Reward vs Awards

As I stand at the cusp of a new decade, I am poised to make another major shift in my career, education, and artistic endeavors. As I set new goals for the next decade, I am reminded of lessons learned in the past about the difference between awards and rewards.

Upon completion of my college education I received many awards for my work in film. As always, I was surprised by the recognition (in no small part due to the fact my friend and editor James Jordan entered my films in contests without my knowledge--obviously, I was very grateful). (see youtube links: "Oh, What a Pretty Web" Part 1, & Part 2)

But the truth is, I had already moved on to other endeavors and was working for Disney Studios in Burbank. I was flattered of course by the awards, but acknowledge that my real motivation was never about seeking personal recognition. Instead, it was one of artistic exploration--which is rewarding in itself. Indeed, in my experience, every project created for personal recognition somehow fell short of the numinous reward.

Today, as my awards gather dust, my fond memories do not. Moreover, though I left "Hollywood," my love for the medium has never left my heart. Every work of art leaves its impression on an artist, and this for good reason. For in reality, we are the medium--a medium capable of generating endless works of supernal beauty.

And yet there is more to the grand equation--the impressions we leave upon others. Indeed, I find it wise to always analyze my ambition, to be ever mindful of intent, purpose, and the goal. Is it the journey itself? Is it in the means of achievement? Is it merely the end result? Or, is it all of the above? How do these works affect me? How do they affect others? Have I enhanced the canvas of life? Is my volition pure, my grace sufficient, and my ego transparent, so as not to cloud my creations.

In all of my searching for the ultimate medium, the perfect aesthetic, and the crowning technique, none have approximated the splendor of love. So it is my hope that my work, my love, and my ambition might join in a common path. For without such there can be no authentic masterpiece.

The Masterpiece

The master’s hand was steady

His eye would capture light

He always knew his subject

And breathed into it life

But every time he set to put

His masterpiece to canvas

Life would interrupt him

And would steal his time like bandits

He’d go to aid a friend in need

Or cheer a saddened heart

He’d work to support family

And teach his students art

He took the time to play with kids

To celebrate at weddings

To visit aging elders

And attend church baby blessings

He never seemed to find the time

To finish what he started

Some say he lacked ambition

Or was lazy and fool hearted

The day he died

Unfinished his famed masterpiece still stood

And yet his life reverberates

In countless acts of good

Did he waste his talents?

Was he vexed with tedium?

Or did his skill transcend the brush

And find a living medium?

Chameleon on the Glass: NEW Full Color Edition

Chameleon on the Glass is an allegory about the search for self, and is especially close to my heart. It is simple--yet deep. It was crafted to appeal to all ages, and closely parallels my own life's journey.

The story revolves around a small chameleon who desperately wants to find his true color. His quest begins by mimicking every color of the rainbow. Soon he realizes that blending in hides his uniqueness. Thus, he decides to clash. Yet this brings him no closer to his heart's desire. Finally, he ventures to the water's edge to see his reflection. Howbeit, in the end, he finds his true self in the most unlikely of places.

This simple tale houses the primer for the entire Mirror Mirror series. Its lucid insight engenders the serenity of sentient enlightenment and embodies the philosophical nucleus of self-awareness.

I am especially pleased to announce the new release of a full color condensed version of Chameleon on the Glass, available in hard or soft cover. This new edition contains nothing but the original poem set against the vivid backdrop of colorful illustrations. The surreal styling of its artwork will surely transport the reader into its pages.

For More Information visit: grafxpress.blogspot.com

Now Available in Three Formats:

Hard Cover (full color condensed version) 11 x 8.5" for US$49.95

Soft Cover (full color condensed version) 8 x 6" for US$24.95

Soft Cover (black & white expanded version) 11 x 8.5" for US$12.95

All of these editions can be drop shipped directly to your home or sent as a gift to another. The print on demand process also allows the purchaser to include a special dedication and/or short message to the recipient at the bottom of the title page, (only available on hard cover edition.)

For example:

Special Commemoration:

Given as a gift to Jonny Doe upon graduation. Go forth and find your true color. Love, Jane and John Doe, (two very proud parents.)

Shipping cost US$9.95 virtually anywhere in the continental United States.

To Place an Order Email:

grafxpresspublishing@earthlink.net

NOTE: Black and White Expanded Version also available at:

www.buybooksontheweb.com/product.aspx?ISBN=0-7414-4875-0

Picture Windows

It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul. But in reality, they are more like one way glass--they give us the ability to see out, but it’s harder for others to see in. Nevertheless, I suggest there are portals which allow one to glimpse into the heart of an artist. For example, when an artist creates a picture from pure imagination they reveal vistas in their sentient reality. These picture windows of the soul allow us to see what they see, and glimpse through the filter of their hopes, aspirations, and interpretation of reality. Though they embrace fantasy, surrealism, or the abstract, these expressions can reveal something of soul.

The greatest dawning into this realm occurred for me after graduating high school. With the purchase of my first airbrush, I began working as a freelance artist. I didn’t make much money at it, but it was a wonderful journey. I began by airbrushing shirts for friends and clients like George Caroll, the renown Hollywood hair stylist. I painted everything from surf scenes on VW bug glove boxes, to elaborate murals on rock band’s kick drum heads. Though I rarely got a chance to paint for my own enjoyment, many works were born out of pure imagination. Unfortunately, I have very few examples leftover from that era. (seen above)

It was during this time that I fell in love with acrylics because I could incorporated airbrush, watercolor, and painting techniques into a single medium. At this time I also began mixing my own colors exclusively from the true primary colors of: cyan, yellow, magenta, black, and white (this was influenced by my work in graphic arts.) Yet these were just tools. The real journey began by purposefully departing from realism, and intentionally breaking the rules of the physical universe. Shadows, reflections, atmosphere, gravity, and other forces held no sway (though few noticed.) Herein, I labored to fashion works which evoked a feeling, and a longing to be joined with that environment. To this day, my aim is to draw people in, regardless of the medium--to make that connection, to generate a mirroring of mind, and create picture windows which share in the common experience of soul.

Persistence of Vision

The eye of an artist often sees beyond the veneer of appearance to extrapolate the essence. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was not satisfied with merely capturing external appearance. The study of his subjects bordered on mechanical dissection--including the study of motion. Hence, his works often captured a hyperreality due to this intimate understanding.

By the time I entered high school my fundamental art skills were fairly established. Yet I was not content. To expand my horizons I turned my attentions towards multimedia production, and quickly became enamored with the study of motion. Motion added a new dimension of detail which appealed to my meticulous nature. Interestingly, I found creative fulfillment in drawing the most rudimentary of cartoons. The study of motion also enhanced my overall perception of the world around me.

My first “release” before the student body was a short surf animation called, I’m Not Yellow. It was originally drawn using rapidograph pens on a simple note pad I had made in graphic arts (seen above). I then shot it frame by frame onto super 8, and roughly synced it to music. The audience reaction was overwhelming--laughing, hooting, clapping, etc. (If you’ve ever seen a surf movie in a surf community theater, you know what I’m talking about--it gets rowdy.) It was this work which caught the attention of Frank Pap, who would become my film mentor, friend, and advocate. As fate would have it, years later I also met a young director who told me that he got into film because of a short film he saw in high school. As it turned out, it was my little animated short.

After this glowing reception, I decided to take things to the next level with full color cell animation on 16 mm. This new project would consume the better part of my years in high school and on into college. (see youtube link to Oceantics ) Yet it established an artistic work ethic demanding the ability to focus on mammoth projects which require countless hours and years of personal investment. Indeed, one could say, "It requires a tenacious persistence of vision."

Coloring Outside the Lines

My love for the arts and the creative process began at a very early age--long before developing significant expertise. Aside from playing sports, it seemed like I spent every spare moment drawing. By the time I hit first grade, fellow students were offering me their lunch money for drawings. I received awards, notoriety, and adulation. Yet these were not masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, each was an honest stretch. Actually, I wish I had more surviving remnants from that prolific era between the 1st and 8th grade. (seen above)

Nonetheless, I’ve had the privilege of seeing my own children progress through similar stages, rekindling that original love and perspective. My eldest is already a gifted artist, the second is equally amazing with a remarkable sense of perspective, number three makes the cutest stylized caricatures you’ve ever seen, and number four has the most amazing sense of color that I’ve encountered. Although my youngest can’t even lift a pencil yet, I look forward to those magical days, when first scribbles awaken the wonder of creation within. So it is, I learn anew the lessons of old.

Art Lessons

My child, she likes to draw for me

She knows her fathers praise

And with each stroke draws closer

To my adulation's gaze

“Come on, come dad, come, look and see!”

My awes anticipates

To lift her far above the light

Of love of self awaits

Each stroke is lined with quivered hand

Unsure in shape and form

Yet nonetheless and earnest stretch

In every motion born

Beginning marks the confidence

As later strokes define

Constrained then bold emotions flowed

Expressed and inner kind

“That’s beautiful, my love! Oh my!”

“Again, and show me more!”

And so my daughter teaches me

What art is really for

To give without self-consciousness

To strive and do one’s best

What father wouldn’t praise such work

Its beauty manifest

I too in life have scribbled some

To craft my soul for praise

Yet what I lacked in skill

Perhaps made up in other ways

Like many young artists, once upon a time I strove for realistic perfection. In later years I saw things differently. In fact, one could argue that the real virtue of creativity does not lie in the medium, nor in conventional expertise. Indeed, many skilled artists return to rudimentary expression after their expertise reaches its zenith. Why is this? Why do prodigies like Picasso often choose abstract motifs? Why did the great impressionists shed detail and realism for visual impact? What is that enigmatic quality which the most gifted seek to express? Perhaps each has a different reason and vision, and maybe that is the point. All I know is, “when you rediscover the love of color, it will take you back outside the lines.”

Petroglyphs of Consciousness

Over the years, as I explored myriad motifs, mediums, and methods, I gained an appreciation of how the mind processes sense impressions, how it then expresses those impressions into sense mediums and the innate filters of consciousness which manifest themselves in those expression. From the earliest drawings on cave walls, to paintings enshrined in the Louvre, something of humanity’s ineffable essence is captured.

To illustrate, let us examine the basics of shape. Recently, while searching through some memorabilia, I ran across some sketches that my mother had saved from my days in Kindergarten. They were rudimentary characters of animals which I fashioned from shapes found in safety pins (seen above). Without coaching, my young mind had grasped the correlation that objects can be reduced to basic shapes. Like Picasso’s search for the rudimentary bull, these exercises reveal common motifs within the mental construct. Interestingly, we seem to universally discern the suggested realities which these primitive shapes represent. From the earliest pictographs to modern phonetic symbols, humans have chosen shape to express significance ascribed in the transom. By these we communicate something curiously common to the human experience. Indeed, why do we innately crop a subject and thereby generate focus? Why do the rules of composition innately express themselves and appeal to our sense of aesthetics? Moreover, how do distorted abstracts express and contain discernible meaning?

Understanding the fundamental language of shape is a useful tool in composition, communication, and even modern logo design. But these are more than aesthetics; this insight gives an artist subtle glimpses into the human condition.

Between Two Worlds

The heart of an artist is a curious oracle which exists between two worlds. It occupies a place somewhere between what is and what could be. Herein the boundless topography of imagination takes on a realism not to be trifled with or marginalized. Indeed, the longer one spends in that alternate universe the more they appreciate its reality. For example, a while back I had an epiphany on this point by virtue of a question which came to mind, “If a melody is heard only in mind, does that melody still exist? ” As a composer I knew that the answer was yes. I have been entertained for countless hours by music that was never penned, performed, or recorded, stories enacted only on the stage of mind, and visualization that never entered the eye. Yet the experience of these things was as profound as any acquired via the senses. Herein I realized the significance of sentient realities, and the inexhaustible nature of creativity.

As an artist, I’ve always preferred drawing upon imagination, rather than copying a physical subject. Little wonder that one of my most prized possessions is a painting that my father painted out of his own imagination (seen above). It has always had the ability to transport me to that secluded grove of aspens, amid the sound of insects, birds, and rushing waters from its opalescent stream, scented by wet and wood, moss and mulch, lichen, resin, and distant evergreens--a secret place that my father visited time and again to create a window for the rest of the world to see. Thus, my aesthetic penchant naturally leans towards art that draws me in. Moreover, I have dwelt myself in the beauty of transcendent realities--places far too beautiful not to share. Whether through paint, song, words, or motion, I desire to create portals into worlds I have explored, wonders I have witnessed, music I have heard, words that transformed, and dreams there conceived. By these one literally changes the face of physical realities, we give birth to new creations, and pollinate the world at large.

Family History

I’ve lived in the pallet all of my life. My entire family was gifted in the arts. My father was an accomplished painter. My mother a writer. My oldest sister a composer, another sister a thespian, another a pianist, my brother an artist, another sister a clothing designer, and my youngest sister was good at everything. But in truth they were all multitalented--from the oldest to the youngest.

My father, who worked as an engineer for McDonnell Douglas, was an exceptional artist, but he also played electric guitar, and was an amazing male vocalist. He had the perfect male tenor voice--smooth, strong, and unaffected. When he would perform in church it sent shivers down your spine. Like me, he also loved emerging technology. He shot photos, and captured family movies on his 8 mm long before I was born. It seemed that we were always first on the block to have the latest innovation: the first colored TV, first polaroid, the first photostatic copier, the first high functioning math calculator, the first video game, the first home video camera and recorder, etc.

My mother was always entering and winning contests with her writing and poetry. She won a TV, bicycle, etc. One time she actually won a pony, but we didn’t have a place to keep it. She could also play honky-tonk piano. Virtually all of my five sisters played piano, and all of my siblings learned to play guitar. In addition, my sisters sang as an alternating trio, who seemed to rotate in the younger talent every time one would get married.

My eldest sister Judy graduated high school early and was composing songs at 17 while attending college. I remember her performing one of her songs with a children’s choir that she directed when I was in kindergarten. But she had been singing, performing, and cutting records with her vocal instructor since she was knee high. She was like a little Shirley Temple performing long before I was a glint. She was the one who exposed us to the modern music of the late 50’s & early 60’s. I have a deepseated love for the music of that era. Nothing triggers my memory and emotions like that music. It takes me back to days spent with her at the beach. I also remember watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan due to her coaxing my dad. She was so cool and high tech that she even had a record player in her car! Just before she got married she was being lined up to become an alto back-up singer for the Carpenters, but she chose the domestic life instead. It was her brain that I picked when I wanted to learn music theory. Ironically, I would eventually show her how to record and orchestrate her songs with newly emerging digital technology. While music was her forte she also had many other talents, including painting along side my father. The smell of oils drying around the house was a familiar scent.

My second eldest sister Susan was most known for her dramatic achievements, but she could belt like Barbara Streisand as well. She could hit a B above high C. I remember her stellar performance in high school where she played Annie Oakley in the musical Oklahoma while battling laryngitis. She was amazing. She also was the first to become a guitar instructor. She went on to compose many songs as well, but in her earlier days she was also an accomplished artist. To this day I love her paintings. She eventually went on to received a Bachelors degree in Communications.

My third sister Margie became quite the pianist, as well as a guitar player. To this day she teaches piano and guitar lessons out of her home. She eventually received a BA in music and has composed several songs. Due to her placement in the middle of five girls she always was a part of the family trio of girls. Now when I say that their harmonies were good, I mean they were “Crosby, Stills, and Nash” good! Maybe better--never a sour note.

My brother Bob paved the way before me in being recognized as an artist. He won the same award in Junior high for the Best Artist, two years before I was awarded the same. We formed our first band together, but we only learned to play a few Creedence songs. He played guitar, and I played a bass that was heavier than me. We shared a love of sports and we learned to surf together. We even made our own surfboards.

My fourth and younger sister Sharon directed her creativity into being a seamstress and designing clothes. She was also an accomplished pianist, and along with my other sisters blended her voice into their harmonies. She had always focused her energies into scholastics. Consequently, she received a BA in Elementary Education, and went on to become a teacher.

My youngest sister Lisa ended up adopting all of the family's talents. She was a good artist, pianist, guitar player, composer, and singer. She also excelled at sports. She received her degree in Nutrition.

As you can see, being a member of my family was like growing up in an artist’s colony, though I must admit I was probably the most “eccentric” in my pursuits, passion, and personality. Consequently, I often neglected scholastics, which I found boring, choosing instead to spend my time creating. Indeed, during my primary education I was the worst student in my family. But as fate would have it, I buckled down in college and ironically graduated before any of my siblings (with a very high GPA I might add). Ultimately, I received a BFA in film and went on to further hone my multimedia interests.