Interview with Star.St.Germain

Totally crazed by this talented women from San Francisco, She has modelled for David LaChapelle, worked with Nubby Twiglet, and maintains a porn site! Star St. Germain is just fabulous....Do these talents ever end?


Name: Star St.Germain
Age: 27
Job: Front End Web Developer, Designer, Artist, Instigator
Location: San Francisco, CA
Website: http://www.thisisstar.com
Twitter: thisisstar


Welcome to DEER BRAINS, How are you today?
Quite well, thank you!

Is your name Star because you're so involved with anything creative?
No- I've been Star for....11 years now? In high school I was friends with a bunch of people who had my name, and then I started dating a boy who also had a lot of friends with that name. In the end, all of us got nicknames, in an attempt to avoid confusion. Mine stuck.


Tell us a bit more about what you do, whats your favourite aspect of your talents?

I don't know if I have a favourite talent, really... unless you count having many.
It took a lot of years of people telling me that I ought to focus on doing just one thing before I realized that was a bad idea.

I really, really love doing lots of things. That *is* my thing. I like bringing my art and music and comics and everything together.
This idea of only being any one thing in your life is preposterous-- we are multifaceted creatures who should be allowed to change our minds about what we want to be.
I am lots and lots of things, and so are you. We should get to choose what to do every day! I think it's possible, and I intend to set an example.

We understand that you've done work for comics including Tori Amos's and Marvel?
Yes! I worked on Comic Book Tattoo, which is an anthology of comics based on different Tori Amos songs. I did the art for Chris Arrant's story, which was based on the song "Glory of the 80s". It came out last year with Image Comics, and it won an Eisner Award and a Harvey Award.

For Marvel, I did coloring and lettering on Strange Tales #1, for Molly Crabapple & John Leavitt's story. You guys might know Molly from Dr. Sketchy's anti art school, which is sort of taking the life drawing world by storm right now. She was excellent to work with, and I'm happy to report that I'm working with her on a couple other projects this year.

Both projects were full of super talented people that I'm really happy to be in the company of.

How did you get into that?
I've been making comics for a few years now, and Chris Arrant interviewed me for Newsarama, in their up and coming series. (View it here.)
He had been asked to write a story for the Tori book, and he asked me to be his artist.
Things just sort of took off after that!




You've worked with what I credit to be one of my biggest inspirations David LaChapelle! What was it like working for him?
Absolutely surreal. His studio is full of super colorful people, and something amazing and strange is always happening. Although, much of working in hollywood is like that.

Is he as nice as he seems?
Yeah, David is a nice guy. But he is extremely focused on what he's doing when he works, so that's the main thing when he's on set. During a shoot, don't expect nice, expect really good photos. Off set, he's very sweet.




How long have you been doing your jewellery line for?
I launched my jewelry line last year in April.

Unfortunately your jewellery line is sold out at the moment, when can we expect to see some more pieces?

I am currently in the middle of trying to get my own laser cutter, so I can control every aspect of the production.
The plan is to launch a spring line in April, on the anniversary of my original launch.
That said, getting a laser cutter is a hugely expensive and time consuming thing to do- so it might take a bit longer than that.
I may have one more round of stuff cut off-site if there are any major delays, though, because I'm overdue to restock the old designs.


I'll Let You Watch by thisisstar

Tell us a bit more about your musical projects?

My main project right now is called This Can't End Well.
I'm the primary songwriter, and I sing, play cello, guitar, and program electronic drums.
I'm accompanied by Kristen Adam on viola and glockenspiel, and Adam Willumsen on violin.

I'm also in the studio working on recording my solo album. Adam and Kristen will make appearances on there as well.
Because we're all spending time in the studio, we haven't been playing many shows, but we'll have some recordings to show for it soon!
Also, if you can't wait to see what we're doing, we livestream our practices on Tuesday nights over ustream at this address.
So you can see us playing, answering questions, drinking, and generally goofing off.

I'm in another project called We Used to Talk with Portland based musician, Myrrh Larsen. We haven't really been working together for a while though because we live in different states, and Myrrh has been working on his solo album as well. Hopefully you'll see us playing some shows up north, after his album drops.

Now how the hell did you go from making chilled out music to working on a porn website?
A friend of mine was working there at the time, I'd been to the studio for a happy hour party previously, and I was really impressed. They had an opening in IT, and I had just moved to San Francisco, so I applied. They hired me on the spot, and I've been there ever since.


Do you find it strange working on a pornographic website?
Not particularly. The reason I wanted to work in porn is that technology tends to break there before anywhere else. The vhs vs beta wars were won in porn, and my company was one of the first groups on the internet to do live streaming video in true HD. What better place could I find myself but in the IT department of a porn site, to be on the bleeding edge of things? Also, I can wear whatever I want and swear like a sailor. Works for me!

What's next for Star.St.Germain?
Well, my album will be out at the end of the year, and I would like to try to do some touring when it comes out.
Before that? I'll have a new line out for my jewelry, and I think I'm going to start working on a long form autobiographical comic.

What's your inspiration?
I try to surround myself with people, things, and experiences that guarantee I will never have a dull moment.
Because all of my work is so autobiographical in nature, I'm always trying to find inspiration in my own interactions with the world.
The trick to making that interesting is being really proactive about living. That's an art, too.

Which websites do you visit regularly?

Girl bloggers are the bread and butter of my google reader: agentlover.com, nubbytwiglet.com, galadarling.com, biorequiem.com, destroyx.com, maryvannote.com/blog
Also, I love a lot of tumblr blogs: therealkatiewest.tumblr.com, thelittlelies.tumblr.com, threeframes.tumblr.com, letterheady.com
some others: laughingsquid.com, docpop.org, cuteasfudgefactory.blogspot.com, axecop.com

Where is your favourite place to be?

San Francisco is home. It took me a long time to find it, and I don't expect that to change.
That said, any place with people I love in it has potential to be my favourite at any given time

Thank You! XOXO Any thing else to say?
Always say yes...if it sounds like it might be fun.