Curtis Bergesen
Whether it’s traveling to an unfamiliar country, pursuing an eccentric, audacious new art project, or simply giving up on a longtime job and the stability therein in favor of something completely different, venturing out into the unknown is tough.
Fortunately for any anyone born & raised in the DMV (that’s DC, Maryland, and Virginia) and raised on the visceral, unpredictable sounds of 90s punk-rock & hardcore, taking risks and diving into new scenes is (literally) a part of life.
Curtis Bergesen is no exception.
In fact, it’s tough even to grasp the sheer breadth of his experience, over an almost 20-year career, in the worlds of art, live music, entertainment, and everything in between.
With his publicity firm Herbivore Publicity, Curtis built promotional campaigns from the ground up, working with acts like The Movement, The Expanders, The Green, John Brown's Body, and The Black Seeds. With companies like Ineffable Music Group, Rootfire, and Levitate Music Festival, he spearheaded digital marketing efforts for album releases and live events alike.
His current project, Collage The World, combines art from all manner of publications & eras. So far, he’s been featured in the Denver Art Society, and produced album art & tour materials for bands including Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Iya Terra, and The Elovaters, among others. In all his work, Curtis is unapologetically himself. With that alone, he’s doing something totally unique.
For a conversation spanning handmade mixtapes, DC punk rock, and the powers & perils of social media marketing, dive in.
The Way Of Rhyme (2019)
One of my favorite things about your online presence is that you say what you’re listening to when you create art pieces. For that giraffe piece it was NOFX and Bad Religion, or for the most recent LinkedIn post it was the Bouncing Souls.
Oh yeah I love the Bouncing Souls. I got into punk-rock and hardcore when I was a teenager in the early-mid 90s, when Warped Tour was just becoming a thing. I went to Warped Tour in DC in ’96, and the next year it was at RFK Stadium, which is where whatever the Washington football team is now called used to play. It jumped from a venue called Capitol Ballroom, in a bad area of DC, to the next year being at the football stadium.
But the Bouncing Souls will always have a special place in my heart. I got into this band called Hot Water Music through a mixtape that a friend of mine gave me in middle school, and they were usually performing at the same shows as Bouncing Souls, same tours. As time went on, I became a huge fan. The singer’s got this really easy-to-listen-to voice, and he does these high-pitched sing-along parts that are just undeniably catchy.
Skate Or Die (2020)
I’m jealous you were around for the golden era of hardcore, and mixtapes and all that. Sometimes I feel like I was born too late.
It was really fun. You could listen to the radio and record on the tape live from the radio. That was a weird experiment, because you could potentially have music that you wouldn't otherwise get access to. And then making actual mixes from a variety of songs you’d taped was a whole process.
The problem with mixtapes was that they weren't reliable, sound wise. If you listened to a tape enough times, it might get a little warped and the sound would be off. Plus, I don't know if they could actually melt, but I’m pretty sure the sun damaged cassette tapes.
But yeah – it was a whole thing back then to write down the tracklist on the little piece of cardboard with the cassette. It was a very hands-on thing compared to everything being digital now.
It’s interesting you say that because your art, these days, is all hand-made.
That's correct. It’s all completely handmade – cutting and pasting, gluing and taping pieces of paper. I don't do any digital editing other than when I finish a collage, I’ll scan it, open it in Photoshop, and literally just click the ‘lighten’ button. For whatever reason, scans always make things look darker & dustier than they are on the original. I click the ‘lighten’ button and then post that file on all my socials.
Was the choice to do everything by hand a reaction to doing purely digital marketing & promotion stuff for so long?
There’s no easy answer for that, but yes: I do think part of it is probably because I spent a lot of my adult life doing digital media, social media, marketing promo, all online on a computer, or on my phone. The amount of my life I've spent hunkered down in my home office doing that type of work is definitely something I have issues with. Making things by hand, with collage, has been really important for me. I don't think I’d get as much happiness (or creative fulfillment) out of it were I doing it on a screen or in an app or a program.
Collage is actually a pretty popular medium right now, I think largely due to Instagram. But the digital collage I’ve seen on social media can get pretty intricate. There are people making mind-blowing digital collage, but there are fewer people making handmade collage. It’s a little more niche. In this very digital age and at a time where I’m realizing I've spent so much of my life online staring at computer screens, it's nice to just sit down with a magazine and some tape, put on some music, and just see what I can do with my physical hands.
“Nobody can replicate an authentic voice.”
← Esta Casa No Se Vende (2019)
What was the inspiration for Collage The World, specifically?
I went to Miami in February 2017 to see [the band] Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad perform at a festival called Grassroots Miami. I’d heard of this incredible art neighborhood called Wynwood, which contains the Wynwood Walls – it’s basically tons of murals all over the neighborhood, beautiful big murals, street art, from a ton of well-known artists, including Shephard Fairey, etc.
I was so inspired by all this art, not just on the walls, but also in all the galleries and stores. For me it was like going to a music festival that tons of my favorite bands were playing at. It was like being a kid in a candy shop. It was literally mind-blowing how much cool sh*t there was, so I thought, “Hey, I really want to make a new social media account that's solely art-related.” Up until then, I’d only done social media bands for bands & festivals in order to promote live music.
I spent a while trying to come up with a cool name. I considered “Everything in Its Right Place,” but then after really racking my brain, I thought of “Collage the World.” If you think about collage, which is sort of combining at the minimum two different elements and making something new with them, everything in the world is a collage. Even, say, something in your bedroom – if you have art on the wall, that's a collage.
The reason I chose that specific medium is: I had a history of making very basic collage flyers for bands. When I was in college, I’d take two or three photos I’d taken of friends, mix ‘em with stuff I’d taken from National Geographic, cut them up, stick them on printer paper, and combine them with words I’d typed up in an old program called Word Perfect. Super DIY style of collage – back then I didn’t think too hard about it, I just did it. Fast forward 10-15 years from college days, I was like, “I’m going to make collages – I’m gonna cut up stuff by hand.”
It came from a place of me needing a creative outlet for myself. As I mentioned, up until that point I’d been running social accounts for bands, entertainment companies, festivals, music venues. I was always a ghostwriter, the behind-the-scenes digital marketing person. Nobody knew it was me other than the bands, business partners, etc. I needed something I could call my own.
Tell me a little more about doing graphic design for artists – what’s the best part about that?
I recently connected with one of the coolest companies in Colorado, this Denver-based label called Color Red that releases new music every week. It’s everything from reggae & dub music to soul and funk and rock and jam. I've already done three different projects for them: I did single art for an afro-beat group called Atomga, EP art for a band called Death by Dub, and then a single for an Australian band called Blackbird Hum. And because that band’s from Sydney, I'm technically now an international artist. [Laughs] Through the powers of the Interwebs, the world’s a much smaller place.
All of that came from me going after it. Nobody's coming to me. It's me pitching other people, friends’ bands, bands that I know the manager of. There are a million artists out there. It's pretty amazing if your art does get used for some band’s project or show or music. If they choose you, no matter the circumstances, it’s an incredible thing. I feel very blessed to be able to tie art & music together like that.
This whole story goes along with me getting burnt out from my full-time job in the music industry. I was sick of working digitally, online with bands and companies that were far away from me. I used to work seven days a week and I had no control over my own schedule, so I finally quit in September 2017. For a long time, I was really uncertain. I kept asking, “Where do I go from here? How do I move on from looking at my inbox and posting for bands seven days a week? How do I dig deeper into myself and figure out what it is that I want to do?”
As the years went by, making art has become that thing that I’m desperate to find. Whether it took me 30 minutes or three weeks to figure out and complete, that feeling of completion always feels good. That was something I never had in the music industry – back then I’d finish a project and already be stressed out about the next thing I had to do. Always being focused on publicity and pitching music & events to media is exhausting. I could send 100 personal emails and not receive a single response, and when you have those crummy odds, it's hard to feel fulfilled and confident in what you're doing and have the energy to keep going.
Last time we spoke you mentioned the phrase “extreme interneting.” Do you think running social media for artists & entertainment companies for over a decade taught you any lessons about promoting & marketing your own work?
The biggest lesson I learned is: be yourself and do it yourself.
Back when I was working with Giant Panda, I believed bands should really just be making music, touring, and playing quality shows. I was running their MySpace and all their socials. As they started touring further from home, I said, “Here's a clipboard, some paper, and a pen. Put this at your merch table. Send me a photo of the sign-up sheet and I'll send out the email blasts.” After a while, and as social media evolved, I took over all marketing. Point is, I was very rarely on tour with the band, and by saying, “Hey guys, I'll run your socials, no problem – you don't have to worry about it,” I actually took creative control away. And that ended up defining my career: I was a social media / digital marketing ghostwriter. I'd be the person checking the band's email & social media inbox and responding to fans. I acted as the band in the digital world.
My biggest takeaway is this: Although there are individuals like me who do a great job running social media marketing, fans don't want to hear from Curtis Bergesen talking about Giant Panda … they want to hear from James Searl, the actual bass player of Giant Panda. They want to see, say, a photo from some weird redneck alligator bar in Florida that the band just had a sandwich at. It's about the nuts and bolts behind the scenes.
Nobody can replicate an authentic voice. Being the authentic voice of something that you're not physically out on the road with is like creating in an office or a factory or a lab. Being the person behind the scenes without a real, tangible connection to something takes away a layer of authenticity.
With Collage the World, I haven’t had to prove anything to anyone. I don’t have to ask, “Is this collage too controversial or offensive or weird?” Whether people like it or not, if it makes them ask, “What the hell is this half man, half alligator with a background of a volcano showing up in my social media feed?” — that in and of itself is something special. To have my own art make someone question or think about something for one second is an accomplishment in this super ADHD, maxed-out world that we live in.
← Not All Bears Can Swim (2020)
“The real victories in life are outside the window, outside of A computer…”
Do you feel that having less pressure, and being independent, allows you to move further and get more done?
The short answer is yes. When I started Collage The World, I was coming out of this decade of really intense all-the-time digital marketing, being online all the time, so I was still in that headspace of desperately wanting people to follow me and engage with my stuff.
As time’s gone on, I've stepped back from social media. I’ll even delete Instagram off my phone from time to time. Otherwise there’s just endless scrolling, and the little happiness “hit” you get from seeing people liking your content. Whatever that stuff is, it's kind of real … but it's also kind of not. The real victories in life are outside the window, outside of a computer – connecting with people in real life, going for a hike, kissing someone, having a nice meal, seeing a really amazing concert. Those are the real things, and social media and digital stuff is a different layer.
With Collage the World, I’ve tried to just be real.
Funny enough I think a huge part of your style is being real — being, unapologetically you, posting videos of you with a cat, or writing about the music that inspired a specific piece, for example.
For me, the ultimate goal with art is connection – I'm trying to connect with people in whatever way possible, whether it's in-person, at a concert, on a phone call, or in a comment.
Would I love to get a million likes on my posts? Sure. But that’s something I wrestle with all the time. In fact, at this point, it doesn't matter how good whatever you’re posting is — there's no guarantee you're going to get much traction because of the algorithm and Facebook and Instagram wanting you to spend money to reach people. And because of that, it's really hard to feel positive day to day when the only way that most people see what you're creating is online.
The most rewarding thing for my art career has been a brick-and-mortar place, not in the digital world, called Denver Art Society. It’s a volunteer-run co-op art gallery in Denver, Colorado, which is where I’m based.
It's a nonprofit, so nobody's getting paid. You work a shift for free, but after a couple months of 6 hours a month, and as long as you attend a new member orientation, you're eligible to then sell your own art. There's no censorship, and there's no curation with somebody saying, “Hey, that's good enough, or not good enough, to hang up.” It's a really inclusive gallery. There are artists there who are experiencing homelessness, people like myself who are relatively privileged, individuals of all colors and backgrounds and skill levels and sexual preferences and everything else under the sun.
Having a physical location where there’s a community, and friendships with other artists, and the chance to engage with customers that come in, has been incredible. After spending over 10 years working from home, I now have this place where I can go just to get inspired by the art, by the other artists, by people coming in who are excited about art. It's really been what’s missing from my life for a long time.
