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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

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.


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

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."

Sunday, November 8, 2009

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.”


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

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.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

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.