My education in Art began really early on in life, at crayon and fingerpaint age. My Father had taken up oil painting in what I believe may have been therapy, to alleviate pressure created by his work in Aerospace and Defense. Helping architect weapons that can end Humanity takes it’s toll on some people. I had seen the affect on my own Father. So Art made sense for him. But at the same time, my uncle Joe would come and visit from Hawaii. Joe was a successful and talented painter who also taught Art at UH. He would tutor my Dad on brush technique. Being a curious sort at 4 or 5, I had a paint brush in hand and tubes of oils in a box.
By the time I began to actively, albeit somewhat casually, enroll in Art classes in school, I had years of drawing and painting in my skill set list.
One of my pivotal moments in Art however, came in High School when two teachers, Audie Love and Ted Villa, pointed out to me gently, that I really needed to learn how to see subjects, in order to paint or draw them. By the end of a couple years work, the entire world began to open up for me.
This is why.
I discovered that Life was complex. Learning to see it in it’s various levels and forms, created that rabbit hole effect we know so well from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
It became clear that there is almost nothing one cannot accomplish a working understanding of.
Over the years and especially in my careers as craftsman in the surfboard industry, professional athlete, photographer and film maker I have had this lesson illustrated:
Life is beautiful, it is symbolic of an energy signature that can be equated to the existence of Love, and in this time here on Earth, you do well to explore every aspect of it that matters to you, whenever opportunity presents itself to do so.
This has led to all manner of adventure and allowed me to stand in the presence of amazing experiences and people, both great and small, but each one, no less striking to me.
It is why I carry a camera instead of a paint brush these days.
Images here are a small sampling from the past few days. Created with the Samsung NX1 and shot while under the influence of jetlag during an Indian Summer event here in Ca, that has us in hot days and beautiful, warm clear nights. My shoot days begin at sunset and wrap about 2 hours after dawn. Timelapses, motion sequences and stills, stroke after stroke with the nuances of the palette of night, seriously piquing my curiosity.
I will be curating a new show for our Oceanroom Gallery this weekend, and in a couple weeks the pieces will be hanging in the gallery, which is hosted by my wife’s company Betty Belts, at 12 N Fir Street, Ventura Ca. The promised hours are from noon to 6pm each day, but the reality is that one of us is usually there much earlier and later, seven days a week.
Also, here is a wonderful, albeit disturbing piece of Art, created using one of Moby’s new songs Lost in the World Like Me. Published a few days ago it already has 1.5 million views. I like that.
Being lost is an interesting choice.
