions? What are people’s reactions when they come across your table?
JM: Oh most definitely! I have been to many of the California ones, Salt Lake, and Denver a few times. San Diego is the craziest. Going to cons is now like going to camp. I run into fellow vendors and artists that I have met over the past few years who share a very specific experience. Moving forward I will most likely only attend Denver and San Diego to stay local and in the big leagues, respectively.
Usually, people at cons are not looking for me or my books. They typically want what they know, so a unique IP is just another thing that they are glossing over. The people that do stop and chat are usually blown away by the scope of my project. I try and bring sculpture with me to illustrate how the books are made, and the teacher in me is really trying to inspire them to be their own creatives. Most think it must be computer-animated or stop motion, which are both things I would like someone else to do with my characters down the road. I have had adults read through the story at my table at cons and start crying because they are connecting with the story. I don’t live to make people cry, but I have to be doing something right to get that reaction in the middle of a live event, right? I can have the worst-selling experience, but if one person walks away with an emotional connection to my work, I feel like the richest artist alive. Just one that might need to borrow money for an Uber to get home.
Check out Joshua’s books here.
Written by Colleen Bement
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