Murphy displays the cover art he created for his book “Cute Eats Cute” published Sept. 1 by North Star Press in St. Cloud. - Photo by Paul Dols
Local author’s hats include cartoonist, artist, filmmaker . . . and commodities trader
‘I wish people could figure out how to have more creativity in their life’
by Julie Kink Contributing Writer
MAY TOWNSHIP — Artist and author Charley Murphy didn’t set out to confuse people. Nor did he intend his first novel, “Cute Eats Cute,” to be a comedy — or a book about Minnesota, or a story for young adults.
But like its author, the short novel seems to transcend labels with irony and humor, warning of the dangers of viewing the world in black and white.
The story is told entirely from the viewpoint of 15-year-old Sam, whose artsy mother and right-wing father embody the conflict that arises when a herd of deer is slated to be culled in a large public park. The community literally goes “up in arms” as the novel’s heroes and villains shift in and out of their roles of good and evil. The title of the book, taken from a speech Sam’s dad gives at his high school defending the urban deer hunt, reflects how animals eat one another for survival and defense.
A local book release party for “Cute Eats Cute” Oct. 14 drew 100 people, and reviews have been positive. “Most people who are reading it are telling me they really like it, it’s a page-turner and it’s funny,” Murphy said. “I didn’t sit down to write a funny book. I was trying to write a 15-year-old’s take on the world. To an adult reader, that’s pretty funny.”
Murphy started writing about 10 years ago, adding one more passion to a life of creativity that has taken as many twists as his novel’s plot. He grew up in the Detroit suburbs before attending the University of Michigan then the University of Minnesota. With a degree in anthropology and geology, he intended to be a professor but left academia for the business world, which provides the backdrop for many of the stories he’s written. Murphy has worked as a commodities trader, industrial metals salesman, product development manager, international sales manager and ideation consultant. He and his wife moved to Minnesota from Chicago in 1985 to raise a family, eventually settling in the St. Croix Valley.
For several years, Murphy was a cartoonist for “The Chicago Reader” which ran his weekly comic strip, “C.B. Murphy.” His books of drawings have been featured in the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and the University of Cincinnati collection. His short films have screened across the U.S. at locations like the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Willis Gallery in Detroit.
In addition to having self-published several books of his paintings, Murphy has been doing “collaborative cartooning” for years with his sons, Nicolas and Lucas. He’s working on four other novels that are almost finished, along with a book of stories. Murphy’s studio, transformed from a three-car garage at the couple’s May Township home, is a montage of his projects. Flanked by shelves stacked with books and painting supplies, there are artistic masks he’s working on, computer monitors, items used as models and even science fiction icons like a life-sized cardboard cutout of Chewbacca. On one wall hangs some of the artwork done by the level-four prisoners Murphy teaches once a week at Stillwater Prison.
His latest technique is painting old science fiction film posters with a cultural twist, pairing old societal fears with new ones.
“I’m pretending it’s a poster for earth versus the flying saucers that would be seen in Bangladesh, for instance — playing with the idea of how the world culture affects and is shown in a piece like that,” he explained.
Many of his paintings have Arabic words splayed across them, which he painstakingly translates via a computer program. “I like the look of Arabic,” he said, “So when I put Arabic on the piece, it brings in the charge that’s going on right now with the whole Muslim ‘like where do they fit in our culture’ sort of thing. People don’t know what to do with it.
“I see the world primarily through culture,” he said, referring to his anthropology and geography roots. “It’s not like I like people to be confused, but there is something about confusion that I think is a good thing. In a way it’s like the carnival where there are all sorts of stimuli coming at you. It’s confusing but there’s also something pleasurable about it.”
He resists the term “low-brow” art to describe his craft, though he said there is some resurgence in appreciation for that style. He calls his painting “pop surrealism,” which means he uses images that are recognizable to people — “narrative images, people, places, animals and things” — but does it in a context that’s unexpected. “I often describe it as a dreamscape,” he summarized.
To do his science fiction poster art, for instance, Murphy finds old posters online, prints them out, then takes them into an art computer program to turn them into negative images so he can reproduce them with paint.
Murphy seems to practice what he preaches to his prison students when it comes to art. “I tell them if you like looking at it for more than five minutes, that’s what’s important.
“I wish people could figure out how to have more creativity in their life,” he added. “Even if you do stuff that nobody else does, it doesn’t matter. Compared to all the activities that take away your time, it’s so satisfying. Sometimes people figure that out — they do quilting, or tie fishing flies — but there’s also a lot of inhibition around criticism. If someone who’s a plumber starts making masks in his basement, people say, ‘You’re insane.’ And he says, ‘No, I’m not insane. I’m having fun.’”
When it comes to his latest book, he said he was influenced by Coen Brothers’ films, the music of David Byrne and Nick Cave, and the absurd comedy of Mystery Science 3000. He said the novel explores “how subcultures can affect your world view.”
“It’s kind of a social drama,” he said. “I didn’t want to identify one side as good and one side as bad. My goal was to have someone read it and say ‘This really supports non-hunting’ and others could say ‘This supports hunting.’”
Excerpts from Murphy’s fiction and essays, examples of his paintings and photos of his masks and other projects may be viewed on his web site, www.cbmurphy.net. “Cute Eats Cute” was published October 26 and is available online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
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