Stephanie Croston

    Seward has been invaded by monsters.
     But don't worry. They won't eat much.
     These monsters are the creation of graphic artist Stefan Bucher (pronounced SHTEF-ahn BU-ker), who was in Seward March 6 through 8 to create the mural that now hangs above the old Well Bar at 133 North Sixth.
     Bucher told his story to Concordia University students and community members March 8.
     The monster mural idea came after Bucher reviewed a visual survey of Seward, during which he noticed the marker stating how far it is from here to Seward, Alaska. His first thought was to design an arrow pointing up with the miles per hour required to leave the earth's atmosphere.
     He changed his mind, though, and gave Seward monsters. The words on the mural are related to moving forward and in a positive direction, he said. And as an added bonus, the monsters' eyes will glow in the dark.
     Bucher worked with Paul Birkbiegler's senior graphic design class to paint and install the mural. He thanked the city of Seward "for being so lovely and letting us deface your town with monsters."
     Bucher is fascinated by monsters. He draws a new monster every day on his blog, dailymonster.com, starting with a blown-ink technique. He does actually draw upsidedown, as shown on the blog, and each creation takes about 20 minutes, he said.
     The first monster came as he was driving in Los Angeles. He saw the image of the monster on his arm and had to commit it to paper.
     "My job is just to channel the monsters onto paper," he said.
     He drew 50 monsters for a children's book he wrote called Upstairs Neighbors and put his first 100 monsters into a book called The Monster Book. It includes 271 stories about the monsters that were posted to his blog by visitors who named the monsters and wrote about them.
     "The blog was an experiment in letting go of control," he said.
     He said he tries to respond to every posting.
     In addition to talking about monsters, Bucher also talked about his professional career. He has worked on movies including The Matrix and The Fall, which will be released this spring, and CD covers for Whitney Houston and Sting. He has also done catalogs for various art shows in Los Angeles.
     He told the graphic art students in the audience that it's important to practice greed control, making sure money doesn't become the motivation for work. If it does, he said, the quality of work decreases.
     "You have to be able to turn down a job if it's not right for you," he said.
     When he takes on a project he does not believe in or support, "I become spiritually, physically and emotionally unwell with startling speed," he said.
     He said he tries to do no harm, and that affects the projects he chooses. He said kindness features prominently in what he does.
     Bucher, who grew up in Germany, had his first drawings-Christmas cards-printed at the age of 12. He hand-colored the black-and-white prints before sending them out. When he came to the United States, he decided to do New Year's posters, which gave him an extra week to work on them, he said.
     "My drawing process is more like Photoshop," he said. "I work in layers, in editable steps."
     He said information has a shape it wants to take, and if an artist tries to force it to look a different way, the work will fail.
     "The piece wants to be what the piece wants to be," he said.
     The same applies to his monsters.
     "They have a will of their own. I hate it when they try to tell me what to do," Bucher said. "I just go with the flow and let it be what it wants to be."