"It Came From the Basement" sounds like a rather ominous name for an art studio, conjuring images of chains and trolls and a lot of tortured screaming. But here's Rob Meyer's basement studio in Anderson Township (www.icftb.com) – well-lit, lined with board games and figurines and Return of the Jedi curtains, so tame that his baby daughter can roll around on the floor without fear of flesh-eating monsters.
It's an unlikely setting – but then again, Meyer is a bit of an unlikely artist.
"I just kind of fell into it," he says.
Meyer, 36, one of the artists displaying his work Saturday at the inaugural OTR/Gateway Summer Celebration, started all of this about five years ago. He'd long been a lover of sci-fi and horror movies, a collector of action figurines and pop culture.
Then he began to paint it - putting the Wolfman's hairy head on a plank of wood, blending Jabba the Hut with Tupac Shakur ("Slug Life," reads the caption), sitting at the drawing table in his basement and re-imagining the pop culture images that lodged in his childhood brain.
"It's all out of being just a super nerd," Meyer says. "I was 4 years old when Star Wars came out. I distinctly remember seeing it, drawing it and living it."
His dream of working in toys or movies got derailed by life - he found himself in jobs at offices and banks and tattoo parlors - but soon he'll be going to school for graphic design. For the first time, someone will teach him about it. But he'll keep doing his own thing in that basement.
"This is my hobby, my therapy," he says. "I just do this all the time."
