Words by Cullen Poythress
Photos by Marc Falkenstein
Back in the acid age of 1960s, San Francisco, there was an artist named Wes Wilson. Unless you’re an art student or some aging hippie, you’ve probably never heard of him. Wilson was one of those guys whose art is remembered more than his name. Kind of like that ’80s jam “One Night In Bangkok.” Everyone knows it, but nobody really remembers who wrote it. Murray Head wrote it. You’ve probably never heard of him either.
Back to Wes Wilson. Wilson was a rock-and-roll poster designer. He did posters for heyday rockers, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and many others. He’s one of the artists that’s credited with the whole psychedelic font and design style that helped define the era. Fast-forward to today and you’ve got 28-year-old artist Mike Kershnar. Using an array of acrylics, enamel, pen, watercolor, spray paint and ink, the self-taught artist dabbles in all kinds of projects—everything from skateboard graphics and apparel designs for companies like Element, Obey and Toy Machine, to his newest medium, producing music posters.
Kershnar is more than just an artist, though. He’s a lifelong skateboarder, wilderness survivalist and naturalist with a keen interest in Native American culture. He’s particularly interested in power animals. “I identify myself with many animals,” says Kershnar confidently from his Laguna Beach, California, residence. “I’ve got three in particular that I most closely align myself with. I’m usually the coyote, but sometimes I’m the owl or the blue heron.” He recently did a board graphic for Toy Machine skateboards that features a rendition of skate artist Ed Templeton’s Sect character as the Hindu diety Kali giving birth to a coyote. “The reference was done to draw connections with Eastern and Western spirituality,” explains Kershnar.
His latest artistic endeavor is creating poster designs for bands. You could say he’s kind of like a modern day Wes Wilson. Maybe that’s giving him too much credit or maybe it’s not giving him enough considering one of his subjects is one of Wilson’s former subjects, Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh. “I’ve always loved the Fillmore era posters,” he says. “My parents were hippies and I was familiar with the esthetic of the Grateful Dead growing up. I began going to a lot of reggae shows and noticed they had lots of posters to promote.
I thought I could do it too.” Global entertainment giant Neederlander is currently using Kershnar’s poster art to promote shows at venues like LA’s Greek Theatre and The Santa Barbara Bowl. Some of his current projects include posters for the Beastie Boys, Phil Lesh and Friends, Wilco and Morrissey.
One can only assume that being the artistic voice of a band without actually working for them would come with some risk. Kershnar says he’s not too worried. “I always try to make it something special for the band,” he says. “My friend [and former pro skateboarder] Dan Rogers told me that Morrissey is a huge fan of James Dean and Elvis. I took that and made a Morrissey poster that portrayed Morrissey as a peacock, James Dean as a cat, and Andy Warhol as Elvis Presley, but also as a fox.”
