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Greg's Art History
"And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous." ~ Albert Einstein There are many special people who have impacted my personal and artistic attitudes. I cherish their positive teachings and examples. They influence who I am, but when it comes to learning the technical skills of painting, I did not have a formal teacher. Instead, I learned by watching other artists and by observing nature. First Artistic Experience "Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you." -Frank Lloyd Wright My first real-life art lesson occurred while looking at nature. When I was sixteen I saw a breathtaking sunset. I remember being inspired for days after; I remember being amazed that such a thing exists. It was an awakening, which put me on the artist's path. In high school I did not create very much art, though I had the normal high school art classes. However, in my senior year I had another life-changing artistic experience, I visited the Grand Canyon. One of my brothers was going to college in Arizona, so I visited him and we went to the Grand Canyon. The Canyon confirmed my suspicion that nature has unlimited beauty and true life lessons. In addition to the Canyon, we visited and hiked in several other special locations, including Saguaro National Park. Several months after I visited the Grand Canyon I graduated high school and began college that August (1990). In conjunction to nature I was equally fascinated with the human mind and brain, so in college I selected psychology as my major. I didn't see psychology as separate from my love of nature or my growing interest in art. But rather I expected that it would help me understand the creative process and maybe even give me some insight for making art. I enjoyed psychology from day one, but also wanted to be make things and be creative. So, in my first year of school I began trying crafts. One that I enjoyed very much was tie-dying. Within a year I began selling tie-dyes, which I made - the first two were bought by a very memorable professor. His purchase gave me the encouragement to continue to dye and in a year or so my little craft grew into a little business. In my third and fourth years of school I was making custom tie-dyed clothing and tapestries for students, professors, organizations and local shops. I used the money for living expenses and learned about various artistic issues, including color harmony, color mixing and technique. Learning to Paint -
Live Dyes© One day in college, while working with tie-dyes, a friend and I discovered a new artistic synthesis. It involved drawing with fabric markers (or painting) on a tie-dye in order to bring out forms, which can be seen in the tie dye pattern. We called this synthesis Live-Dyes©. Together we created the first Live-Dye; using a permanent marker my friend drew an exquisite image of Josephine Baker on one of my tie-dyed tees. It turned out that Live-dyes were a perfect stepping stone for me. They encouraged me to draw and paint on my shirts and tapestries; and later they encouraged me to use the dyes as watercolor paints on paper and canvas. Continuing the Artist's Path Immediately after college I got a job for the summer doing social work. Then at the end of the summer I traveled to Arizona and California for two months. Again I visited the Grand Canyon and also, Yosemite, for the first time. They were inspiring and while at each park I saw paintings, which also inspired - and, in honesty, made me a little envious. When I returned from that trip I wanted to paint, but I also needed to earn money immediately and that meant getting a regular job. After a failed attempt at a book store I was fortunate to get a job at an art gallery. It complimented my desire to learn to paint and in my free time I did a lot of drawing and painting. Plus, I gained some new skills as I was trained in matting, framing and learned about the work of a variety of artists. In addition to learning to paint, I knew, in my spirit, there were some other things I needed to learn. I don't want to neglect mentioning them because they are such a big influence on my art and life. In college, I was introduced to Taoism. The Tao Te Ching and the Tao of Pooh were two of my favorite books in college. I did not have any classes in them, but when I read them (the Tao of Pooh first) my life and view of the world changed. After college, and after I returned from my trip to Arizona and California, I met someone who told me of a T'ai Chi school, which he had just begun, or was about to begin, attending. I went for an introductory lesson. It was an authentic Taoist martial art school and I enrolled. During this time my T'ai Chi teacher introduced me not only to T'ai Chi, but to Bible-study. T'ai Chi turned out to be everything and more than I expected. One of the ways in which it is more than I expected is that it's a full education in art. It's teachings on form, proportion, balance, yin/yang and more are directly applicable to any art - visual, performance, martial or otherwise. Its lessons are practical and immediately I started incorporating its principles - and my teachers lessons - into my art. The last thing I expected to become interested in when I entered college was the Bible. But during college several people shared their personal spiritual experiences and beautiful Scriptures with me; I have not forgotten those people nor their insights and care. After I graduated, and traveled to Arizona and California, I was ready to consider what the Bible had to say. I knew a few stories, such as the birth of Moses, the Exodus and Noah's Ark, from Hebrew school and festivals, such as Passover, but I didn't know what the Bible really said. As I read and participated in Bible studies I found that I had so many misconceptions about it. One thing that surprised me was that it is an interdisciplinary book. For it deals with such diverse topics as people; angels; animals; food; trees; miracles; creation; creativity; cosmology; love; wisdom; suffering; forgiveness; history; genealogy; even basic genetics!; finances; prophecy; poetry; The Creator; Messiah and more. It is a marvel that it covers so many topics and does so with understanding, wisdom and a wholistic perspective, i.e., the topics are interrelated. Art too is an interdisciplinary venture - knowledge and inspiration interact and come from various places. Furthermore, the process and results of making art communicates lessons. Anyone making quality art is, knowingly or unknowingly, expressing and applying lessons. It has been the case for me that discovering lessons in art is a rich reward in itself as well as a means to help me grow. And so, in art as with nature, and timeless works like the Bible, if one seeks lessons - even wisdom, beauty and truth, - then one will find them. Indeed, "seek and you shall find".
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