Meet Jake Rathkamp of The Graphite Club in Northwest Denver

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Rathkamp.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jake. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Like most artists will tell you, I began drawing as a young kid – the adults around me reacted positively to it, so subconsciously drawing just felt like the right thing to do. Eventually, I stopped drawing regularly because nobody else around me really did it, but I always really enjoyed it. I seemed to do well in art classes and can recall not caring about my surroundings while working on projects when I had the time.
In high school, I really struggled with a lot, as most kids in high school do, but I had a struggle with anxiety and illness as I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease at a young age. It made for a really dark and miserable high school life, even most of the folks around me didn’t really know how much this affected me. The kids around me were growing and I wasn’t, I loved sports but my body wasn’t keeping up with what everyone else was, this all really alienated me even if I wasn’t presenting myself like it was.

Sometime in my sophomore year of high school, I had a graphic design course. This somehow led me into Graffiti in which I had a couple of acquaintances who had already been into for a couple of years. I was now in a culture that was based on the “work” you made and produced; no one really gave a fuck who the person behind the work was (am I allowed to swear here?). This world got me back into spending all of my time with art and design. I’d finally found something that didn’t require size or social abilities to excel at. Fast forward a couple of years and it was time to apply to college. I almost didn’t. My grades were so-so and my parents, although neither of them had drawn a stick figure in their life, understood I needed art school. They literally told me I’d be bored and drop out of college if I wasn’t 100 percent immersed in my interests.

I explored for four years, deciding on a major in illustration, and thankfully had tons of really open and great instruction from a lot of teachers that cared. I also met and made relationships with a couple of the most important people in my life. I am still paying for it all but wouldn’t take back my time at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design for any financial relief today.

After college, I realized the job-creating snowboard designs didn’t exist and the real grind started, luckily I am stubborn as shit. I found gig poster artists while listening to artist interviews on Adventures in Design Podcast and a whole new potential world opened up for me. I had fallen in love with screenprinting after a single class in college and decided to fully commit. A few years later, I know have a shack of a garage with a print studio that is literally 95% hand-constructed, but I’m still grinding.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
But specifically, I am very glad that the world never made it entirely clear how long it would take me to get this far, and I am still just at the beginning. I have been bartending since college and still work about 40 hours a week supporting myself that way. It allows me the time to go home and try and push another 35-40 hours a week as “The Graphite Club”.

This certainly has a lot to do with that stubborn side. I won’t accept or hunt for projects that don’t feel fully like “me”. This slows the growth, but I believe in the long run it will make for a more fulfilling future.

For the same reasons, I have avoided getting a job “in the field”, as I know it would never be fully what I want and at the same time burn me out on things like drawing and printing when I get home from 8+ hours of work.

Lastly, contracts and clarity. I landed my dream job, complete creative freedom doing beer labels for a new brand that was producing some fantastic product. I quickly got to a point of considering one of the owners as a very, very close friend. In all fairness, the relationship became important to me, we saw eye to eye on a lot while I was also getting genuine feedback on the things I was creating. In the end, I was never paid for over two years of work. I cared for the brand and every aspect of it as if it were my own business, and it cost me a lot.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about The Graphite Club – what should we know?
The Graphite Club is a one-man, one dog studio. We (I) specialize in hand-illustrated work that more often than not, translates to silk screen printed media such as posters or labels. All of the artwork is hand done, as is the printing. I see the screenprinting process as an extension of the design and artwork and for this reason, stick to only printing the work I create.

I really think that, aside from the hand-crafted nature, thinking and creative problem solving is what sets my work apart. Even in instances where it becomes very subtle, I dive deep into the subject and studying whatever the project is. Every image sits in a moment that doesn’t tell the entire tale. This allows for two important things; the first is giving the viewer the pieces and not the answer. I feel this naturally forces them to spend an extra moment with the image. The second is that, in many cases, this allows for the viewer to fill in the blanks, an ability to craft their own narrative and build a connection to the work that will help them appreciate the image for more than just a quick double-tap on Instagram.

This will sound very sales-pitchy, however, I genuinely put everything into the things I work on and that passion is what makes the work fulfilling for me.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I feel that the thought process behind the illustration work is incredibly important. Especially as an image that someone may look at every day, hanging on their walls, it makes me happy to know that the more time spent with an image the more little things folks will notice. It has to go beyond a catchy concept. After all, illustration is about telling a story whether it be short or long, the viewer has to remain interested.

Attention to detail and a borderline obsession for art and design is also very important. It never really leaves me. Continually through my day, I am saving small stories, analyzing the design of everything I see and taking on inspiration- something that is really easy to do with the mountains right next door.