Fresh Eyes

Soccer Fence, by Phil Bildner, illustrated by some punk I see in the mirror from time to time, is just about finished! All that remains is the cover art and then that baby can fly. A year ago I was having model shoots and working on rough sketches. It does not feel like time flew by, this time. It feels like a year. A very good year, but a long year, filled with hard work. It is too soon for me to be able to appreciate the art too much, being so close to it and all. But that will pass soon, once it is out of my daily life. And like other art projects, it will transform in my eyes as time passes. I found this out recently by looking at one piece, in particular, from I AND I, my book with Tony Medina about Bob Marley.

I found a statement embedded into the art that I never knew I was making until now. I do not recall intending this to happen, but years later, I was able to finally see what I had done in this piece. Fresh eyes.

When I was in Jamaica with my wifey, we were told about the Shame Plant, or Shame Old Lady plant (Mimosa pudica). In some cultures it is called a Shameful Plant, because it hides itself when touched. But according to one Jamaican man we spoke with, it is named this because when the slaves in days past would try to escape, they would pass by these plants which would then fold up, leaving a trail that was easy to follow. What a heartbreaking thought...nature itself turning traitor on you.

 I decided to include the Shame Plant in this image of a young Bob Marley. The similarity of the plant and his young hand, open and not folding in, were decisions that I guess I made at the time but now I can appreciate the deeper concepts more than I ever did then.

Here is a peek one of the final spreads from Soccer Fence.

Peace,
Jesse

Feat or Famine

I am nearing the finish line of this last year's worth of work for my next picture book. (Soccer Fence, by Phil Bildner, Putnam. I am stoked!)

-halfway finished glimpse at one of the new images from Soccer Fence

It has been a very good book to work on. Subject matter right out of my own life's passions and a process that is different from any book I've done before. I have some work to do still, for sure. But I am happy. Happy with the direction this body of work has taken. Happy looking back and seeing that I did not stop at good enough, but filled plenty of sketch books end to end with different takes until the elements were solid. And then again for good measure.

Happy also that once again I get to illustrate a book that matters to me. It is not just work, it is art. My life as an artist is based on passion and my desire to materialize beauty and truth and justice and so far, artwork has been my outlet. And if it is my only outlet, I am happy.

I am going to be speaking at the UW for a conference on diversity next month and as I reflect on my route to here and now, I go back and look at the beginning.

I had been rejected by an art director in San Diego who told me, while he loved some of the work I showed him, I needed to go back home and paint for five years and then, maybe, my stuff would be ready to go. And so I did. I painted hundreds of paintings and ended up selling most of those during that span of time. Some were good, others ended up underneath new paintings. That happened so often that my first few years' work is five times heavier than anything I do now.

I began painting images of Rastafari and of the music and culture that I loved but did not see around me. I did not choose Jamaica as a focal point of my subject matter because I thought it would make me rich. I painted every one of those paintings because that is where I had visited and that is what I wanted to see when I looked into that blank canvas. I painted those reggae artists because I was the house artist at The Bohemian during an amazing four year run of reggae in Seattle and I got to hang out with all of the artists who came through. I got to shoot photos as reference for the paintings and then hang the piece in the club where often it would be purchased before the nail was even in the wall, by some fan that had seen the artist perform the week before. It was a wicked run. Just a dream connection, while it lasted. 

Trodding Jah Road, 10'x4' acrylic on canvas (original is long gone, but prints are available)

When I dove in headfirst to my five year stretch of painting, I decided that if I kept going like I had, with no clear focal point or common subject matter, my work might not progress like it could. I intended to have a singular focus for that duration so that I could see myself evolve over time, since the subject would be similar and therefore the artistic changes would be more evident. It definitely worked. There were so many images, and sure enough, I can see that growth over time very clearly in that body of work.

When I realized it had been a little more than five years since I embarked, I didn't stop painting what I still loved, but I did make room for other groups of artwork. I had just been to Brazil with my lovely wifey and so I did a big show centered around Bahia, Brazil. As I painted for the show, I decided that since my subject matter was changing, I was ok to try out new styles and see if there was a pitch perfect voice to sing this song of Brazil in. And I found one that was distinctly different from my work centered on Jamaica.



And from there it was one passion, and then another. Surfing in the northwest is one of my deep loves and I have painted and sold many pieces from that collection, both originals, and giclée prints. It has been one of my most successful collections, financially.





With my illustration, it is a little trickier to pick and choose the subject matter since you get called from the publisher and are offered projects they think your style would work for. And, while the frequent famine seasons might yearn for some cheap book to illustrate for a quick buck, regardless of the content, I have been somehow kept "pure." So to speak. Every book I have been blessed with the duty of illustrating has been very meaningful to me, as an artist and an activist. I guess I've lucked out.


And while it may be a feat to work until 3 or 4 in the morning, get up to take the boys to school, fumble for coffee, and start the process over again, what is the alternative? Riding the tides of this feast or famine vocation can be so stressful and can surely take years off the clock. But, it can also be met with thankfulness and hope. Sometimes looking back helps. Even if I can't see the road ahead of me, I see the road behind me and I may as well keep on keepin on. After all, I love doing this.

prepare

Kin and Whatnot

My little metronome dancing in his grandma's arms.
This boy has got the rhythm and has got it bad. He can't crawl down the hallway without stopping to bob his head and shake his big ol diaper booty so long as there is something to rock out to, be it Fela or the washing machine. As long as there is a beat, he is good to go.


My mom, come to think of it, is quite the same. She has always taken every opportunity to turn something into a dance or a song. I admit, I have been known to do the same.

I guess there is something to genetics, after all.

Ahh, beep beep. Ahh, beep beep.

Frequency

This kid used to be terrified of water. Now he has gills. All thanks to frequency.

This kid used to be shy on the soccer pitch. Now he gets the taste of blood and he stops at nothing until the ball is in the net. All thanks to frequency.

I want to learn from the youth so I apply this to myself and it checks out. I was born with no great skill of drawing. There might be some inherited genetic predisposition toward the creative but there is no denying that my art when I was a kid sucked. No offense. It only got better- and precisely proportionate to the frequency of which I drew.

Whenever I do school visits I remember being right there in the classroom or gym. I remember thinking older people had some light-switch moment when they all of a sudden got really good at.... everything. Either that, or they were born with magic skills and powers that I was not born with. Bah. Rubbish. I would still suck at drawing had I not been stubborn or interested enough to continue at it. Simple.

Practice makes.......

(here is where all the kids always yell, "PERFECT!" and where I always say, "RRRRRRRRR! Wrong.")

There is no perfect. The best of the best are still getting...... yep, better. So, practice makes better. That's all. No biggie, except that it is a huge biggie. That means this distant dream is obtainable. Just add practice. That and passion. Because otherwise the practice fades into the void faster than the new found interest in using the gym membership.

Take soccer. Me and soccer. We've had quite a run. Played really young (though not as young as me wee brother, who started us all off on it). Played up until high school where several practices in I had a whopper of a knee injury. Skating, not playing soccer, so soccer was the victim here.
Anyway, I tried but wasn't able to pick it up again after than because I kept getting knee injuries and finally got a series of awful, bloody awful surgeries. One and then the other, and then back to the first again. That put me out in narcoland for a few years and when I came to, I found surfing as a physical salvation of sorts. Just as I got into surfing I had my spine injury and so right when I was possibly about to venture back to soccer, I was sidelined again. A few more years of crazyboy gave me plenty to work through, but I kept surfing. That has remained all the while.
A decade or so later, finally, when I was getting too damned fat and my knees hurt all the time and I had no energy and well, anyway, you probably get the pic. Well, then I happened upon a game of pick up soccer and my life was saved again.

It has been five or six years to date and I am certain I have only missed fewer games than I can count on two hands. Twice a week, rain or snow or shine. Frequency. Now, I am no Pato or Neymar, but I feel pretty good about my ability to blast a shot off and hit a fair percentage of them. That and I am not afraid to go toe to toe with anybody. No guarantee I will come out with the ball, but I will sure as hell give it a go. Give it all of a go. That has come purely because of my repetition. It is just what I do.

I have a beer or two in me, pizza is in the oven, and the family is watching some cozy movie in our cozy house but the clock strikes seven and I am out the door like a robot. Snow, ice, baked hard concrete of a field. No matter. I cannot stop this clockwork now. Even when I am injured (and my wife will say that is every time I play) I will instinctively suit up and head to the pitch, even if it means I have to sit and watch with a bum ankle. (I may mention the added but not intended effects of this regimen: dropped 35+ pounds permanently, knees no longer hurt!!!!, back does not hurt nearly as badly nor frequently, though still would get traded in a heart beat if I could figure such a thing out. But those are not the most important benefits. I was dealing with PTSD due to the massive head injury and spine injury and had dabbled in this med and that to try to alleviate the crazy, but none were cool with me. All had unwanted side effects and felt like poison. Turns out, soccer was the pill I was looking for. My mind and heart and soul feel so much more tuned in to my own life and the black cloud that haunted me for so many years has gone the way of gangsta rap. Not gone like extinct, but gone like seldom played on the playlist- but not forgotten. Can I get a HALLELUJAH? Ok, I'll Hallelujah myself. Hang on. HALLELUJAH, Jesse. Hallelujah.)

Frequency.

Apply this to anything. Writing. Drawing. Painting. Music. Critical Thought. Empathy. Mercy. Patience. Self Control. Praying. Being kind to your family. Thinking of yourself in a positive way. You could become a pro at any of those things with frequency. Which reminds me I have a whole lot of work to do so that I can cross all those things off my list. Become perfect at? Never. But better. And better works for me.

Peace

Ghosts of Pillars Past

Heroes diminish.   

Skin sags 

and vision fails. 

Just as sure as the tide comes in, 

out it also goes. 

And us with it. 

So ...

for now, 

 we dance in the light 

we are given. 

Maybe it was the summer after 8th grade... I found myself blinded by the reflection of the South Bay sun. Ten in the morning, head filled with potential, armed with a skateboard. My Walkman was duct taped together and one of the headphones had lost its foam and kept slipping from the sweat of the seven miles I passed on my way to the beach. I smelled the warm, wet, salt breeze that always hinted that summer's cooking oil was working its magic on lovely skin. I smelled that and some sweet, white flowers.

Sand added a silty undertone to the audio track of the soft wheels on the sidewalk. It also locked up my board sometimes and then suddenly I could do nothing but watch myself launched forward into whatever fate had chosen for me that day. Once it was into the arms of a cute girl I was definitely  about two years away from being able to even talk to, and the other was under a diesel truck. The first ended with me, red faced and stumbling backward, too shy to even apologize, and the other ended with a glitch in the matrix.

I hit the patch of sand and was jolted off my board, off the sidewalk, and into oncoming traffic. I had a clear view of the axle of the truck approaching. And then, instantly, I was back on the sidewalk.

I was headed for a trucky doom and somehow, without any way of explaining it, I was back in one piece, on the sidewalk.

Has my memory been spooled back, clipped, and then reconnected with scotch tape like my old Thompson Twins cassettes? Did this even happen? I gotta stick with yes. Yes it did.


Then again...


What if I died back then? What if every moment after that has been just the lucid dream of a 13 year old's purgatorial mind? Lost? Jacob's Ladder? Been done, eh? Oh well. Worth a shot.


Anyway, never mind the distraction. Here is what I was listening to when I fell into my glitch. A long story just to say that this song is pretty rad. 


Peace