We’re talking with the inimitable Martha Rich today. You can follow Martha on Instagram, shop her Cotton Bureau store, or browse her full art collection on her personal site.

Don’t forget, all Martha’s shirts, hats, and more are 20% off now through Friday, April 4 using code featurefriday20 at checkout.

Hey, Martha! We last interviewed you way back in 2015, which was a lifetime ago. I’m curious where your head is at now. Between politics and pandemics, it feels like art for art’s sake has been displaced. Have you been able to keep working and growing, or are we all stuck in this limbo forever?

Hello there!

I actually think art for art's sake is more important and prominent than ever. I am making more stuff for fun to keep me connected to humanity and being human. I see people doing crafts and experimenting, making things with their hands all over the place. Never forgetting our humanness is the reason why I can keep working and changing. Since 2015, I've done more work in wood, doing installations, using cut paper and now I am exploring working in metal. Art for art's sake is keeping me sane and hopeful!

I love the metal work! Can you share a little about the tools and techniques that go into creating those pieces?

I feel a bit like I am cheating but basically I draw the shapes and I have a place that cuts them out of weathering steel using water and ground garnets. It's pretty cool. I also have a friend who owns a foundry and he gave me a piece of wax that I am going to carve into something. Then we're going to make a mold and create a metal sculpture. I am slightly intimidated by it so I am basically just staring at the wax for the time being. It will happen when it is ready to happen.

Oh, sculpture, that does sound intimidating. We recently visited Florence, seeing the statues completely exceeded my expectations. I can’t even imagine turning a chunk of marble into something like Michelangelo’s David.

Okay, change of subject… it seems like we really can’t avoid politics these days even if it would be healthier for us all if we could. You chose to release two new shirts, Stand with Ukraine and Stand Up for Each Other, that seem to have struck a chord with people. What made you decide to get involved in this way?

Well I have been involved in my local community for a while now. I'm an elected Democratic Committee person for the 2nd ward in Philly. I make the posters and collateral for our GOTV efforts.  So this was just putting my skills online instead. It is crucial for more people to get active and there are so many different ways to do it. The more of us who speak out the better.

Absolutely. We’re coming up quickly on the 250 year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The one thing we have always been able to rely on is our ability to speak openly without fear of government retaliation and the ultimate accountability of those who hold office to the people through regular, free elections. The only way to uphold that tradition is to continue voting and speaking out against violations of or threats to those rights.

Can you tell me more about your time working for the GOTV Committee? I would love to hear how you got involved and what your experience has been.

Ha don't get me started!

After the 2016 election I wanted to get involved, I found out you could run for office in Philadelphia, either as judge of elections or as a Democratic committee person. I chose the latter. Philly is broken up into wards and in the wards there are divisions. Each division has two committee people. You have to go out and get signatures and you get on the ballot. I did and I won. In old school Philly all the wards were closed and pretty much you do what the established Democrat leaders wanted. This changed a bit after the 2016 election, the 2nd Ward went open along with a few other wards. This means we do everything democratically and vote on everything and are transparent about everything, like spending funds, endorsing candidates etc. (in the closed wards you do what the ward leader says and that is it). The main thing we do is vet candidates, fundraise for them and get Democrats out to vote and get information out about elections and stuff happening in Philly. We also help people at the polls. It is a pretty cool thing to do.

My main contribution is the collateral we do to help with GOTV. I make posters, and door hangers that are a little more interesting than the usual political crap. Here is our website. One of the biggest problems in our country is people not paying attention to who is running for the municipal and local offices like district attorneys and judges and school boards. I am sounding like a politics nerd but if more people got involved we would end up with less crappy people running things. Here are examples.

No worries, I’m a big politics nerd! (My degree is actually in Political Science and Economics not Running a T-Shirt Website, believe it or not.) The big elections get all the attention, but it’s really the small elections that have the most overall impact.

But back to a less exhausting topic. I was looking through your portfolio and noticed that much of your work is oriented around the natural world, like the book you illustrated for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and your frequent use of plants and animals. Is that intentional for you, or do you find that you gravitate towards those themes subconsciously?

Plants and animals are much more fun to draw lately. What I do is based mostly on what I feel like drawing at the moment. I am never trying to convey something. If a message is conveyed it is purely accidental or maybe my subconscious brain wanted that message out there. 

Let’s wrap this conversation up with my favorite question: how do you think generative AI will impact your art in the future? For a lot of working designers, AI seems like a major threat. It steals and reproduces without regard for individual ownership, and it does it instantly. We have a more or less zero-AI policy for Cotton Bureau, but at the end of the day it’s only something we can ask people to respect rather than truly enforce. How do you see it? Will you take advantage of these new tools, or do you expect to keep your distance?

Pardon my french. I will keep my fucking distance. I hate it. It really is stealing. And in a just world the frickin AI tech bros would be forced to pay artists and writers a lot of money for the use of their work. Transfer that AI wealth to the folks who without their hard work, AI would be worth nothing. I don't know how it will affect me because I make most of my stuff by hand. And I have no choice but to keep making things. Artificial intelligence is artificial. I guess it appeals to the folks who like astroturf in their yards. I don't know. Human creativity will always be better. 

I couldn’t agree more. I always come back to Kevin Kelly’s Better Than Free essay. While it is almost 20 years old now, the very first line is perhaps more true now than ever before: “The internet is a copy machine.”

At the time, he was talking about how zero costs for duplication affect how you can charge for your work, but the advice is still 100% accurate: “When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.”

Just because someone can reproduce your work with AI doesn’t mean that’s what people actually want. Supporting the artist (e.g. 1,000 True Fans), should still drive meaningful income because only can you provide a genuine experience. I believe people are incredibly sensitive to authenticity and will continue to reward people who create original art.

Thank you so much (again) for your time! Now that you’ve been doing this for 20+ years, do you have any advice for people just getting started to match your longevity?

My advice is make work that you want and not work you think people want. Sometimes it'll work out and sometimes it doesn't and that never really changes. Just keep making stuff. Also surround yourself with cool people.

Well said. Let’s do this again in 2035!