Blog links:
• I added Henry Bawden, who I met a few years ago in Southern Utah. He's very dedicated and "muy animado" when it comes to creativity - I suppose that's a good thing, since he's working on a Master's degree in animation. Animado = animation.
• I also added Timothy Barnes' blog link. Tim was my figure drawing and illustration instructor at ArtCenter almost...many years ago. I was attending their weekend program for high school students with a few other young artists from Simi Valley. Now that I think about it, that's where I almost met (we never really met, but we were in Tim's class together) a girl who became a great friend, Nancy Ramirez. I'll see if I can dig up a link to one of her sites in a minute. Tim was working at DIC Animation at the time, and he was an inspiration to learn from. He was nice (and cool) enough to invite some of us down to DIC, which was a thrill.
Another ArtCenter teacher, Michael Deiderich (sp?) was working there doing concept development, along with a crazy Argentine that I would meet years later in the red deserts of Southern Utah, which brings us to...
• Marcelo Vignali. Fascinating how it all comes together. Marcelo was freelancing from St. George, UT several years ago. I moved from So. Cal. to the same town when I accepted a position with Saffire, a game developer based in Northern Utah. They had a development team in Saint George that I heard about from a friend who was working there, Chad Hardin. A few of the artists wanted to get a figure drawing workshop going, and we contacted some ladies that ran a painting/sculpture studio downstairs about it, too. They were on board with the idea, and somehow Marcelo showed up, too. The space was cramped, but we had a model and three hours a week, which was better than a sharp Ritmo in the eye.
Web links:
• I fixed the Ryan Wurmser link. He dropped his URL and now has Morseburg Galleries' site paying for bandwidth. Ryan is a great friend, and I miss hanging out with him. (sniff) We would go over and B.S. with his dad, Terry, serving as the "father-figure/mediator/wiser-than-all-of-you-smart-ass-punk-art-students" sage of wisdom's distillation. What a blast. We'd discuss art, politics, boxing, religion, family concerns, and our hopes for the future. Terry died in his sleep a year ago. He was a great influence on me, a loving father, and caring husband. I'll have to write more about him later. Don't want to get choked up right now.
Ryan was (I'm sure he still is) a great illustrator, and transitioned into fine art several years ago. He's done well, and I really like his more recent work, both subject-wise and technically.
• Added Jeremy Lipking. Jeremy is a great friend, too, and there go two reasons I miss living in CA. It was nice to hang out with those guys. Jeremy's dad, Ron, is a tremendous talent who showed me the ropes as a toy designer/concept illustrator years ago at Applause, Inc. Jeremy hooked me up with the job, where I also worked with Ryan's father, Terry, and later, Josh Lipking, Jeremy's brother and a skilled designer.
• Tony Pro. I met Tony at Ryan's house one night, and then again at school. Tony was also a creative professional prior to launching his successful fine art career. He was a successful graphic designer, and I think his last stint before trading a mouse for brushes was designing DVD interfaces for MGM. Also, take a look at Morgan Weistling's Christ figures from about...oh, eight or nine years ago, and you'll see Tony, sporting a robe and beard in a representation of the Ultimate Creator. Tony, Ryan, Jeremy, and I all attended California Art Institute with Glen Orbik as our instructor.
• Glen Orbik. A great illustrator/draughtsman and a fine instructor. He's able to provide guidance and suggestion for students at every level of development. There are great artists that are lousy teachers, great teachers that are lousy artists, and then there are great artists that are also great teachers, and that's where Glen enters the picture.
• Terry Smith - I also worked with Terry Smith at Applause. Terry's credentials are long and varied, having worked as an illustrator all over the globe. I have one of his figure sketches, done in oil pastel, that I rescued from his trash bin. I thought it was nicely done, and he evidently didn't need it. He's prolific and a great designer with his paintings these days. I learned a lot from him, not from so much verbal explanation on his part, rather by watching him work. He's totally open to experimentation with new materials and has a hard time not cracking jokes and chuckling with a quiet, yet infectious laughter.
• Robert Ennis. This punk is my brother. He's very imaginative and picked up Illustrator in about an afternoon. Two weeks later, he was showing me some features I had never used, that I actually found to be useful. We're putting a couple of websites together right now that should be exciting.
• Ignat Ignatov. Iggy, too, worked at, you guessed it, the corner gas station with me. No, it was Applause. He was a sculptor when I arrived, and was eager to get involved in other areas of toy development. He would pinch-hit for the paint master finishing stage of a product whenever needed and got into product design as well. Like Ryan, Tony, and Terry, he has foregone the rigors of product/illustration/graphic work in favor of the challenges of gallery work. He just had a show Meyer-Rive Gauche in Scottsdale. I was able to make it down for reception night and whisper sweet Bulgarian nothings in his ear for a moment..."give me the keys to the car". Very tender.
Very nice show. I always enjoy colorful figures, and Iggy's are just that.
Now that I think of it, Jeremy did a few projects as a freelancer, here and there, but never jumped in with both feet. Sometimes I feel like I'm the last kid in the pool, swimming in everybody else's urinarily enhanced water. I can't really complain. I get to design and illustrate all day long. It's a dream come true, honestly. Yet it's an old and broad dream, replaced by more recent and refined visions.
More on that later.
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