OUT OF FRAME: AUGUST AND THOMAS NORTHCUT PRESENT 'THE NOD' — Marquee | Film & Video Production

A page from ‘The Nod’ by August and Thomas Northcut

‘This project is about a specific type of connectedness, camaraderie, and chaos shared between friends that’s damn near impossible to define.’

This year, artist and frequent Marquee conspirator August Northcut, in collaboration with his brother, Thomas Northcut, launched a combination book and art exhibition known as ‘The Nod’. The brothers were able to coordinate two different versions of the gallery experience, one in NYC and one here in Louisville, and the physical book itself is available through a wide array of outlets.

Naturally, a combination of general curiosity and the love of our friends’ art generated questions and August and Thomas were happy to entertain those questions.

To start things off, congratulations on the release of the book as well as the two release parties in NYC and Louisville! Since you've had some time to reflect on it, how do you feel about the response so far?

AN: I’m elated. I feel immensely grateful for all the family and friends (and strangers) who have so graciously supported us during the creation of this project. The whole thing is about friendship and the response we’ve received has been so encouraging. A true display of how blessed we are to have the people in our lives that we do.

TN: Yeah, it's been the best! It was so nice to finally get it out there. Both of the receptions were amazing. After the Brooklyn opening we did in January we knew we had to do another one in Louisville for all the homies and family that couldn't make it out to New York. Being from Louisville and having all these experiences growing up here that basically created in us that thing we call “The Nod", it only made sense to have a party for the project in our hometown, where it all started.

For those who may be unaware, just what exactly is 'The Nod’?

TN: It's the idea that you can be so connected with someone or a group of friends, whether it's through music or art or skateboarding or whatever, that you can't define it with words but you feel it… and you know they feel it too. You get to the point where you can basically read each other's minds and can say exactly what you want to say with just a simple nod of the head while never opening your mouth. It’s lucky to have friends like that in life. And this project is our way of trying to define that feeling through imagery… and a few words. Even at the very beginning of this project, we knew that it was an impossible task to truly define something like this. But we figured almost everyone can understand it in their own way. This book was our attempt to describe it and to say thank you to everyone who has felt it with us throughout our lives.

AN: Yep… that’s pretty spot on.

What prompted the idea to collaborate on the project beyond the fact that you're brothers? Has this been a project you've talked about for a while or was it a recent development?

Behind the Scenes of ‘The Nod’ courtesy of www.the-nod.com

AN: I can defer to Thomas for some of the early stages, but during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, Victory Journal—a quarterly “sport and culture” magazine based in NYC—reached out to Thomas about contributing something to their upcoming issue…

TN: Yeah, so I've done work with Victory in the past and they hit me up to do another story, but COVID hit and everybody was on lockdown which made creating new photos a little difficult. Coincidentally I had just pulled out of storage a ton of old photographs that I had taken back in the late 90s / early 2000s. I got together some images that could work but I wasn't exactly sure what the story was yet.

AN: At some point, it was suggested that he and I collaborate on this. We put together a few spreads using some of Thomas’s archived photos and illustrations I made and sent them over. We contextualized it for Victory through our backgrounds in skateboarding, but it was never intended to be purely about skate culture.

TN: The pictures from storage were basically a bunch of old photos of us skating and breaking stuff back in high school... it wasn't really saying much other than "kids doing dumb shit”. But the more I thought about it, the beauty of the images wasn't the skateboarding or the vandalism. It was the camaraderie and love for each other that made those moments so important…

AN: I remember a specific phone call with Thomas when we were trying to figure out how we were going to theme this. After brainstorming for hours he said, “Do we just try to make it about ‘the nod’?” And I thought: “I don’t know how we’ll do that,” but at the same time, it seemed like the only way we could make sense of what we’d started, so I was like, “damn… let’s go for it.”

TN: And since I was locked in with using those photos from the archive, having August come on board could help fill in gaps and tie the story together because, as far as I’m concerned, nobody understands this idea better than him. He definitely “gets it”.

AN: We’d been referring to this concept of “the nod” for years at that point. And when given the chance to make something together, basically carte blanche, I think it was only natural that we found ourselves channelling that theme without really knowing it until we had already started.

Can you explain your collaboration process?

TN: First off, this entire book was made remotely. I live in Brooklyn and August is in Louisville. After editing down hundreds of photos I sent them to August and we just started curating them together. We figured out where the gaps were and had ideas of how to make the story make more sense, and then he started illustrating.

AN: I was still able to work from my home studio so I produced several drawings specifically for the book, and then we incorporated some older paintings, monoprints, and textures.

TN: Also, almost every night for about two years we talked on the phone until 4 am making notes and reordering compositions on the computer, etc.

AN: Whenever 4:00 came around, we were like, “Hey look, we did it again…” It was our office hours for months.

TN: Then finally when we thought it was finished, we printed them. This was in 2020. Once I got the books delivered, I drove to Louisville for the final step… we hand painted the inside covers of each book together.

AN: It was the first part of the project we did in person, in 2021.

TN: We didn't want to do the traditional numbered edition or autographing thing. Numbering the books felt like it presented a type of hierarchy of importance, you know? Like the way 1/150 is somehow more special than 127/150. Also autographing them outright felt a little like "check us out, look what we did”. I realize the irony of even saying that in this interview is a little funny, but we wanted this project to be about everyone/anyone... not just us and our friends.

AN: And to lean into the idea of connectedness, every inside cover has at least one “companion” within the run of 150. We played around with how we painted them, but we’d line up two books, six books, ten books, whatever, at a time and then paint something over them at once. Some of them are just silly drawings or stenciled textures, but not one inside cover is a standalone image. Each one is a part of a larger composition.

What was it exactly about the project that made you all say 'book' as opposed to general forms of release such as posters/prints/etc.?

AN: Well, the book is the project, primarily. We knew we wanted to have a launch event, but that kept getting pushed back due the state of, well you know…..

TN: It was supposed to be a 6-page story in Victory Journal. I think we originally submitted 12 pages and they came back with something along the lines of "these are dope! make more!" ...so we made like 30 pages and then at that point they said it was way too much to be an article and that it should be its own separate thing. Victory does these one-off publications called “Victory Editions.” They’re in addition to their normal quarterly magazine that comes in a range of formats. So we ended up stopping at 64 pages and making a 9x12 inch softcover book under the “Victory Editions” line. We picked out the print size, the paper stock, everything. They let us do whatever we wanted. And this book format is what made the most sense to us.

AN: As we’ve described, the whole thing is supposed to read as a story. The images are collaged and woven together in such a way that attempts to convey this universal concept through our own experiences. It’s not just a catalog of individual pieces in the traditional sense of an art book. The curation and formatting were inspired a lot by “zine” media and culture for sure, but with a bit more of a narratorial approach—even if abstractedly so.

Your release shows seem to have been a huge success. What led to the idea of dual release parties?

AN: The launch parties and gallery exhibits were essentially secondary efforts. But since we had time before we could do a public event, we started scheming. The first launch made sense because it was with Victory at their AllCity Space in Brooklyn. It was a great reception in a nice “white-wall” gallery environment. We printed and framed 12 spreads from the book to hang and had a projection of homemade skate videos that Thomas edited. We also had a homie in Denver make 10 uniquely formed skateboards upon which we painted and auctioned off for a charity called Boards For Bros that helps provide skateboard equipment and lessons to underprivileged kids in New York.

TN: Shout out to Shad Spencer for hand-making those skateboards in his garage. They were so sick!

AN: But the next move was to rock a launch in Louisville, for all the reasons Thomas mentioned above. He drove to Louisville and we scoped out potential venues, and Portal at fifteenTWELVE seemed like the best fit.

TN: The Brooklyn show was great. AllCity Space treated us so well. The turnout was good and we all had a super fun time. But when we were back on our home turf in Louisville we wanted to come up with ways to make it different.

AN: So we expanded the art exhibition to include the photos, illustrations, and paintings that were used in or inspired the contents of the book in their original form, totaling nearly 70 pieces. We also created sculptural installations comprising readymade items representative of imagery in the book, arranged in 4 compositions. Unfortunately, those installations could only live there for the reception, but you can see photos of them on the website.

TN: I’d like to mention that all the photos are one of a kind. When I unearthed those bins from storage all the negatives weren’t there. Somewhere in the 20+ years of moving them and storing them in different basements in different cities, all other prints and negatives have been lost or thrown out. All of August’s illustrations are also one-of-one so it felt really special putting all that stuff up on the walls at Portal Gallery.

You also had collaborators to add to the environment of both shows. Were these friendships that had existed prior to the shows or were these new collaborations?

The setup at fifteenTWELVE in Louisville, KY, photo courtesy of www.the-nod.com

TN: There were a few things we were able to do differently for the Louisville show that we wanted to explore. The gallery was much bigger than the one in Brooklyn and it had a stage for bands to play. So we asked our good friend Evan Patterson if he would be into performing some sort of live music instead of just having a playlist. We've been huge fans of all of his projects for ages. Luckily he was down and that was that. After discussing it a little with him we came up with the idea to do a "live soundtrack" as opposed to having a full show because after all, it was an art opening, not a rock concert. He decided to do two 45-minute sets with an intermission. We were like, “that sounds great …we trust you.” A little closer to the opening, he reached out and said his friend’s band was on tour and they had a free day the same day as our reception. They’re called Weak Signal and they're from Brooklyn coincidentally. We didn't personally know them but we’d already said, “…we trust you.” And holy shit, it was such a perfect unexpected bonus. They played the last hour of the reception and they killed it! Super rad people too. Thank you, Evan and Weak Signal! The other homies that joined us were the crew from POCO Pop-Ups. They’re really good friends that make amazing food. They set up in Portal’s back courtyard and sold food during the event. It was all just a little more casual and fitting for the exhibition. They really helped bring out the "good hangs with great friends" vibe we were going for. Thank you all!

After going through this collaborative process with each other and seeing the fruits of your labor, so to speak, are you already plotting another collaboration?

TN: Our older sister Beth is an incredible painter... actually she's great at basically anything she does and she’s a huge part of why August and I are artists. We've talked about doing a collaboration with all three of us forever but just never got around to it. But after this project, we've definitely been talking about getting that idea back on the table.

AN: The experience of working with my brother in this capacity has been amazing and reinvigorating, to say the least. But yeah, we really want the next big venture to include all three Northcut siblings. That is overdue for sure. It might be a little bit, but we’re scheming!

TN: Yeah, "The Three Siblings Collab” coming Summer 2026! Haha!

Beyond simply reaching out to either of you in person, what are the ways that folks can get their hands on a copy of 'The Nod’?

TN: The books are available at Home Skateshop, Surface Noise Records, and Carmichael’s Bookstores in Louisville. If you're in the Louisville area we highly suggest supporting any of those local businesses. If you can’t make it to any of those spots you can always get one through our site (the-nod.com) and we’ll ship one to you.

AN: Also the art exhibition is still hanging at Portal (1512 Portland Ave.) until September 25th, and until then purchases of the artwork can be made through the gallery. Go down and check it out.

TN/AN: Lastly, we just want to give another shout-out to everyone who has continued to show love, encouragement, and support. To our families who have been inspiring, patient, and still excited for us; all the folks who came to either/both of the receptions, and looked at art and/or purchased some—either way, we love you for it; Katelyn Mooney and all the folks at Victory Journal for helping to jump-start this project; the kind staff at AllCity Space and fifteen twelve/Portal for enthusiastically showcasing our exhibitions; all our retailers who are helping us get the book into as many hands as possible; and of course to our dear friends at Marquee Louisville for spreading the word and making us feel ok to talk about this project even more.