An Interview with Alexander Vincini

Alexander Vincini is an Everett-based visual artist, musician, and entertainment specialist.

He has lived in Everett since 4th grade and told me stories about waging “pine cone wars” with his brothers on old Broadway.

Alexander was voted ”most creative” in high school and graduated from EHS in 2010.

He's 25 years old.

I caught up with him at Silver Cup recently to talk about his projects.

LIEv: Can you give an overview of your artistic work in Everett?

A: I keep busy. In a small community you have to have eggs in many baskets. If one project doesn’t pan out or gets delayed I keep moving.

I’m versatile. I’ve done photography, videography, painting, sculpting. Anything involving vision work—I’m a very visual, kinesthetic worker.

LIEv: What are your influences as an artist?

A: Recently the neoimpressionist stuff—where it’s very free of constraints. I’ve been exploring that a little bit more. Basquiat—he was involved with Andy Warhol, very influenced by street art. More his life experience than his actual technical skill.

I like the late 70s period, I think there was a renaissance back then. It’s coming back in the way that the late 50s, early 60s were in a few years ago. I’m following trends in that way, looking back to the past. Things seem to be recycling themselves.

Flux is happening. I’m always putting myself in the way of new influences. It’s always changing. It could be neoexpressionism right now or it could be or how to form the perfect meme video. I’ll watch a video and try to think “what makes this so engaging to an audience?”

LIEv: What media do you work in? I know you do digital design as well as analog visual art. Do you have a preference?

A: Whatever medium I’m not bored in. I think that’s why I wear a lot of different hats. I have a lot of time and I like to fill that time with learning new things. If something gets stale I’ll jump to the next project.

Working in new mediums opens up previous media you may have worked in. A photographer working with the golden rule—that can inform visual art as well. I’m very visual. I don’t know what would happen if I went blind. Probably get into music more.

All these forms of art can inform each other.

LIEv: Can you talk about your history of work with the Black Lab Gallery?

A: The first year I worked there as the gallery assistant. As time went on I was utilized in more places more efficiently.

Now I tend to focus more on what Bella [owner of Black Lab] really needs—creating the Art Walk map or helping to curate events. You know, the last Skumbag event broke sales. We had close to 200 people come in through the door. It was packed. It takes a lot of work to get to that point.

I love Bella, I think she’s a huge staple in the art community. The Black Lab has a way of nourishing those artists still coming into fruition.

LIEv: What is the Real Event series? Can you describe that for our readers who may not know?

A: Adam Bagley and I spearhead the project. We’ve worked with Revolution by the Barrel and Soniphone Records to put it on.

Adam and I get the artists and set the stage and work with the Historic Everett Theatre directly. They’re very cool, very open to having the younger arts community. They reached out to us, wondering “how do we reach the younger demographic?”

Adam and I together—we have a good head on our shoulders for what works and what it takes to get the work done. I can run projections and stage management while Adam does more the production work—sound work and rigging. We know a lot of bands, so that helps.

It’s really to showcase local artists. Putting them on a big stage is really cool. And we get to play with a big stage, too, so that’s really nice. We had some crazy cool visual installations on the last one. We took big strips of tule (the stuff tutus are made out of), semi-transparent meshy white material—we taped them from the rafters to the stage at an angle and projector mapped them—it created this dancing visual field.

LIEv: Skumbag Co. is a line of hats and clothing, but it’s also events. Can you talk about the company a bit? What’s your vision?

A: It’s a pop up shop but also a show. Pop ups shops tend just to be that. Like a makers market more or less. Booths, vending.

We wanted to create something more conducive to our audience. Most of our fans are show-goers, they like to drink beer and hear music. We have t-shirts, which is an awe-factor. People like to see the t-shirt being made in front of them. The last pop up we did for Friday the 13th we had the company we work with for t-shirts make the shirts there in house, made to order on the spot in five minutes.

We like to create an environment that’s fun.

LIEv: Dada Fructose, your collaboration with Adam Bagley—it’s a visual experience and music?

A: Dada Fructose is a little bit of performance art. Adam’s beat-centric and he likes to build soundscapes. I like to accompany him. I’m more like the crazy person and Adam’s very into the audio aesthetic. I’m more the visual aesthetic. Last show I was mixing two VHS players on stage and creating a VHS feedback loop on stage. (The WAVES show). I was Doing VHS’s of horror movies projected behind us. Adam was creating viscerally dark tones. I would glitch out the tape inside the tape player to create distorted effects then pull out the tape, break it, and throw it out on the crowd.

Suddenly everyone started taking the tape out of the broken VHS cassettes. All of a sudden it became an interactive experience at that point—taking an old visual medium and literally wrapping yourself in it. People were walking around as tape monsters. In hindsight we probably shouldn’t have done that—it’s highly flammable.

That kind of thing sums up what we’re about. Performance-esque with enticing beats and mixes. It evolves over time.

LIEv: Is Everett a good place to make art? If so, why? What advice would you give to artists starting out here?

A: I think Everett’s great. For emerging artists I think it’s perfect. There are lots of avenues to go down and accessibility is easy. 95% of it is just showing up.

Don’t be afraid to fail. Just go out and meet people and shake hands. It’s kind of who you know, but it’s also getting to know them. Go out to the markets and breweries—you’re bound to run into an artist or musician. Just pursue it. Just keep talking to people and don’t be afraid to fail.

You gotta start somewhere and Everett’s a perfect incubator.

There’s not a crazy amount of competition. There’s enough room for everyone to experience each other and breathe.