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Artist Noah Scalin constantly challenges himself to push the bounds of creativity.
A friend purchased this “Sesame Street” prop from a New York City auction and gifted it to Scalin. “It’s my personality in a way people don’t know me,” he says.
Scalin’s Ignatius Hats cap (on the skull) is embellished with political and punk band buttons collected in the ’90s, when he was part of NYC’s punk-rock activist community.
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Scalin started showcasing other artists’ skull art on his blog, including soldier Rupert Valero’s action figures that he created out of junk while deployed in Afghanistan.
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After receiving a copy of Scalin’s “Skull-A-Day” book, author Dave Eggers penned him a letter, telling Scalin he found the book to be “brilliant and inspiring.”
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Scalin says he has based his career on Victor Papanek’s book “Design for the Real World,” which combines his passion for design and activism.
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Inspired by Scalin’s skull project, artist Freehand Profit started a mask-a-day project. Scalin purchased Profit’s sneaker skull from the Skull Appreciation Day show he curated.
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Using a stencil from Scalin’s Skull-A-Day project, artist Robert Tarbell created skull art by catching smoke on paper with stencils and silkscreen.
Artist Noah Scalin’s home is part laboratory, part cabin of curiosities, where he makes an array of art and surrounds himself with quirky paraphernalia — artwork created by friends and family (work by his dad, Chuck Scalin, is found throughout), action figures, and oddities such as a human skull he acquired through an artist friend. “I like looking at things,” Scalin says. “I get inspired when I look around and see stuff and remember the things that inspired me to make something — a piece of art.”
His belongings — even the most seemingly random items, such as an action figure created out of discarded bottle caps made by a solider in Afghanistan — hold deeply personal stories of the relationships he has forged with others.
Scalin lives in a 1920s American foursquare in Battery Park with his wife, Jessica, a yoga teacher; their daughter, Zinn, 4; and the family’s two cats. Many know him as “the skull guy” for his yearlong project from June 2007-June 2008 when he challenged himself to create a new skull each day — documented first on a website, then in the “Skull-A-Day” book. Others know Scalin for his graphic design, mixed media, new media, sculpture, temporary art and portraiture. While some artists neatly stay within the boundaries of their medium, Scalin eschews confinement, recognizing that for creativity to have no bounds, it needs to be strengthened and stretched like a muscle every day.
As the first artist-in-residence at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business, he recently created a series of temporary portraits of notable Richmonders such as Maggie L. Walker, using donated clothing, and local art philanthropist Frances Lewis, using nonperishable foods and toiletries.
Other artists gravitate toward Scalin’s work, using his imagery to help tell their stories. Punk band Anti-Flag’s latest album, “American Fall,” features Scalin’s skull imagery on its jacket. On Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan’s website for her new novel, “Manhattan Beach,” you’ll find his original artwork as well.
Scalin, whose work is shown from Los Angeles to New York to Paris, also teaches the art of creation. Together, he and his sister, Mica, who is also an artist, run Another Limited Rebellion, an art and creativity consulting firm for schools and businesses. The siblings recently penned “Creative Sprint: Six 30-Day Challenges to Jumpstart Your Creativity,” an interactive workbook.
“I’ll continue to grow and expand and work in different media,” Scalin says. “My goal is to constantly be pushing my own practice.” And, because his creativity is contagious, his art will continue to spark imagination in others, too.
