Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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Freaky awesome stuff.

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[Pat Calhoun]

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As I've intimated before there are a number of artists and writers on the boards, some of whom have posted in this thread, some have yet to do so. The recent discussion about OA prompted me to p.m.one of them for his view of what OA might mean to a practising artist.

 

I found what he had to say extremely interesting and asked him if he'd mind me sharing his thoughts with the rest of the community. I'll tell you who he is in a moment, but first, his comments...

 

"I started drawing as a child like every other artist has, we draw the things we love visually, the things we want to posses and hold and make permanent somehow.

I can remember looking at the Marvel Heroes on the milk cartons advertising channel 9 cartoons of the characters portrayed, one for every night of the week. I can remember going to the barber shop at six years old and trading with the barber new comics for his old ones. Bitter sweet as the haircuts in the 60's were those horrible crewcuts.

Just before I started college I sold all my comics and comic art that included pages and pages of original art, so many covers and splash pages that were bought at the comic cons were right from the artists for just a few dollars.

 

"When I had my first son and daughter I started collecting again with them when they were about 8 and eleven. This gave me the excuse to revive those childhood impulses for heroic content and visual power that were in comics. Something I couldn't do consciously as a young serious artist..

 

"So for myself, it's a nostalgic interest, a boyhood dream to one day draw like those guys and also something more. I think there are aspects in pop culture that communicate our unconscious needs, fears, and desires hieroglyphically. Every period in comic history is a very powerful representation of that, in part because it didn't have to be considered art. Also, I can identify with those artists as underdogs who were never taken seriously. Many if not most comic artists were jewish who couldn't get into other art related positions due to discrimination. Most of the if not all the jewish artists of the New York School of painters changed their jewish names, Rothko was Rothkowitz for example. It's an interesting history and mix of things. History has a way of homogenizing everything so who knows maybe one day people will see Jack Kirby and Mark Rothko on the same plane and not so different."

 

Steven Assael is a highly regarded American artist who also happens to collect comic books. He posts on these boards under the pen name of "sartre".

 

Follow this link to see his astonishing paintings:

 

 

Steven Assael