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BECOMING A DIGITAL ARTIST

SOME THINGS ABOUT ART AND ME

While we were growing up, my brother, sister, and I saw my father drawing pictures all the time. He often included poetry written on his pictures.

To prepare me for my first day of kindergarten, my dad gave me a large box of Crayola Crayons and a drawing pad to bring to class. None of the other kids brought crayons, nor did we even draw the first week!

Sometimes, using his his slide projector, my dad would project a newspaper or magazine picture he liked onto our apartment wall. Then, in the dark, he would go over to the wall with his pad and pen and copy (trace) the enlarged, projected picture. From his copied picture, he would make a colored drawing or painting of it.

He would also ‘superimpose' one of his pictures over another. For example, he would draw a lion jumping in the air, then cut it out, discarding any of the background. Then he'd position (or paste) the lion onto a picture he had drawn of a sunset over the water. It’s not a ’normal’ thing to see a lion jumping into the air down by an ocean beach, where the waves come in and touch the sand! This unusual kind of art my dad did left an impression on me.

In public and junior high school, I was pretty good at art (better than most kids), but not nearly as good as the few really talented ones I knew. I could copy pictures OK, but wasn’t very ‘creative’ with my art like I was becoming with my music. Around age 14, I began considering music more seriously, because I thought I could be more creative with that.

A few years before my father passed, he told me that I could do whatever I wanted with his art after he was gone. I really had no plans to do anything with his work back then - I simply enjoyed his pictures and believed he had talent. His art had ‘feeling’.

My favorite artist is Monet.

THE TWO THINGS THAT LED ME TO CREATING MY DIGITAL ART

1) SUPERIMPOSING DAD’S ART ON A COMPUTER
Berklee College of Music, where I taught, had a room for teachers called CTMI where well-qualified staff showed those of us who were interested 'how to use’ certain computer programs/software.


Back then, in 2004, I hardly cared for or knew anything about computers (other than how to 'turn it on or off’). But for a while, I had been wondering if, on a computer, I could take some of my dad’s art work and superimpose one of his pictures of over another - like having 2 slide projectors showing their individual pictures on the wall simultaneously - one picture over the other. Mike Carrera, one of the CTMI staff, showed me how to scan some of my dad’s art on the computer and then how to view 2 of the pictures - one over the other using "Adobe Photoshop". Together, we created a ‘transformed' version of my dad’s art (see art above). It was fun, althought I really had no desire to create digital art. But, in spite of myself, I soon ended up scanning and saving on the computer lots of dad’s pictures I had kept for myself after his passing. Over time, I began transforming his work, eventually creating lots of 'my own’ digital art pieces. Much of my art is improvised without any clear picture of what it should be. It's similar to my music... I'm basically an improviser! Within a year or so, I signed with an Art agent who got me some showings of my art around Boston.

2) CAR ACCIDENT
In 2000, my wife and I were involved in a car accident. The driver in the other car was seriously injured. In order for me to not go crazy, I ended up spending probably more time over at CTMI than any of the staff or teachers, as I created my art. I needed to take my attention off the accident, so I threw myself into turning out a tremendous amount of work. This continued for a long time... All the digital art I created felt like a gift from God (or Spirit). I wondered where these pictures where coming from, because most of it was improvised and inspired without much thought behind it. Whatever it was, it helped keep me sane. This whole experience lasted a long time and was deeply emotional.