I love a sharp pencil, the simplest tool but capable of creating so much. The vast majority of my work is basically drawing. From detailed technical illustrations, to portraits, to storybooks, to large 3-dimensional installations, it’s all just a zillion-little-lines trying to organize themselves into a story. Even the photoreal paintings are just dry-brush drawings on canvas. I wouldn’t always call drawing fun, it’s challenging and admittedly lonely at times, but where it gets me is wonderful. Six of my major career areas are the focus of this show. Before I knew about different kinds of art, before I could really read, I was compelled as a 2nd grader to create, “The True Book of Vallcno,” (yup, not much of a speller). Art, for me, was less about making pieces of art, rather, more as a way to converse with people about what I saw in the world. I’d pour through encyclopedias to find drawings that explained what others saw.  

I have a passion for mechanical things and realized 50 years ago that I could make large canvases, which could then be animated with 3-dimensional components. This led to big fabricated installations covered with a drawn story, like the wood installation here at VCA.  Portraits and storybooks and scenes from months-long bicycle adventures are each their own kind of storytelling. But the majority of my 45-year career was as a freelance illustrator for countless magazines and corporations. “Go learn as much as you can about X, Y & Z, then make art about it so others can learn,” they would say.  “Really? You’re hiring me to do this?” This led to a wonderfully broad education that connected me with many of the mechanical things that originally inspired me to draw. It’s all about the conversations, the stories and ideas; my tool is a sharp pencil.

Oh, and then there’s the whole creativity thing.

Drawing gave me a path around the obstacles of written language, I actually feel lucky to be a severe dyslexic, even with its challenges. That route required a lot of original thinking: Creativity meant survival and that had big payoffs. My presentation, “A Talk on Creativity,” is all about that. The date is Wednesday, April 16, at 7pm in the Kay White Theater, where a variety of my images and related life stories will help explain what I understand creativity to be, why everyone is wired to have it, and why it’s absolutely one of the two very best things in life!  

Please join me.