MY PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS

This is a short film I produced for an arts and lecture evening at a contemporary art museum in Seattle. Artists were asked to "explain" their work, which is generally a bad idea. Art should approach the ineffable. At the very least it should arrive naked, stripped of wordy manifestos and "wall-text" jargon. If you're lucky, it will dance with you, tickle your brain, show a little passion. It won't settle too easily into a pigeonhole. It won't reveal itself all at once.

My work is inspired by classical painting as well as offbeat popular art, films noir, golden age cartooning, illuminated manuscripts, sideshow banners, German engravings, Mexican wrestling posters, and both foreign and domestic currency (which I will gladly accept for my art). But that doesn't "explain" it, really.

There is a professional language one uses to discuss art but often it's like explaining an orange by listing it's chemical ingredients. Something is lost. Not that my work is that complicated or impossible to discuss, but given the chance to defend it, I realized a dry, academic tact wouldn't serve me well (nor would it "explain" anything, really) so I respectfully skipped the traditional slides-and-lecture approach and presented this small film. Hope you like it.

For more of my artwork, please check out Bob Makes Art.

PART TWO:

THE ART OF THE BOOK

Behind the Covers with Dave Eggers, Chip Kidd, Milton Glaser and moderator Michael Bierut at the 92nd Street Y in New York, Dec 4, 2006.

CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED

I loved reading Classics Illustrated comics when I was a kid. My introduction to the classics began when I had the flu one time, and Dad came home with some 7UP and a couple of these comics. Robin Hood and Frankenstein, I think.

I'd seen the Errol Flynn movie, of course, but as I sat propped up on pillows with my 7Up and my fever, I was transported back to Sherwood Forest where I joined Robin and his Merry Men robbing the rich and giving to the poor. Pretty revolutionary stuff. My girlfriend is in grad school getting a master's degree in non-profit leadership and fundraising, and she already has plenty of reading to do, but I might suggest adding this slim volume to her stack of books.