This Month WHACK is featuring the North Carolina based artist Will Safrit. We sat down with Will to find out about his inspiration, creative process, and show off his rad videos.

Do you ever deal with clients that restrict your creative process? – Yes all the time. I try my best to please the customer and try to save them from drowning in a graphical train wreck.   I think you need thick skin as any type of commercial artist.  At my job as a video producer/director in a hospital you run up against a lot of different clients and egos.  Some have no vision or concept of the project at hand. You as the artist need to help them along the way.
Design committees are always a challenge as well.

How do you deal with criticism from your peers? – I tend to take criticism very well I think…  One time I had one my pieces up in a show and the piece entitled “Usual Suspects” was called “raciest” by this lady.  I was very hurt.  She had stated that the line up of men was a racial profiling of black men in jail.  I was shocked to hear that because all of the subjects in the piece are all friends of mine and all Caucasian. That was pretty messed up.  I’m far from being a raciest!  Come on I was the only little white boy in my high school sporting an African medallion back in the day. I really had some weird style back then and maybe now too.

Barnstormers “Storm East” Video

What inspires your style of illustrations/color pallet? – I’ve always been into graffiti, street art and modern art. I am not so keen on the classic artists but I still respect them all. I find inspiration through other artists, friends, music and skateboarding.  I’ve always known even as very small kid that wanted to be an artist and it was when I went off to art school in ATL I was blessed to have some of the greatest artist friends around me.  Dan Gosinski, Dave Kinsey, Johnny Schillereff, Andy Howell, Hersk and Jose Gomez.  Those guys really inspired me to be a better artist and never stop learning.

What visual references do you call upon for inspiration and influence? – Inspiration from my work comes from people I see in common settings.  I love watching people interact in every day activities.  Some of my most recent works are from taking my wife up to her doctor in NJ/NYC about 11 times in one year.  Lots of people to draw in the NYC and I wish I could do more traveling but on much different circumstances.

What personal projects are you pursuing at the moment? - I’m working on a couple of different projects right now.  One is a new series of screen prints and paintings that have warriors from different war time periods. The subjects are conjoined to their enemy. It’s still in the research stage.  I’ve been drawing everyday, during coffee breaks at work and I’ve started a drawing on this huge wipe board.  I draw the first thing that pops in my head.  I try to stay creatively busy at all times, maybe that’s why I never sleep.

Beverage of choice? - Krankies Coffee - Guinness Extra Stout

Favorite object? – Pictures of my wife and I in old photo booth.

You can view more of Will’s work at the following links:

• Personal Website
• Vimeo Videos
• Youtube Videos
• Zazzle Shop
• LinkedIn Profile
• Artwork on Facebook

We’d like to thank Will for being one of Whack’s featured artists and gracing us with his rad Artwork.

At the core we are all artists here at WHACK media design. The need for creative ideas is constant. We want to help support spontaneous creations, by tagging our back wall. It’s our way to feature your art, creation, sketch, painting, whatever the medium. We encourage you to tag our wall and we’ll feature your artwork for the month, link to your site, facebook, twitter, etc., to help promote you as an artist, as well as keep our wall fresh with ideas. Find out how to be a WHACK featured artist.