Local art legend Denny Preston on history, style, and what fuels his boundless imagination.

You're listening to Art Happens Here, the podcast that explores the often curious and occasionally amazing art installations on, in and around the campus's Lansing Community College. I'm your host, Bruce Mackley.

I think it's impossible to talk about LCC and art without mentioning today's guest.

His talents build into so many different categories and calling his work wildly imaginative is a vast understatement. Seeing his creativity over the years only hints at what links the human imagination is capable of. Dennis Preston, welcome to Art Happens Here.

Thank you.

This is great. I mean, where do I even begin? We met when I was in high school. You came in as a guest speaker and basically blew our minds with your stuff.

I mean, everybody wanted to be you when you left. There was nobody like you then and there's nobody like you now. You know, to be completely honest with you.

Well, let me just frame this up a little bit. First of all, you're incredibly prolific.

You have, you've done album covers, posters, fine art prints, murals, caricature renderings, adult coloring books. You've managed to publish music. I mean, wow. I mean the body of work that you look back on is. It's really impressive. So.

Well, I know you've done interviews before and I want to try to keep this non generic. I'm going to try, but how about your background? I mean, you're from this area, right? Yep.

I grew up here. Yep.

You went to Eastern High School.

Eastern Pattengill and Foster.

Okay. And I can only guess, trying to picture you on the floor with the crayons when you're a kid. You probably, you probably into art from an early age.

I started in first grade.

Yeah.

I don't even remember drawing in kindergarten.

Did the teachers fight over your work?

If they did, I didn't see them do it.

Oh, come on. Oh, no, no. So you gravitated toward creativity. Was there anything else that you. That you were interested in doing or was art and creativity?

It was art. I wasn't interested in sports and even back then I didn't like music.

Yeah.

So it was. Yeah, total focus. Starting in first grade was art.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's worked out for us. I mean.

Wow.

Well, just touching on your, on your creative style a little bit looks like as an illustrator. Let me start. There's so many different things.

The typography and the fine art and the humorous illustration stuff that you do, it's all held together with, with your, your style. I mean, your graphic style is very. It's strong and it's confident and it's Recogn. Recognizable.

I can't even imagine the number of people you've influenced over the years, artists that you've influenced with your style. I was definitely one of them. I mean, for sure. Dennis Preston. I mean, there's no better.

There's no better role model or, you know, something specific to such a strong and recognizable style. Well, what. What I see is hugely influenced by Rick. Rick Griffin and Patrick Woodruff. I mean, was that intentional?

Were there other influences in your background?

I don't know who Woodruff is. I for sure I know who Rick is.

Yeah.

As far as influences, he was a pretty big one. But in high school, I think they all kind of funneled together where it was Rick Griffin, Salvador Dali, Magritte, Beardsley. And then after.

Well, part. When I graduated from high school, I got more exposed to other art styles, too.

But the main thing is, during high school, one of my art teachers, Mrs. Scheidler, she exposed me to different art styles, and that's pretty much where I picked up on the art Nouveau. They were seeing that I was kind of drawn to that style, even though I wasn't exactly painting in that style.

But the last year of high school is when I start getting more into designing things for bands. So I was. I had my eyes open.

So I did see that there was concert posters out there, and Rick Griffin's style was one of the styles that I could see in them.

Yeah, it's beautifully designed. Yeah.

And your concert posters, that Art nouveau and I could make an entire segment on your mastery of typography, because I'm here to tell you, it is not something that every creative, every graphic designer can fully get. And my guest here is a master at custom typography.

He pushes the boundary of recognizability and legibility and art, and it balances out to where it catches your eye and you can get it, and it's artwork at the same time. And he's humble. He's just smiling at me over there. But he knows. He knows it's true.

It sounds like you're talking about somebody else.

I know it does. But no, I look for typography because it's its own discipline.

It's its own sub discipline within design, and you've nailed it, especially with those early concert posters. While we're on the subject, how many bands? I mean, what kind of mention some famous names that you've done concert posters for? Wow.

Well, back then, it was. I was. You know, it was kind of like the thing where I would get contacted to do the posters. So I didn't really choose who I.

You don't go out and you ask, hey, can I do your poster? Or anything like that. So, like, some of the names that I ended up doing them for, you know, were like, Ravi Shankar, the Birds.

Wow.

Big Brother in the Holding Company. Wow. The Steve Miller Band, Alice Cooper.

Jeez.

Wow. I'm trying to dig back into my brain seeing all these names. There were some blues ones included in there.

Do you have any. Do you have any stories about. Did you deal directly with the bands or was it through another entity, like their manager?

It would either be the promoter or managers. Mostly it was the concert promoters or people that owned the venues.

I dealt a lot with the promoters, but I did hear some things back through them about the people that I did the posters of, where they wanted copies of them. They would ask more questions about, you know, they were wanting to know if I was open to doing other work

and stuff like that. But that's great.

I would have liked to done some album covers for some of those people, but, you know, it was mainly the concert posters.

Yeah. There's a timestamp quality, you know, that history that's. It's really something now, looking back on it and that.

It's part of that time period and part of their. It's part of their body of work.

Yeah.

You know, it's. And it's. I think it's great. I didn't use the word cool. I'm. I'm weaning myself off the word cool.

I might end up saying it.

You can take mine. No, I think it's great.

That Cool.

Yeah. Here's some cool. Some Kool Aid. Not the Kool Aid. Don't drink the Kool Aid.

No, but I'll take a couple of those cools.

When bands are involved to that level. I know the Stones were, you know, that studio hypnosis did those amazing album covers for, you know, Floyd and whatnot.

And there's that picture of Emerson, Lake and Palmer hanging out with H.R. ginger, you know, for the Brain Cell of surgery. And you can tell that they're just into the artwork that represents their music. And. Yeah, yeah, it's.

Well, you're.

You. You referred to. And I'm going to be all over the place. I'm not.

Go over. I don't mind. I'm not going anywhere for a little bit here.

Good, good.

Okay.

A little swig of tea, I think, mainly. I mean, I can only imagine how many people you've met. You are in it in its Clearest form. You're an entertainer. I mean, you.

You're entertaining to talk to. You're a musician. You have. You develop dialogue and with people that. You draw the coffee shop doodles.

You refer to these things as doodles, and I guess that's fine from your viewpoint, being a master illustrator. They're more than doodles. They're napkin doodles. I think.

Well, can I explain why I call them a doodle?

Please.

I call them a doodle because they're not really planned out. I'll just start drawing. Draw like an eye or something and see where that goes. Or somebody might say something in the coffee shop.

I don't do it anymore. That stopped in 2013, where I used to hang around in a bigby and do that. But different things would influence me while I was sitting there, you know?

But to me, it wasn't really something planned out. That's why I call them a doodle. I just start drawing and just see where they go.

Well, they're all. Well, they bear your distinctive style, and they populated the Bigby coffee shops around town for a long time.

I remember the first time I started seeing these. I'm like, his knuckle must be. I mean, you're so.

You must be drawing all the time because your style, you do the cross hatching and the hatching and the stipple, and you. You balance it out and there's nothing. Maybe this is the wrong word. There's nothing lazy or make this quick about your work. It's. It's crafted.

Even the doodles are crafted. And there's something that I noticed with. With these. They're. They're character renderings of. For those of you.

Maybe they're the three people who live in the woods without connectivity that aren't. Haven't seen these. They're. They're like caricature character renderings of. Of people.

Well, no, they're not the exact person. I'm not.

No, no, they're not. But they're out of your imagination.

Well, yeah, there are the imagination, but I might be seeing somebody and I go, wow. You know, check out their features. Okay. I get influenced that way. And then somebody that's similar to that, because that's happened too.

When I was doing the napkins, somebody walks in. I go, oh, you know, I had to do something that looks similar to that person. And then.

And then the memory bank.

Oh, yeah. And that's pretty full.

Wow. I read somewhere that when we dream and there are people in our dreams, it's faces that we've seen. We can't make up faces in our minds, really. Yeah.

Patterns, plaids, you name it. It's all like part. It goes in.

Wow. Yeah.

It's like a memory bank. But given that. Something that I think is very endearing with. With these rendering is they're kind of a. There's a comfortable.

You see as what you see is what you get vibe with your creature doodles. That really strikes a chord. People are drawn to them and they celebrate individualism. And each one is unapologetically one of a kind.

I mean, they are. It. They're kind of upbeat and they're, you know.

Well, there's some ugly ones in there. Yeah, there are, you know, that aren't really. Yeah, they're not happy happy looking.

Not happy happy looking. But they all seem comfortable in their own skin.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's relatable to people. Sorry, I just think it is. And your, your work also has a friendly. Here's, here's. Here's what I'm beating around.

I've seen your, your. Your illustrative work. Your. Your serious, more involved stuff.

The stuff you did years ago where you could do book covers and they weren't as cartoonish. They were more serious fantasy renderings and stuff. You could. Given how fantastic some of your images are.

I don't think you've ever frightened small children with your drawings.

Oh, well, well, well, the thing is, is the, the closest thing I could relate that to is drawing caricatures.

Sometimes when I've drawn little kids and they see their caricature, they don't understand it's supposed to be exaggerated so that I don't think it's a fear thing. But it's not. You know, they're wondering why people are laughing at it or.

Oh, yeah.

And it doesn't register in their brain. Okay. It's a cartoon version of them.

It's like kids don't get sarcasm either. It's like that. It's more evolved.

Yeah, yeah. And you have to explain. You have to explain to them, okay, this is what you would look like if you were a cartoon.

And then it sinks in and then they go, oh, okay. You know, the only other thing I can relate to that as far as scaring people with my art, I did a CD.

I put out a CD in 1991, and on the album cover there are some demons and some pretty ugly looking things going on. And it was, it was called Toys from Hell. And the thing was, is like I had this. My CD was on Consignment in a store in Grand Rapids.

And there was one time I went in there and I go, oh, they sold them all. And so I went to talk to the person in charge of the music, and I go, well, you sold them all. Do you want some more? And they go, no.

Or, in fact, we're going to give you these back because people thought the COVID was too scary.

Really?

Yeah. And I go, oh, okay.

You know, that's kind of flattering in a weird way, isn't it?

Well, you. Well, they're not selling my music, though.

I know. You overshot the mark. Right?

Yeah. And then there was this another thing of.

I did an album cover for a band, and the record label said it was too scary, so I had to redo the whole cover and make a. You know, it still had some items in it that was in the first cover, but it looked a whole lot more safer for the public.

Yeah. And fear is a funny thing. What triggers. I mean, it's. It's subject to interpretation, I think. You know where I remember.

You familiar with Bernie Wrightson? No. Bernie Wrightson was an illustrator, a comic illustrator for many years. In fact, he did a. One of his great works was Illustrated Frankenstein.

He did this amazing line work.

Just you look at one of his drawings, and it must take, you know, two weeks to do one of these things with the glass and the table and all this stuff.

Was it color or black and white? Both.

Yeah, both. There was a picture he did. He did a lot of, like, Swamp Thing and dark comics.

Weird war tales, you know, kind of like bordering on, you know, eerie and creepy were huge with him. Right. There was a picture of a guy who had. He was leaning on a fence, and there were all these human heads, because he was a.

You know, he collected human heads. And there was some type of pushback on that artwork. And he said, look, that's cartoonish. That's not in any way, shape or form. That's not scary.

That's silly. Now, scary would be feet with bows on the toes. Something like, you know, a little bit off. I mean, if that makes any kind of weird sense.

More of a. Right. Warped.

Right.

You know, not your standard. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. If you look at, you know, even cinema today, some of these things are, you know, they're. They're templates and. I don't know. I like scary movies.

I haven't been scared in years, so I keep. I keep trying, at any rate. No, I mean, try that today. I mean, today there's just all manner of everything out there. To choose from so.

Well, more about your past. You.

I'm still thinking about Boson, the toast.

I know. I'll send you a link.

Where did that come from?

From his work.

Oh, he. Oh, okay.

No, his work. No, no.

Something you made up? God, no.

No, no, no, no, no, no. This was. He was responding to somebody about one of his paintings because they were talking about, this painting is really scary and weird.

And he goes, s isn't scary and weird. Now that would be scary and weird. Like, that he was part of. There was a book called the Studio. It was published by Dragon's Dream back when.

And it had to do with Jeffrey Jones, Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluda and Barry Windsor Smith all occupied this loft in New York. And it was collaborative. It was just. They did their best work in these three years time. And this book is a collector's item now, and I have one.

It's falling apart. But all this great early comics and, you know, life drawing and fantasy rendering

and all this, that would be something, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

To have, like an apartment that has that kind of talent all in one place.

That's what it was. They'd wander around and they'd check out each other's work. And back in the 70s, too. I mean, that whole melting pot thing.

Well, I mentioned LCC with you and you. To me, I mean, you. You're synonymous with this institution you started teaching here in 77. Am I right? Yep. Humorous. Humorous. No. What was it?

When I. When I applied for the job, I. You know, I went through three different interviews and I said, I'd like to teach cartooning.

And they said, we don't have a cartooning class. I said, I go, wow, you know, that's what I'd like to. I would like to teach that.

And at one of the interviews, John Hutton happened to be sitting in the same room when I was being interviewed. So anyway, what happened? Okay, I'm trying to think. Okay. How much story do I tell you?

It was a minute ago. I know, 40 years ago.

Yeah, well, no, 40 years plus. I can remember it all. But the thing was, is there wasn't a course in that John overheard the. You know, the talking. And so John developed a class.

He developed a cartooning class. And it was more. And the thing was, this is before. I think this was before I was hired.

But actually, to go back to that, I did these interviews because my uncle was bugging me to teach down here.

Really?

He taught down here.

Okay. Did he teach art?

No. Oh, he was teaching in A whole different area. And he would say, you ought to go down there and teach.

That's very. It's very worthwhile. I mean, it's.

He did it. He did it for a year. He bugged me about. And then that's when I finally, okay, you know, I'll go down there for the interviews.

And then after the last one, I just kind of went home. Okay. And I just said, oh, and prayed. I just said, God, if you want me to have this, you know, make it happen. If not, I'm cool with that.

Yeah.

And then I get the call and they go, we want you. And I go, okay. When they go next week, I go, whoa. And when I came in, like I said, there wasn't a cartooning class.

So the classes that they first had me teach was graphic design and lettering. Because, you know, each interview I went to, I had a portfolio, and they could see which areas I was strong in.

Yeah.

So there was some brochure kind of thing, but mostly concert posters, so they could see, okay, this guy can draw, this guy can letter. You know, he can design. So that's what they had me teach. So after that first semester is when John developed cartooning.

After John put together that class, I took it over.

I can't imagine John Hutton teaching cartooning.

Cartooning, from his view, was more technical.

Well, he never smiled.

And there you go. There was less humor in what he was doing. He was coming from a whole different.

He was an agency guy back when.

Well, you know, John. John was cool at what he could do.

Yeah.

But like I said, I took it and I rearranged the course where it would start out with basics, you know, because you're getting all kinds of students coming through. Some that are already knowing how to cartoon, and some that it's new to them, some it was required.

Yeah.

You know, so I wanted to start out things simple for them, you know, but at the same time, if somebody wanted to go further and put more detail into their work, I was open to it.

Yeah.

The main thing I. My goal was to help them at where they were coming from and not to put any. Any part of me and not my style.

Right. Yeah.

But to help them out, you know, as far as. With the basic. Okay, you can't have an arm coming out of the ribs. Like that comes out of a shoulder.

Sure.

You know, so it was like.

Yeah, well, I.

Basic stuff.

I remember taking a class this would have been in the mid-80s, I think. And looking back on it, I look back on it as it was great. And your teaching style. You were very laid back.

You were obviously very talented and teaching something that means so many different things to different people. There was a girl that sat next to me that was in tears. She was literally crying because she couldn't cartoon.

And you took her aside, and I don't know what you said to her, but she was renewed. She was back on track. And you were funny, too. That's another thing about that whole thing about a wit cannot be faked.

You're naturally witty, and it just helped. It helped in the classrooms. A really fun class, as a matter of fact. You mailed some stuff to me. You mailed some stuff to me a few months ago. Okay.

And I. You know, vomit inducing isn't probably the correct term, but it was my work from. From. From college, and it was just, ooh, you know, I thought.

I. I remember, too. There's some. There's somebody that you forgot to draw ears on.

Oh, my gosh. That's another thing. Oh, that's another thing. You entered a contest. You used to enter these contests.

One was an album cover for the Tubes, and you won it. Yeah. Remember that?

Yeah.

And you had this, like. Because they were. They changed their image halfway through, and you did, like, this guy that was, like, backward. Transforming into.

Into a hippie or something.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you entered another contest. Remember Ziggy the cartoon? Ziggy the. The guy.

I know the character.

Yeah. And you. It was like, fill in the. What he's saying. You know, there was a bubble, and you'd fill it in, and you wrote, has anyone seen my ears?

Well, I did.

Is that hilarious? Because nobody put it. Because he didn't have ears, and. Has anyone seen my ears?

I mean, it's just out of the gate, just really sharp and really funny, you know, I don't know if you won that one either. You probably did.

I. I don't even remember that. I remember the Tubes one because I went. I won the TV set.

Yeah. It was a TV set. Yeah. A television tube. Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.

So.

Well, at el. LCC, you were. You were an institution here. And I mentioned your. Your appeal, the appeal you had with your artwork. You certainly influenced me.

And my pen and ink and everything coming up, and countless other people with. As much as you didn't want to impose your style. Your style was so captivating, and it's so visually engaging. You know, it just.

You just, like, gravitated to that, so, you know, I would. There's the. You knows, I didn't Even catch that. Yeah. Well, I would like to take a poll, you know, at some point and talk to.

Talk to people who have been influenced by Dennis Preston. We got a few more minutes here. I'd like to.

I'd like to have you back and continue our conversation though, and get into what you're up to these days and what you look forward to doing and other things, client things, things that we haven't heard before. You've. You've done interviews. So I do have a couple questions a little off the track that could be kind of. Kind of fun. So does that sound okay? Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, have they been fun for others to do that?

No, no. These are. These are unique to Preston, to the Dennis Preston.

No, I meant when did. Did you come up with questions that they just never would have thought?

I try.

Well, that's good.

Well, not everybody has done interviews before like you have. I think I know about you. I mean, I followed you and we run into each other every so often. I have friends on Facebook and whatnot.

By the way, you're a master marketer. I mean, you do know the marketing business with what you do. Many creatives do not do that.

And they don't understand my humble viewpoint working in marketing now. They don't understand that you have to put almost as much into marketing yourself as you do the actual artwork to flourish in this.

And you embraced social media. You've dove right into it and you use it, you leverage, leverage it. Those platforms to their best, their best advantage. So hats off to that.

Wow.

Love seeing your stuff too, online, when it pops up in the old pictures. Anyway, that's the. That's the one. One of the good things of social media is you can peek into others lives like that.

So, Denny Preston, it's been remarkably great talking to you and come back again and we'll. We'll talk about the future. Sound good?

Okay, thanks.

Pablo Picasso once said, every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

If you want to check out what I've been talking about, just visit this episode at LCCconnect.org. Art Happens Here is a production of LCC Connect. Thanks for lending us your imagination.