words//sara brown

If you say the word “artist,” most people conjure up the same image–a crazy offbeat character that paints in the dark and enjoys slicing his ear off. While we are positive that Nicholas Kuszyk doesn’t enjoy slicing his ear off (we think), he certainly is eccentric. Kuszyk is a visual artist who has just published a children’s book. Read this unique interview to find out how Odie from Garfield got him into art.

What made you get into this art form?

The answer is not “what,” but “who” got me into this art form and “when”.  It was Odie.  Garfield’s innocent, less than intelligent sidekick.  And it was one day in the fall during nap time in kindergarten.  I remember laying down as I did every day during nap time.  But that day something was different.  As I started to close my eyes and drift into young boy dreamland, I heard a drum set being played slightly in the distance.  It was a familiar, competent 4 count rhythm.  It lulled me pleasantly into a strange trance like half sleep.  I remember rolling onto my side and looking out the window. The sky outside had blended from blue into a dark hue of deep magenta and the clouds were an intense shade of heavy brown.  ”Wow, pretty,” I thought, but I didn’t think much of it and I rolled back over like a little bug and looked towards the front of the class. Then I saw something else was different. Very different.  The words on the blackboard had changed from “The CAT lives in the HOUSE,” to, “Young Nicholas, be free from suburban fear and follow your passionate destiny in a responsible intelligent fashion.”  It flashed back and forth from being written in my father’s perfect cursive handwriting to the font of Metallica’s logo. The pacifying drum rhythm suddenly got louder and the smell of burning asphalt tinged my tiny nostrils.  I then began to feel a sensation under my pants that I hadn’t experienced before.  My blue nap mat began to vibrate and float from the ground towards the recessed ceiling.  The drum rhythm began deviating from the steady 4/4 beat and random flurries of jazz funk infused with the air of the classroom that was quickly filling with noxious black smoke.  My classmates laid still on the floor complacently as normal, sucking their thumbs and cuddling their blankies.  I attempted to scream to wake them and save them from the fumes but my scream came out as the sound of a gentle babbling stream that lulled them further into docility.  The familiar yet increasingly funk laden rhythm gained tempo and volume but somehow became further away. My mat rose across the class to the now open window where I could see out into the playground the source of the stench and smoke.  On the playground in the center of the blacktop there was a pillar of fire burning in the shape of the upper case letter R that rose high into the magenta sky.  My mat floated upward following the spiraling flames to their peak.  Above the fire, perched at it’s precipice, was Odie.  His back was turned.  He floated motionless, perfectly balanced, indian style on his own translucent nap mat that dripped molten gold into the dark bright orange fire. He put out his hand for me to join him in the sky above the fire.  He was wearing a blackish purple cube shaped smock/robe.  In his other masculine hand he clutched a can of spray paint that contained every color visible to the human eye.  The spray can pulsed in sync to my heart beat as if to invite me into the core of his soul. I stared at the can but could only see Odie’s eyes.  I tried to look away but there was no open or closed.  The pulsing of the can and my heart became one and soon became aligned with the drums now beating from miles away.  Odie was not alone atop the R of fire. He was accompanied by four  geometrically clad beings who revealed themselves to me one by one as my mat gently floated around their meeting.  Each being greeted me as a family member with a gift of importance yet to be understood.  They were members of the 90′s alternative rock music band The Red Hot Chili Peppers.  They too floated on their own significantly interesting mats above the burning R.  Flea the bassist and most charismatic of the bunch, was to Odie’s immediate right. He wore stuffed animal pants in which Garfield was attached, still alive, wearing sunglasses.  Flea handed me a guitar pick carved from his own thumb bone and he touched my forehead instantly flashing every page of Thrasher Magazine that had been published to that day into my subcortex.  Anthony, the singer and arguably the most sexually attractive of the group, was running above his mat, in slow motion, jiggling shirtless, slightly out of shape, intensely towards me. He bestowed upon me an infinite pad of paper made from the smoke of the fire pillar and a pen shaped like my baby sitter’s house.  And Hillel Slovak an early, lesser known member of RHCP, was injecting an incandescent ooze into Chads tighty whitey head wrap. Hillel gave me nothing. But he smiled to me reassuringly to let me know I was on the right path.  Chad, the drummer and the RHCP with the most subtle sense of humor, was the source of the now perfect groove that permeated the environment. It was him that Odie had sent to summon me to this place. He bequeathed me a walkman equipt with invisible headphones and a glass mixtape that included on side A: three Anthrax songs, two Run-D-M-C songs, and a spiritual reading on the meditations of Krishnamurti.  On side B was an unlabeled live Grateful Dead recording and the first song from Hawkwind’s first album.  He also handed me a titanium mug with the picture of a Lamborghini Countach.  He motioned for me to drink from the cup. I sipped the warm liquid that the Lamborghini Countach cup carried.  It was my mother’s milk.  As I finished the cup the beings stood erect upon their mats and closed their eyes.  My mat then floated me into the center of the formal arrangement and evaporated beneath my bottom.  I began to descend into the flames.  I looked to Hillel for reassurance but he and the rest had vanished into the magenta.  I looked down and saw my school was a folded piece of newsprint and that I was completely naked… and so was Odie.  The Flames started to scold my skin and I looked to Odie.  He smiled and dissolved horizontally. His cube smock/robe unfolded around me and shielded me from the flames. The cube shrank around me until I stood in it like a vertical coffin.  There was no light and the drums had gone as well.  There was no noise and the heat from the flames felt like soft maternal kisses.  Odies eyes appeared before me and he spoke to me in a slow deep voice as if he himself were channeling an even more superior being from another even further dimension.  His words appeared before me in blue scrolling presidential teleprompter screen letters.  ”There is a journey with art, that is this life to come, in which you will emBARK!”

You recently published a book. What was that experience like?

Long and corporate, but pleasant.

What made you want to publish a book?

A nice publisher approaching me with lots of money.

You both wrote and illustrated the book. How is writing a book different then illustrating one?

Writing a book is making words in order to make sense; illustrating a book is drawing a picture of a book…?

Any plans on writing another book?

Yes.

Is there anything you haven’t tried in art that you are still dying to try?

Not yet.

Where do you see your art in five years?

On walls in the future.

Any advice to young artist out there?

Make art.

The age long question: what is art?

Stuff… I burned myself out writing that retarded story.  Was that too weird?

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To see more of Nick’s work, check out his website.