October 29th, 2007
We’re back with a new interview, to Actress and Producer Glorinda Marie. Here are some interesting links to check, after reading the interview:
- Actress Website
- imdb
- SF Indieclub
- Get Bizzzy Acting Coach
Manuel Marino: “Glorinda, what do you think is an artist?”
Glorinda Marie: “An artist creates something through utilizing his or her imagination or minds eye as the primary tool of invention.”
MM: “You teach and coach other artists, why do some artists fail and other succeed?”
GM: “I teach my ‘Get Bizzzy’ students to practice the 5 P’s:
- Professionalism
- Punctuality
- Practice your Craft
- Persistence
- Patience
If any one of these key elements is missing, one can fail. Always be a professional treating everyone respectfully. You see the same people on the way up as on the way down. Show up early or on time for auditions and work. I know some CD’s that take points off for actors that are late for auditions and producers who will fire people from jobs if they are late. Also, it is especially vital that an actor hone their skills continuously - so practicing one’s craft, keeping one’s instrument sharp and tuned. And - truly persistence is the key that opens the door to opportunity! I think many talented people give up way too soon. So, practicing persistence and patience while doing the other things listed above, will eventually pay off! I loved Allison Janney’s speech at the Emmy’s a few years ago. Some one had referred to her as an ‘overnight sensation’. She laughed and retorted that it was the longest 30 years of overnight ever!”
MM: “You manage SF Indieclub, what can you tell us about it?”
GM: “I founded SF Indieclub to help enhance local filmmaking and filmmakers. Our collective mission is to create more work for all of us and also to enhance the quality of films being made locally. We hope to be inspirational, informative and helpful to our filmmakers. In the 8 years I have led the group, we have made some progress and sincerely intend to continue to do so. At this time, we network together over 2,000 filmmakers, directors, producers, writers, crew and talent. It is extremely rewarding to see many of our filmmakers go to festivals, win awards and even obtain distribution! My mantra for them is… keep creating!”
MM: “What are your next steps in career and life?”
GM: “Although SF Indieclub has proved to be somewhat instrumental in improving and expanding local filmmaking in the SF Bay Area, there is no comparison to the bountiful union work that is available in Los Angeles. As a SAG actress, I must expand my career and take it to the next level. Therefore, I have been living nomadically between Northern and Southern California. Although I am relatively established in the SF Bay Area, I nearly have to start all over again in LA. I’ve been going down there during pilot season and taking classes, meeting new teachers, meeting new casting directors and networking with actors. I am submitting myself in the hopes of finding a quality mid size agent to help me reach the next level in my career. I want to find someone who believes in me and my talent. In the meantime, I am submitting myself for every breakdown that would be considered my appropriate ‘type’ possible in film and TV. I believe that even if one does have an agent, the agent does 10% of the work and takes 10% of the cut because they do 10% of the work. An actor must always be actively involved in his or her own career. My goal is to get my feet in the doors of some TV shows and do some Guest Star and Co Star roles. Of course, I wish to play many more interesting roles in film as well.
As for life - I am traveling to Thailand next month. I love to expand my horizons and explore new cultures and people, customs, beliefs and ways of life. When I return home refreshed, I will enjoy the holidays with my friends and family before going back to LA again.”
Posted in Arts, Business, People | No Comments »
October 27th, 2007
Christian Toto is a Denver-based freelance reporter specializing in arts reporting.
He can be heard on three US radio stations, as well as occasionally on “The Dennis Miller Show,” which airs across the country.
He got his first byline as a young boy with his hometown newspaper. He reviewed “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and the paper misspelled his name.
Howard Stern, the radio bad boy, once read one of his columns on the air.
This is his story.
This isn’t exactly the best time to reinvent oneself in journalism. If newspapers aren’t dying, they’re very sick and doctors aren’t sure what to prescribe.
That didn’t stop me from quitting my job at a metropolitan newspaper and traveling across the country for the chance to start a family and buy an affordable home.
Priorities are priorities, but I feared giving up doing what I love for a living - writing movie reviews and entertainment features.
Thanks to the Web and some creative thinking, that hasn’t happened - yet.
Since moving to Colorado I’ve been able to continue my movie reviews but in a freelance capacity. The adjustment to being my own boss has been enlightening. My commute entails shuffling from the bedroom to my office, with no reason to check shadow traffic reports for fender benders or overturned trailers.
Nice.
But the amount of rejection I face each day makes me long for the security of a regular gig.
That’s where the Internet came in. I decided to create my own Web site, attempt to brand myself and see where that might take me. I know less than zero about HTML - heck, I didn’t know it was now referred to as XHTML, and I had never heard about CSS either.
For starters, I decided to leverage my last name, Toto, as something that sets me apart from the competition. Thus www.whatwouldtotowatch.com was born. Silly? Perhaps. But after decades of “Wizard of Oz” ribbing, that name had to start paying dividends.
I began the site on a blogger platform, but I soon changed it to have my own domain name.
But boy, was the site genetic.
It took me weeks of poring over a comprehensive XHTML starter book to learn how to tweak the site and add some usable content.
That learning curve remains steep, and my site still needs a considerable amount of work. But web design wasn’t the only area where I needed to stretch my brain. Marketing my Web site required another skill set I lacked. The Web actually helped me out here, and with a few google searches I found a number of ways to spread the news about my new site.
Today, www.whatwouldtotowatch.com receives a modest amount of visitors, and every time I pitch a story I direct the editor to my home on the Web for further details. Blogging on a daily basis also makes me a sharper writer, or at least one who can pound out paragraphs at a steady clip.
That efficiency will serve me well someday, I bet.
In a year, I might be writing press releases for some faceless think tank, or correcting grammatical errors for a local company’s human resource division. I’ll probably double my salary in the process, but if I juggle my web efforts just right I can avoid that fate.
Posted in Arts, Business, Ideas | 5 Comments »
October 25th, 2007
Mike Dominic wrote this article for us. He is a freelance illustrator and comic artist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has produced work for both print and online comics, including his own webcomic, The Journals of Simon Pariah. He has written articles about comics for Sketch magazine and 24 Hour Comics Day 2006, and he is currently a participant in the 100 Artists Project. His most recent work can be found at the Bruno the Bandit webcomic and his own sketchblog.
A comics experience
Comics is an old art form that is always new. In its current form, it is just over a century old, yet it is just as fresh as today’s strips. It has adapted to nearly every communications medium introduced in the last century, yet it is still produced with tools that are as old as the written word. It is considered lowbrow trash by some (see, for example, Jack Chick tracts or Tijuana Bibles), pop culture by many (see the current spate of comic book based films and the books from which they are derived), and high art by a few (see Gary Groth and Art Speigelman). Some creators have even managed to start at one end of the scale and work their way to the other (see Will Eisner and Robert Crumb).
Comic art is used for educational and instructional purposes as well as it is for entertainment value. It has provided icons for our modern culture, even as it tore down that same culture or provided an escape from it. Comics are to art what water is to a Taoist: infinitely adaptable, ever changing.
This is why I consider myself fortunate to have some small talent for comics; comics are, literally, for everyone. I write them, draw them and color them. I also read them and share my love of them with others, old and young. Although I’ve worked in other artistic fields, I keep coming back to comics. The lessons I learn from another medium make their way into comics, and somehow the influence of comics keeps making its way into other artistic endeavors.
No other creative efforts have challenged me as much as has the creation of comics. This field is, for me, simultaneously the most rewarding and most frustrating work I have ever undertaken. Comics just demands so much of the creator. It demands that I know something about just about everything, as I could be called upon to draw anything at any given time. As a comic artist, I must be able to create a believable image of just about anything, be it real or utterly fantastic, and use that rendering to aid the narrative, convey action or create a mood. And do it in a few deft penstrokes. Usually on a deadline. On the other hand, it allows me to realize just about anything, be it real or utterly fantastic, with an effect as real and a scale as large as my mind and hand can convey, and with a budget no larger than the cost of a piece of paper and a stub of a pencil.
Yet when the job is done, comics is an ephemeral medium, flashed briefly on the screen or held briefly in the hand, then discarded or stashed away while the reader moves on to the next task of their day. In thinking about it that way, it makes you wonder why anyone would bother putting in so much effort to make good comics, and its probably that ephemeral nature that contributes to the perception of comics as an immature or irrelevant medium. Yet, if the comic creator has done their work diligently and well, they will have produced something, an impression or insight, that will last well beyond the short span that is spent actually experiencing the art. It is when that lasting impression is achieved that comics (in any format) has succeeded, and truly lives, as art.
Posted in Arts, Culture | No Comments »
October 23rd, 2007
Famous videogame developer Vince Desi writes for our Weblog! He will write a series of articles, and this is the Part One of an article about being successful in Independent VideoGame Developer Art!
Part 1. The 3 Essential Elements:
I started Running With Scissors in 1996. Desire, Focus, Commitment. I like things to be simple, so I will concentrate on what I believe are the most important Elements to be successful. While you may think these 3 Elements are general factors and would apply to any endeavor, your right. How you apply them is what determines how successful you will be.Desire is the soul of life. It makes you who you are. It’s what drives you to get up in the morning, to work late into the night, and to do it all over again and again, as long as necessary. Desire is blind to failure. Desire is based in the question “What do you want?” Do you want to be a Video Game Developer? Do you have the skills it takes to make games? Are you creative? Inventive? Can you write, draw, program, build and lead a team, manage the ups and downs? How bad do you want it? Desire will deliver you to success if its true to who you are.
Focus is the roadmap for success. What type of game are you making? Is it a puzzle game, or a shooter, or a sportsgame, etc. What platform are you designing it for? Console or Computer? Handheld or Mobile? Is it a single player or multiplayer, is it time based or mission based? Who is the audience, male and female? How old? What languages? What cultural impact is there? Will there be a sequel or mods? The more you Focus in advance the more reliable your roadmap will be, and the faster you will become successful.
Commitment is what determines your priorities. Are you single? Or Married? Do you have kids? How much time are you willing to devote? Do you want a nice car now or later? Do you want to go on vacation this year or later? Do you want to go with your friends this weekend or work late? I didn’t say it would be easy or all fun, but if this is what you really want, then it will be fun, and easy and most important it will be natural to be committed to your project, and the project will come to you, just like success will follow.
I’m not here to waste your time, or mine, so unless you can honestly ask yourself and answer Do you have the Desire? Can you focus? Are you willing to make and keep the commitment? If you truly believe your answer to all these is YES, then congratulations you are have taken the 1st step in becoming an independent video game developer.
Part 2. Game Concept to Design
Part 3. Build your Development Team
Part 4. Create a Business Plan: Marketing, Publishing, and Distribution
Part 5. How to live after your game is a Hit!
Bio:
I have been a creative person my entire life, from painting clam shells from Coney Island beach in Brooklyn to everyday parenting of my kids. When I was ten years old I met someone who could draw a lot better than me, so I started writing songs. When I was sixteen I met someone who could write better songs than me, so I started painting, then I wrote poetry, then short stories, and philosophy, all along I was living life, not looking for who I am, but living who I am.At 28 I started in the video game industry as a Producer for the original ATARI. In 1982 my first big title was SPY vs. SPY for the C64. From then to 1996, I worked on over 50 titltes, including Alter Ego (1st game made in male and female versions), Ghostbusters (1st game to use software speech) and Tom & Jerry, for companies including Activision, EA, Disney, Hanna Barbera, Jim Henson and Sesame Street.
In 1996 I created Running With Scissors for the sole purpose of developing POSTAL. Now, in 2007, we are celebrating our 10th Anniversary with a feature film POSTAL-The Movie, a POSTAL mobile game by Russian publisher Ministry of Fun, a POSTAL BABES mobile game by Russian publisher HeroCraft and we are co-developing and publishing POSTAL III with Russia’s premier game publisher Akella.
Posted in Arts, Business, Games, People | 9 Comments »
October 20th, 2007
Andrea Angiolino was born the 27th of April, 1966 in Rome, the city where he still lives. He published many boardgames and books about games, besides developing games for every media. His works appeared in more than a dozen of languages including Korean, Czech and Maltese. He is a game journalist on national magazines, newspapers, radio broadcasts The Italian School and Education Ministry named him “Expert game author”, while the Lucca Comics and Games show gave him the first “Best of Show” prize for lifetime achievements. More info are on his personal site. Here’s what he wrote for our Weblog, about creating games and about his career:
I am what it’s usually called in English a “game designer”, but I prefer “game author” instead. Essentially, I invent games: their rules, their settings, their mechanics.
I love this. It is both a sort of artistic activity and my full time job. Italy is not so a big market for authors of boardgames or role-playing games: so I do every other sort of games for work. It does not matter so much if they are boardgames, card games, role-playing games, tv games, computer games or gambling games for the Italian state: my role is to create them, and sometime to be their editor or translator. I also write articles and books about games: I am at the same time a creative, a historian and a critic. These roles help each other a lot, making me a far more conscious game designer and journalist. Anyway, apart from puzzles and word games (our traditional “enigmistica”) for magazines, the ones where I feel more “author” are boardgames, card games and role-playing games.
A game is a little world with a simplified set of laws, the rules, that its inhabitants, the players, learn and try to master. The author is the God of these worlds. There are abstract boardgames, like - let’s say - draughts, that are like a mathematical model of a little universe. Some of them are very simple. I like “steamlined” and effective games. One of my best-sellers is a book about paper-and-pencil games: very few rules, very simple materials and very intriguing tactics and strategies. Making a simple, original and intriguing game is a difficult exercise for an author: but together with some of our Renaissance artistic geniuses I think that the real art is in taking away, not in adding.
Anyway I prefer games with a setting, as chess, Monopoly or Clue. The stronger the atmosphere is, the more they look “literary” rather than “mathematical”. I am more used to designing boardgames that tell stories - I find them more involving than abstract games. ‘Madame Bovary, c’est moi,’ said Gustave Flaubert, and I could say ‘Lothar von Richthofen, it’s me!’ if I think to my games about the aces of the first world war. Several of my boardgames are actually just a different way rewriting the story of Ulysses or of telling dark stories of medieval struggles between rising feuds. “Obscura Tempora”, a card games of mine with this last setting, appeared with a short story about a viking raid on the rulebook, and that’s not by chance: the game and the story come from the same suggestions, share the same inspiration, tell the same tale in two different ways.
Sometimes my games are not novels but essays: I design games for teaching, advertising, promotion and such. The last one, “Fair Play”, has ben asked me by Pangea - Niente Troppo, an Italian fair trade organization: they wanted a game that could help to explain all the travel that the cotton does from a seed in a remote field to the T-shirt you are wearing, explaining how we could have have a less polluting and fairer process. In this case I start from the setting and even the message that the game has to bring to players. When I design a game for the fun of it, usually aimed to the generic market of players, I can do the same or just the opposite: I may think about a boardgame with a pawn moved by all the players, instead than one pawn each as in traditional games, and then wonder what - or who - that pawn can be. Maybe Odysseus in the hands of the Gods? Then other rules and detaiuls of the setting are a natural consequence of that choice. This is how the boardgame Ulysses was born.
In these years, there are two main styles in boardgame design. Oversimplifying, the German school has quite abstract games: original mechanics and linear rules with nothing useless. Even if they have a setting, as they often do, it is somehow “pasted on” the rules: There is no strict connection between the setting and the rule system. This is a logical and mathematical approach to game design. The opposite school, quite more “literary” and historical, is the so called American style: plenty of rules to give a detailed simulation of the subject of the game, often coming with plenty of miniatures and gadgets to thrill the kid in everyone of us. But I feel I am part of an “Italian style” instead: a simple frame of rules but strictly connected with the setting, so that everything you do in the game tends to give you the feeling to live in the simulated world. Being able to do that with a “steamlined” rulebook is actually the big challenge.
What I also love of boardgames is that they are a open creative process. Many players of my last card game “Wings of War” share new rules, new scenarios, new game materials all over the net. This help me and my co-author Pier Giorgio to develope new releases in the series. The fans also founded a web discussion group, to exchange opinions and additional stuff for this very game - it has just reached one thousand members. To my eyes this, in the end, is a measure of success greater than just the amount of copies sold or the number of foreign publishers that translated the game into their languages: when so many people decide that my game is their game and put their energies in it, it really means that my lonely work in front of my computer is worth the time spent on it.
Posted in Arts, Games, People | 2 Comments »
October 20th, 2007
Another beautiful review I had (with my pseudonym Vanethian) is this one at Splendid E-zine:
If you’ve ever caught yourself getting into the soundtracks that play in the background of sci-fi fantasy games, you might enjoy Futures Past. Unassuming synthesizers create a circumambient musical flow, taking you first to the distant and icy plains of Pluto, then back in time, where you’ll mingle with the shoguns of Japan and explore England’s age of chivalry. Born in Palermo, Manuel Marino, the man behind the music, started out playing solfeggio-style fingerpicking and jazz guitar. Marino’s heavy interest in role-playing games is evident on Futures Past; he takes his own personal enjoyment and translates it sonically through MIDI sequencing into breathtaking soundscapes that take the listener left of heaven into the World of Dreams. Taking Korgs, Rolands and Moogs to the next level, Marino remains modestly mindful of old masters Rick Wakeman and Alan Parsons when evoking his own brand of medieval methodology. From intergalactic battles to dystopian visions of society, infinite space is the only limit for Marino and his music.
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
October 18th, 2007
Here’s a very interesting article on the Art of carpet making, written by Alhan Keser. Alhan is in in charge of communications for Tip Top Design, a company that specializes in interior design with oriental rugs. He has lived in Turkey and France, working as a freelance journalist and documentary maker.
The story of carpet making
The story of carpet-making starts with nomadic Asian tribes and their traditions. These were – many still are – self-sufficient nomads who lived off of raising animals such as sheep. They would travel hundreds of kilometers in search of pasture lands for these animals, who would become the nomads’ food, clothing, shelter, bedding, and fuel. Some of their needs such as spices and luxuries like gold were bought thanks to the sale of animals and skins to city dwellers. And at some point in their history, they began selling their tribal rugs.
For the nomads, rugs have always served both a very utilitarian and symbolic purpose. Flat woven saddlebags on the backs of donkeys carry grains while other decorative pile woven carpets can serve as dowry for brides. Young girls are passed on the knowledge of carpet-making from their older sisters and relatives. Their small hands are best at making the thousands of small knots that make up the entire carpet, similar to the pixels of a digital photo. The carpets are woven with help of a small guide aiding them to count out the number of knots of each color to tie per row of weft. These guides are made by carpet designers looking to sell the works. The really special carpets are made by brides themselves for their future homes. On the carpet a bride will lay out the history of the tribe, her thoughts, and wishes for the future of her family. Though men were the ones who created the history of a tribe by fighting or trading, the women are the ones who record the history of a tribe through weaving. These are the truly unique works of art that are most precious.
Selective breeding of the sheep has gives the tribes people with higher quality fibers (today wool from New Zealand and high-altitude areas is regarded as the best quality wool for carpets in the world, not counting Alpaca wool, too rare to use for carpets). The wool is hand spooled, then dyed using vegetables found nearby (today superior azo-dyes are used to complement these natural dyes) before being handed over for weaving purposes. Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky wrote the following after his mentor G. I. Gurdjieff told him of his travels in Asia: He spoke of the ancient customs connected with carpet making in certain parts of Asia; of a whole village working together at one carpet; of winter evenings when all the villagers, young and old, gather together in one large building and, dividing into groups, sit or stand on the floor in an order previously known and determined by tradition. Each group then begins tits own work. Some pick stones and splinters out of the wool. Others beat out the wool with sticks. A third group combs the wool. The fourth spins. The fifth dyes the wool. The sixth or maybe the twenty-sixth weaves the actual carpet. Men, women, and children, old men and old women, all have their own traditional work. And all the work is done to the accompaniment of music and singing. The women spinners with spindles in their hands dance a special dance as they work, and all the movements of all the people engaged in different work are like one movement in one and the same rhythm. Moreover each locality has its own special tune, its own special songs and dances, connected with carpet making from time immemorial.
Posted in Arts, Culture | 15 Comments »
October 17th, 2007
Musician Matti Mattila wrote his story for us! Please read also his Finnish blog and check his page at LinkedIn.
My first experience with music started as early as four or five years old. Since then I have carefully listened to music and tried to imitate player’s role. Until my twelve years birthday I only loved music by hearing it on the radio. Then I found two tin cans I covered with thick piece of plastic and tightened the film with wires. Grabbing two wooden sticks and starting to beat the cans was a start of my career as a drummer. The rhythm was inspiring and stunning. It kept me beating and changing the speed from slow to quick and back. A new star was born.
We started to play in a rock group with my dear friend Age. He was a guitarist. Our band wasn’t complete until we got base player and lead singer. The year was late 1970’s. Before this we were playing in a group for more than five years having some minor concerts and other happenings. We had a lot of fun, and my first tin cans were changed to real a drum set. Rock music was not so common in Finland those days. Of course there were lot of artist and groups, but the real invasion of popular music bands was in late 1980’s. Our band had quited playing that time, but the members of the group still love music.
Our rock band Shakedown was formed in late 1970’s. The best time was 1982 when we released our first album. It wasn’t a big success, but very important milestone to us. The climate for young rock music wasn’t very friendly in Finland until 1990’s and after. I assume the nation wasn’t ready for limitless free lifestyle and some authorities tried to control what happened in teenagers’ world. Today everything is different. Finland now has many world-famous rock groups like Nightwish, HIM and Lordi. The long waited winning in European Song Contest a few years ago finally nailed our country as a serious music source.
I haven’t retired from playing drums, yet. Although I haven’t played for years it doesn’t mean that rock’n'roll is dead. In fact, I have dreamed of getting a new set of drums and starting to play again. I still love listening to rhythmic beat whenever I hear it on the radio or CD. Many other artistic hobbies have stolen my time. Theater and all kinds of appearance have kept me busy lately. Photography is one of my dearest hobbies. And of course, designing things among others. After all, music is still number one in my heart.
Posted in Arts, Music, People | 3 Comments »
October 14th, 2007
This is the Part Two (and final part) of the true life story as artist written by Frank V. Cahoj for our Weblog. (Part One)
Part Two
I give an unbelievable amount of credence to these two early periods in my life: one of everlasting creation, one of analysis and disillusionment. The reason is simple—these are both traits that an artist must possess in order to fully utilize their natural talents. We must be willing to create at all costs, no matter the outcome. We must hunger for the process of creating, and not focus entirely on the results. If you do not enjoy the process of creating, how can you stand behind your creation? Yet, simultaneously we must be perfectionists, and run a fine-toothed comb through our ideas and inspirations. We must develop our ideas scientifically. We must understand our concept, our message, and our reason. If we fail to understand why we are creating, we will lose our focus, and quickly gold becomes dirt.
I had some help returning to my creative roots; my cousin was an artist who possessed more talent in his eyelid than I did in my whole body. When we would get together to play, I would spend most of the time watching him draw. He was older than me, and much more progressive, and his outlook towards his art seemed so nonchalant, so natural. He would just sit down and begin to draw. I remember him drawing a dragon with such impeccable detail, such precision. I wondered why I struggled so hard with it. Was I even an artist? Maybe I was an imposter. What made me more of an artist than the neighborhood kid down the block who ate crayons and bugs and still wet his bed and created nothing but trouble for his mother? I couldn’t answer any of those questions. I decided, then, that the only way to find an answer was to try to be an artist and see what happened. That’s it! I would try to be an artist again! I would draw, and paint, and create. I would create without consideration for the outcome, yet I would clearly define my premises, my point of view, my focus. I would use the lessons learned from my two early experiences to create art that was significant and relevant. So that’s what I did. I started to really create things.
Throughout High School, I was the “art kid”. I took every art class my High School offered. I failed Algebra 2, yet amassed enough math credits to graduate. I failed Physics, but excelled in most other sciences. Besides art, the only classes I willingly added to my schedule were Literature and English—I loved to write—and Music. My senior year, I had gym (required), a study hall (basically another art class without a teacher), an Advanced Placement Creative Writing course, and six art classes. I literally sat in the same classroom for more than half the school day, working on six different art projects simultaneously. I overloaded myself. My art consumed me. I became so enchanted by it and everything it stood for and the way it made me feel. I pounded out art like I was an assembly line in a factory. I sold art to my teachers; I sold art to my family and friends. I gave a lot of art away. I was successful because I was passionate. The pieces themselves had no real value to me; what proved valuable to me was what my art meant to others. I learned my final lesson in being an artist at that period in High School: there is no artist, living or deceased, that created art for themselves and themselves alone. An artist creates for others. If we, as artists, are indifferent to the public’s perception of our work, our success will loom in the darkness of our own selfishness, and never fully be realized. High School was my own tiny renaissance. I will never forget those days.
I took the next step in my desire to be an artist by attending the American Academy of Art in Chicago, IL. The Academy, as we called it, was a wonderful place. The school was just two floors of a high rise in the heart of the city (known as the Loop), sitting on Michigan Avenue, The Magnificent Mile, one of the most famous avenues in the world. There were only about 300 students. The faculty was representative of the greatest Chicago had to offer in the world of art. The school focused on curriculum for artists, not arbitrary curriculum for the general student; our science credit was an anatomy class, in which we drew from a live nude model and were asked to see through their skin and study their bones and muscles, drawing our observations on paper. Our math credit was titled Quantitative Literacy, where we focused on geometrics and design and how math related to the Renaissance and Leonardo DaVinci. It was an artist’s Mecca. There is no better place in the world to practice art. The architectural brilliance of the City, coupled with the diversity of its people, access to one of the best art museums in the country (The Illinois Institute of Art Museum), a fantastic art district where galleries and art stores abound, and a park system as peaceful as that of rural America in the middle of a bustling metropolis, made it easy to be an artist.
Attending an art school like The Academy is like living in a hostel with 300 other individuals who share your exact passion and who, in essence, know everything about you, because you are them. You perform all of your tasks and ventures together. There is no privacy or even the expectation of privacy. You are draped with inspiration at all times. If you slack off, it is not your teachers who pull you back to earth; it is your peers. You learn to succeed as a unit, and realize that the community is much larger and more important than yourself. When 9/11 took place, we were all just beginning our first class for the day. Students began getting taken to the administrative office one by one to receive phone calls from their families who were worried sick about them. They were worried about their sons and daughters being in the heart of a major American City when we were under attack. We looked out the window of our classroom onto Michigan Avenue and witnessed a mass exodus of people heading away from the city, towards every subway station and train station and bus depot, trying to escape the city limits and the looming shadow of the tallest building in America, the Sears Tower. Cars couldn’t move because the roads were flooded with people fleeing the city on foot. No one knew what was going to happen, or if our city would be next. Yet in that moment of complete chaos and disaster, there was a warming comfort flowing through us, knowing that we, the students of The Academy, were together and had each other to rely on. It was a community in every sense of the word. And it bred the best artists I have ever associated with. I spent three and a half years at The Academy, before economic reasons prevented me from returning. Education isn’t free, or cheap, or affordable, especially for an overly ambitious kid from divorced parents with no money.
I left The Academy to pursue a career in Human Resources and make some money for my family and I. I learned a great deal about community and people and relationships during my college career, aside from all I learned about art. I felt I could take that knowledge and apply it to a career in Human Resources and Recruiting, and I have experienced success thus far. I chose this career because I feel that the Human Resources function requires a creative mind. Dynamics change all the time when people are involved—there are no constants. Companies must create new ways to attract, retain, train and develop quality talent. The black and white has turned decidedly gray, and with the advent of the internet, open job boards, the loss of anonymity in our world and Web 2.0, new, creative ways to recruit must be considered. I would like to believe that my transition has gone over without a hitch.
I still paint and draw and write and play music. I will never stop doing those things. Making money in art was never my goal. I pursued art because I had a passion that I couldn’t ignore. If money is your motivation for creating art, you will find yourself in constant search of inspiration. Money does not inspire, it empowers. Artists do not need to be empowered – we were born with that.
Posted in Arts, People | 3 Comments »
October 14th, 2007
Here’s an interesting exclusive article Roland d’Humières, 56 years old psycho-analyst from Aix en Provence (France) has written for our Weblog.
The mistery of being Artists
Whatever is his/her Art, painting, music, dance, writing, or any other, whatever he or she chooses, this way is for an Artist, the most difficult activity he/she may choose in the life. Lot of people imagine that it’s an easy way to live…What a wrong perception of things!
Art is an unlimited way to express unlimited feelings of ours. Quite simple definition? Ok, let us see further on…
We are born in a civilization that strictly forbid emotions and feelings, since the birth:
Forbidden for a baby to cry, forbidden for preteens to feel, forbidden for teen to express themselves, then, forbidden again for adults to cry, to show feelings , endly forbidden for us to be sincerely what we are, deeply in our soul…
People learn to live without true, sincere, real emotions and feelings….
So, an Artist firstly have to find this famous inspiration. That means he must be able to find, to identify the most deepest feelings in his/her own singular beings, despite that was forbidden in his/her childhood, and remains forbidden already for the rest of the world… Easy? Try it!
Then, secondly, the Artist have to find his/her own way of expression. Here is the biggest difficulty:
As in this country of south-america where it is allowed to be “loco” but inside a real cultural codification, an artist have to find the best way to express himself, inside allowed codifications of the Art. As rules exist for everything, rules do exist for an artist in his /her discipline, as soon as society agree with it. So, to express unlimited feelings, the Artist is forced to use imposed standards! Great!!! Easy, did you say?
Here is the reason why the artist’s life is so painful. Allowed to express feelings, but with limited academic standards! Such circumstances do have a name in Psychiatry: schizophrenic situation. As well, everyone can understand why such genius lifes were so painful. Schizophrenia seems to be a professional illness, then…
When the Artist is rebel to those standards, the last wall to destroy is the misunderstanding of the other. He or she has to confront the other’s look. This “other”, you, me, everyone never learn to accept his own feelings. As well, never learn to express it… And those very others will judge if an artwork is or not a masterpiece? Unbelievable stupidity!
In fact, the art piece will, or will not, wake up our feelings, whether they enter or nor in echo with Author’s one. It fits or not, like a hazard game…. Like chemistry…
Then, the only way for us to understand art pieces, to appreciate it; the only way to help artists get possible through a patient singular work:
To be in a frequent contact with it, to tame our own feelings, and to open our mind to the other.
This has a name too: LOVE
Posted in Arts, Culture | 5 Comments »
