frl.zucker

I discovered Maren, or frl.zucker, when I was looking for a banner for this blog. Freshly inspired by a friend, who in a moment of crisis told me to do as Kathleen Hannah does, I looked for something that embodies the fierce spirit of the riot grrl brand of militant, but positive feminism. I wanted something that would also motivate the shit out of me. And I found frl.zucker's drawings! I can't remember what phrase I googled, and I don't want to guess, but I can assure you it was somewhere between embarrassing and awesome. frl.zucker is totally not afraid to be embarrassing though. Her blog is very personal, it sometimes reads like a story. And though she never spells it out, you get a feeling she, too, is looking for motivation and inspiration, trying to overcome something that's preventing her from feeling 100% every day. I can really relate to that, and probably so can very many girls and women. It's nice to find inspiration to act in one another. Maren told me that the banner illustration is of her and her best friend Hannah reassuring her she could do anything, which is really sweet, and also really important. If you have a best friend, it's definitely a thing you should tell her once in a while.

Apart from sharing her story and A LOT of awesome, awesome links + posting nice photos, frl.zucker uses a lot of text in her drawings. That's what interested me in her work a lot - exploring the intersections of images and words. It's a really common medium, if you think about it (comic strips, graphic novels, graffiti, prints, even traditional illustration to an extent, and most of graphic design), but one that I feel is left out from a lot of investigation. We think of type as a separate art form, and images as works on its own, or as ones as additions to others, but rarely as a whole. But as Maren put it, it 'lets [one] think about stuff in a more complex way', and it's impossible to choose which one describes the other - they are both equally important, integral elements of a whole.

frl.zucker recently contributed to a scrapbook released as part of Kate Nash's new album, and also designed some tour t-shirts for her. She also made a fabulous press kit for a band called Desperate Teenage Girls, whom I know nothing more about, as they apparently "refuse to put anything about themselves online..."

Maren kindly answered some questions just for Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, and in an awesome handwriting way. My questions are sometimes a bit vague, but it's a really interesting contribution - thank you!

If you wanted to ask frl.zucker anything else, she has a question form thingy of her own, and often replies to questions on her blog. She also has a Flickr, Etsy, and last.fm. And as I hope you can tell from this post, she's pretty awesome.