Category: art

Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: UPDATE


inked comic page

The publisher received the first installment of my creative non-fiction comic this week. It has been almost a year since a posted about a creative non-fiction comic I’ve been illustrating and writing. Previous posts on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The irony is that Drawn, an illustration and cartooning blog, posted this on Monday:”Goodbye one-page diary comics; everyone’s blogging now.”

It appears the one the inspirations for my work now has a blog (which isn’t bad) but he posted this: “In the old days i’d have made a one-page … but today we squander our narratives in a blog.”

What a pisser.

The first installment is due to hit the streets in December and the medium is horribly dated. Another source of inspiration has a blog as well but hasn’t updated since 2003. However, Vertigo released a five-issue miniseries by him that began in September.

Maybe it’s not as bad as Drawn considered.

Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 5

A while back, I mentioned that the first installment of my creative non-fiction comic is complete and pending publication. The first installment is titled “Higgins: Inside the Box.” Last weekend I completed half of the second installment (four strips or roughly 12 panels) which is the conclusion to the story arch, “Higgins: Inside the Box.” Then I began scripting a 5-part comic strip for a third installment which features a story line about this event. There isn’t an official title to this one. However, “Higgins: Outside the Box” seems like a logical progression.

Last Tuesday was the SECNCS meeting and fellow artists encouraged me regarding my inking techniques and suggested some tips on lettering comic strips. One artist, who is regularly featured in the Rapid River magazine, recommended that dialogue text be all caps and narrative text be upper and lower case. The recommendation is already being implemented beginning with the second installment.

This endeavor of combining illustration and creative non-fiction, have inspired me to study the poet William Blake. The illuminated text is not a new media; many ancient manuscripts were illuminated. For example, The Book of Kells is famously known for its illuminated text. Years ago, I studied under a calligrapher who taught me the secret of the Celtic knot work and spirals represented in the Book of Kells. The discipline of the knot-work has served me well, though not in my recent illustrations.

But William Blake illuminated his own poems and printed his own collections with the help of his wife. It helped that he was trained as an engraver and went on to apply his trade for book and magazine publishers. Being an innovator in his own right, he applied his trade to illuminate and print his own literature. Like William Blake, I studied graphic design (the modern day digital engravers if you will) and know how to produce books and magazines for clients. I wonder what William Blake would think of creative non-fiction comics?

Previous posts on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 4

Last week I sent the first installment of a narrative non-fiction comic strip storyline to an editor. I just received an email from him this morning. He writes: “The comics are bitchin’ good. Excellent work.”

Previous posts on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2] [3]

Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 3

The first installment is done. I’m a little bit nervous about sending it to the editor.

A couple months ago I began exploring the idea of literary comics; more specifically creative non-fiction comics.

I began sketching a 14-panel demo story and showed the drawings to some other cartoonists at a monthly meeting. The narrative non-fiction comic strip was modestly received and they encouraged me on some drawing techniques.

Casually inspired by Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, Jessica Abel’s Radio: An Illustrated Guide and Eddie Campbell’s Alec McGarry, I began work on a narrative non-fiction comic strip storyline in five parts. Each strip, four panels, needed to be enough of a story to encourage a reader to come back next week. This would make it ideal for a weekly publication. The long term goal is weekly syndication (hah, stop laughing–everyone has dreams). The short term goal is a self-contained 5-page story.

Bitter Black Coffee, Issue 6, Summer 2005

The editor and publisher of a zine, Bitter Black Coffee, requested I put together this 5-page comic for an upcoming issue. In fact, the 14-panel demo story featured our intial meeting. So, this is a bit of a test run to see if I can complete something I started. We’ve been discussing this for over two months.

My personal goal (not the editor’s) was to have all 20-panels drawn, lettered and inked by Thanksgiving. However, personal crisis, illness and a full time day job prevented me from meeting that deadline. So, I adapted and gave myself three more weeks. The week before Christmas all 20-panels (plus a few bonus ones) were completed and scanned and ready to send. Only one hitch (actually two)–I didn’t have a name for the strip. Then I upgraded my laptop to Tiger and somehow lost the files I needed to email the editor. The naming of the comic strip still didn’t come to me. The muse must be on vacation or holiday or something. Maybe she has the stomach flu like I had last week.

During the Christmas holiday I found myself flipping through a copy of Alec: How To Be An Artist and I thought of a working title. I told myself it was too simple and too silly, but I went with it. I haven’t thought of anything else ingenious so the strip will be submitted with a working title. Maybe that’s the whole Malcolm Gladwell thing about snap judgments and split-second decisions.

Last night I got the files ready to email. Tomorrow I submit the self-contained 5-page story to the editor and publisher of Bitter Black Coffee.

Previous posts on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2]

Sketch: Another Cafe Reader

 

Sketch: Cafe Reader

 

Sketch: Coffee Underground Reader

Sketch: Woman Reading

Comics and Narrative Non-Fiction Continued

I had tea not long ago with the writer of a very nice article about Asheville blogs. I didn’t realize he was such a comics aficionado. Over tea, he presented me with the idea of illustrating non-fiction narratives and personal memoir. I illustrated a 14-panel story about our meeting. The drawings are quick suggestions of setting and characters. I didn’t want to get too realistic.

Brian commented: “Such an exercise cannot help but broaden and deepen your writing… This is really fascinating. Taking everyday situations, finding the drama, illustrating them – you’re developing a wealth of back-story. I could see one of these scenes popping up under a bigger story… I don’t think you’re wasting time on this project.”

I hope he’s right in regards to the exercise assisting my writing.

Narrative Non-Fiction Comics is not new. Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor was famously made into a movie. Jessica Abel’s journalistic comic Radio: An Illustrated Guide records the making of a This American Life show. Joe Sacco’s books “Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95” and “Palestine: In The Gaza Strip” are journalistic graphic novels.

Eddie Campbell’s Alec McGarry stories offer extensive inspiration in the genre of autobiographical comics/graphic novels. Alec McGarry is Eddie Campbell’s stage name (or rather comic page name). That is like Samuel Clemens writing an autobiography in which Mark Twain was the main character.

I must confess I’m enamored by that idea, but not as a narcissist. In the arena of stories, the most compelling tales are true, personal accounts–narrative non-fiction. Also, persuasive arguments are often won by personal example/experience. That’s what makes Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, so riveting–he was there. He survived Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald and Gleiwitz. He has first hand experience.

I know, I know–I’ve just sprinkled a lot of names throughout this post like confetti. Mark Twain I am not. Nor have I the life experiences of Elie Wiesel. I don’t know if I really want to follow in Eddie Campbell’s footsteps, either (he reveals all areas of his life–i.e. no trouble drawing himself nude which unnerves me–but maybe that helps him gain perspective on his own life).

I have a sketch of an idea of where I want to go with narrative non-fiction comics. This is what they call in Corporate America the development stage. It’s what I call drawing 1000 black lines before presenting a finished drawing.

Previous post on creative non-fiction comics: [1]

Sketch: Coffee Underground

Sketch: Art Studio Still Life

Comics and Narrative Non-Fiction

pencil layout

A few years ago I illustrated a four-page comic version of a poem by Nate Pritts. To my knowledge there aren’t too many literary comics that tackle the idea of visually representing a poem in comic format. Not that my four pages was ground breaking. It was good exercise for me and provided the kernel of expanding comics into the literary realm.

You’re probably familiar with the publisher of Great Illustrated Classics. However, comics as a whole tends to be marginalized as tights-and-capes adventures at best or adolescent porn at worst.

comic page layout

A couple weeks ago, another comics aficionado presented me with the idea of illustrating concert reviews, interviews, non-fiction narratives and personal memoir. I jumped at the opportunity and began sketching out ideas immediately.

The biggest challenge for me was the limitation of the form. Illustrating a concert review requires a simple plot: I went, I saw, I reviewed. But will anyone read something that simple? I thought about adding a bit of narrative. In other words, tell a story about people who attend a concert; include brief backstory, dramatic tension, climax and conclusion.

inked comic page

Last weekend I began with two pages. The story was simple: my meeting with the other comic aficionado/publisher.

Backstory: artist has been trying to publish his comics for over ten years.

Tension: interviewer loves artist’s work and desires some new samples.

Climax: artist feels intimidated by the task but accepts.

Conclusion: artist begins a new direction in creative communication–comics.

Sketch: Woman Reading

Poetry, painting and other thoughts

Fragile

Last year, about this time, I contributed to “Resonance” Art Opening/Multimedia Performance. The Grey Eagle Tavern and Music Hall hosted the event. I read some of my new poems at the time and then Philip (guitarist) and Julie (rock vocalist) joined me with a music/performance set based on my book Late Night Writing. Julie contributed an original song to the set while Philip added an original soundtrack. The collaboration between the three of us was inspiring (to me at least). It was kind of weird hearing Julie sing my poems “Fragile” and “Driftwood” back to me and to the audience. In a way it was a relief to hear someone else claim them, own the words, project the ideas. I miss that. There are a few live bootleg recordings of the three or four gigs we did together. Maybe when I find some server space, I’ll offer them as free downloads.

Three paintings represented me at “Resonance” Art Opening/Multimedia Performance. “Fragile,” named after the poem I wrote, was painted last summer. Previously, I had done a series of four paintings inspired by the poet Kahlil Gibran (which was part of the 2003 “Resonance” art show) with bright, dramatic abstractions using a simple palette of red, yellow and black. With “Fragile,” the colors deepened in order to create a stark, lyrical image. A young poet from South Carolina once confessed he didn’t particularly get into modern art, but he liked “Fragile” because it seemed like a place he would like to visit. The poem I wrote that inspires this work includes these lines: “I am naked/ When truth strips me/ Of a lie.” And later: “I am reborn/ When the old shattered remains/ swept away, replaced with/ a new vessel to contain my soul.”

Among The Myrtle

“Among The Myrtle,” named after a passage from the book of Zechariah, was also painted last summer. Most people who view this painting don’t know the passage that inspires this work. The passage reads:
“In a vision during the night, I saw a man sitting on a red horse that was standing among some myrtle trees in a small valley… I asked the angel who was talking with me, ‘My lord, what are all those horses for?’ ‘I will show you,’ the angel replied. So the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, ‘They are the ones the LORD has sent out to patrol the earth.’ Then the other riders reported to the angel of the LORD, who was standing among the myrtle trees, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and the whole earth is at peace.’

Again, as with the painting “Fragile,” I attempt to present a sparse place for the eye and the mind to roam–a place someone would like to sit and rest and visit often. In a way, I was trying to create a sanctuary were “the whole earth is at peace.”

My son, who was two at the time, painted along side me. We would paint outside, on the front deck on Saturday mornings. It became a weekend ritual. At the time he merely enjoyed mixing the colors on an old canvas I had forsaken. He named one dinosaur and the next weekend he would paint over dinosaur and call it puppy. During the winter we stopped the outdoor painting sessions and he began working with pencil and paper. By springtime he graduated to markers. As spring gave way to summer he had developed a curious visual language that inspired me. He began drawing people with arms and legs that didn’t quite fit and dots and lines representing eyes. The smile became his creative signature–it sliced across the heads as if to say “it is what it is.”

One Saturday, after we resumed our painting ritual, I created “I’m Putting on My Socks” in honor of his drawings. Three other paintings were created that day (which I may post at a later date) and a series of twelve drawings. He told me I needed more gray. I told him gray was not a color I liked to use because it’s too bland. He insisted by adding a few strokes of his own. After moving him back to his canvas, I conceded. Gray became the visual language that supported the red, black, copper and white motifs.

I don’t know if there will be a “Resonance” Art Performance this year. Whether collaborating with adults or children, an artist needs support in order to grow. Hearing a poem or viewing a painting from another perspective opens up a world of opportunity. Irving Stone mused that “Art’s a staple. Like bread or wine or a warm coat in winter… Man’s spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food.” For those who have supported my growling stomach, I thank you.

Guernica — Antiwar Art

Last August I commented that…

Picasso’s 1937 Guernica was evidence that art does not have to be beautiful to be potent. The impact of that painting was colossal… Guernica was painted as a reaction to the atrocities of war…

From today’s The Writer’s Almanac:

And it was on this day in 1937 that German bombers attacked and destroyed the city of Guernica in Spain. Hitler… wanted to use the Spanish Civil War as a testing ground for his new blitzkrieg military strategy…

The first wave of planes dropped blast bombs that destroyed the principal buildings; the second wave flew low, gunning down the citizens; and the third wave dropped incendiary bombs to burn any remaining parts of the city. The attack lasted for three and a half hours… It was the first time in history that a city was completely destroyed from the air.

One of the people who heard the news of the bombing the following day was the painter Pablo Picasso, who was in exile in Paris. He was trying to come up with an idea for a mural to be displayed at the World’s Fair in Paris that summer, and when he heard about the bombing, he began a new painting called Guernica. He did it on a huge canvas: 12 feet high, 26 feet wide, worked on it for a little more than a month. The painting he produced showed no planes, no bombs, no explosions. It was just a black and white image of a wailing woman holding a dead child in her arms, a dead man on the ground holding a broken sword, a bull, a screaming horse, a woman on fire, a woman falling to one knee, another woman leaning in a window and shining a lamp on the whole scene…

It was displayed at the Paris World’s Fair and people weren’t sure what to make of it… some people saw the painting as a warning that everything they loved was about to be lost.

Two years later Hitler invaded Poland, using the same bombing strategy, and Picasso’s painting went on to become the most famous antiwar painting of the 20th Century.

So where are all the famous antiwar paintings today? There’s been a lot of publicized protests and antiwar rock concerts but where’s the honest reaction to war? I’ve seen more hate messages than legitimate antiwar protests. At UNCA on the sidewalk near the library is a spray painted image of President Bush with an antiwar slogan “Number 1 Terrorist.” That is not “shining a lamp on the whole scene” but rather demonizing the US government. Attacking one individual (though it be the leader of the free world) isn’t really “a warning” of the consequence of war nor what or who will be lost. High art embodies goodness, truth and beauty. Not all three elements need to be exhibited in a single painting. But all three need to be represented collectively in high art. Picasso’s Guernica is just as relevant today as it was the day it was completed.

Most of the antiwar posters, bumperstickers and banners which I have witnessed represent angry propaganda–and poor propaganda at that. Locally, there was an art show titled Dissension Convention last October which featured several paintings with antiwar sentiment–most were of the paintings more anti-Bush or anti-Republican (which shouldn’t surprise you). The only painting that seemed to convey the spirit of Guernica was presented by Joshua Vaughan. The painting suggests the idea that what you sow you shall reap. That painting alone has more longevity than the other works of art represented at Dissension Convention.

I suspect the void of serious antiwar art is due to the aftermath of existentialism and postmodernism. As intellectuals churn out book after book (or in Howard Zinn’s case audio CD after audio CD) proposing that nothing is objective and everything is subjective the whole message of antiwar becomes vapid. The key to “shining a lamp” on the national antiwar debate is to propose objectivity.

Paintings on Tour

Last night I delivered four paintings that are scheduled to make appearences further up the coast. If you’re in the DC or Baltimore area, check out my paintings and enjoy live music and poetry!

Back at the waterfront… more poetry, songs, peaceful vibes

Featuring Dave Cipriani, J Ryan Coffman, Pasckie Pascua, Reed, Shodekeh
Thursday, April 21 2005, 8:30 to 11pm
Wydeye Coffee House
1704 Aliceanna St., Fells Point, Baltimore MD 21231
Tel # (410) 342 7474
no cover, but donation is always cool

 
The Wind Cries Peace, Part 2

Featuring Dave Cipriani Band, Counterfeitmatt, Dawn Humphrey, Kelly Richmond & Blue Star Kachina, Pasckie Pascua, Shodekeh, Alex Udis
Friday, April 22 2005, 8:00pm to 1:30am
Cafe Mawonaj
624 T St., NW, Washington DC 20001
Tel # (202) 460 5929
$3 to $7 sliding scale donation

Interview: EVA SCRUGGS

It was early February when I visited Eva Scruggs at her River Arts District studio. The recent winter storms had swelled the French Broad River above normal levels and I watched the ominous river on that cloudy afternoon as I drove to meet her.

Eva Scruggs welcomed me into her studio and we exchanged pleasantries. She offered me beer, tea or chai. “Chai would be great.” I said as I retrieved some recording equipment from my canvas messenger bag. She prepared a cup of chai and sweetened it with honey and added soy milk. She offered me the warm drink then sat down in her white floor chair and sipped her beer from an old mason jar. I pressed the red “record” button and began, “Tell me a little about yourself…”

“I guess,” she said. “I started oil painting at the age of six.”

There followed a brief discussion about art school. Eva told me that she had majored in art at the College of Charleston and later received a masters in art education in Tennessee. After that, she took some time off. I asked her if she thought it was important, as an artist, to unplug from art-making.

“Yeah, well, I had to for financial reasons. So, I mean, it isn’t that I ever really wanted to just focus on teaching art. It’s that I had to teach art to make money to feed my habit which is doing art.”

It seems that most of the artists that I know work a day job to fuel their creative passions. Maybe it’s not possible to be a full-time artist. Maybe juggling between art-making and waiting tables is necessary for artists.

“If all I had to do was be here in the studio and paint,” she said. “I would probably go crazy. I would probably get a little too self absorbed. You know how you can really drift into your own world. I need that world and at the same time it helps to keep… balance. So, I teach and I do organic farming during the summer time. And I’m a mom.”

“I really like to teach. I teach at AB Tech and I really, really feed off the new energy of new students… fresh ideas… There is something about the farming thing, too. I have to have at least a certain amount of it, you know. So, no, I wouldn’t want to paint full-time. I think I would go crazy.”

Our conversation weaved into an unsuspected path of artists being the true scientists and modern prophets. But I’ll save that for another time. I wanted to know what direction she thought art education is heading. She suggested that there are two branches of thought. “One is more academic, more exclusive amongst artists. Lots of MFA programs are focusing on what’s relevant to this century or even this half of century. But to me it seems kind of elitist. It seems like that’s going to be a view of art that only a certain amount of people can understand. It’s art for artists.”

“The other, which is sort of my path… is art to the people. Part of the reason I am a figurative painter is because I know that people relate and understand figurative painting. Common, average people understand basic symbolism. Part of my thing… is being able to communicate with people, everyday people. Not just artists who are going to understand the breakdown of elements and principles. So I paint… paintings that… have messages. I don’t paint them for someone to buy. I paint them to express this.” She gestures at the paintings around her. “I’d like people to see and understand and relate. That’s what all those biblical paintings are kind of about, too. Let’s rethink this story. You know, turn it around in a different point of view and modernize it to some extent.”

At the mention of the biblical series, Eva appeared more relaxed, more confident as if she had arrived in her sanctuary. She took a drink from her mason jar. It appeared she was ready to discuss her biblical series.

“Well,” she paused and looked at her hands which were covered in dark fingerless gloves. “It seems like when I started with the biblical theme… I was working on a different series. I was working on the states of human emotion. Trying to capture different emotions… through expression.

“Anyway, so the last one I did, of that series, was a self portrait with my child. After I painted it, I recognized it as a madonna, and I painted in the background a scene from the WTO protests in Seattle. That’s where it all got started. It’s called ‘The Jaded Madonna.’ The madonna is holding this child and she’s obviously concerned, and the child is open, wide open. But behind the mother… the police, decked out in riot gear… smog in the background from the gas that they’re releasing. So, it was kind of a statement.”

“And then it just sort of clicked in my mind,” said Eva as she motioned with her hands. She seemed focused on some point on the floor. “This is something a lot of people will relate to. It’s a biblical theme. It’s a classical theme. People look at it because of that and then… if you can get them in that far then throw something else in there that talks about modern culture. You know, it’s just the juxtaposition that makes a strange commentary. So, I feel I could run wild with that theme.”

I sipped the chai then asked her to tell me about her recent painting series.

“I’ve been working on a dream series just because I’ve had these reoccurring dreams throughout my life. I’m not exactly sure where they come from. But I figured that’s a way to address them, and maybe make them go away.”

“It’s not that they are really bad dreams,” she continued. “I usually have these water dreams where I’m swimming. I can see the top of the water and I know I’m almost out of air. So, I just keep swimming and swimming. But I can never quite make it to the top and I start somehow recirculating my air and… breathing in the water. It feels really good. Anyway, that’s what that one is about…” she said as she pointed to the painting over her right shoulder.

“And that one” she pointed to another painting across the studio resting on an easel. “An image I’ve had in my head for a long time.”

We spent more time discussing ideas, life and art (which I may write about later). But I knew she wanted to do some painting that afternoon. So, I thanked her for the chai (complimenting her on the way she prepared it), packed up my recording equipment, and left Eva Scruggs in her studio with the visions in her head that desired to be translated into pigment on canvas.

(Originally published in The Indie, March 2004 issue.)

Interview: RYAN FORD

Byzantine paintings were created to as icons depicting the eternal while denying the ephemeral. That’s why many 11th and 12th century wooden panel paintings were gilded with gold backgrounds and exhibited floating figures of the Christ, the Madonna and the saints. These images are what inspired River Arts District artist Ryan Ford. “I’ve always been very intrigued by the aesthetics of religious icon art,” he told me in a recent interview in his studio at The Wedge (one of the many warehouse buildings scattered along the French Broad River District). The work that started it all was his replica of St. Anthony Beaten by Devils.

“It’s a fifteenth century, Sienese painting by Stefano di Giovanni,” Ryan Ford began. “The original was an egg tempera painting. I did this in oil paint,” he gestured to the panel on the wall.

“Interesting story about this one… supposedly the peasants were so moved by the piece that they [would] scratch away the beasts faces and genitalia revealing the under sketching. So, that’s what you’re seeing here.” Ford pointed at the portion of the painting where a beast’s groin revealed gold smudges. “I wouldn’t imagine this painting any other way. It’s one of my favorite paintings in the world. That’s why I did an exact copy of it.” Ford explained, “the Sienese artists… capture an air of inquisitiveness. It’s almost timeless and just for them. They paint very simply. They don’t over do anything. I mean, look at the trees in the background. They’re little mushroom shapes. It’s just got this air of truth and beauty that was just so moving to me.”

Ford hit on something that has been missing in contemporary art for a long time, “truth and beauty.” The formula, in the classical school of thought, was to display truth and beauty. Even disturbing images depicted in Stefano di Giovanni painting held a timeless quality and vocabulary that is lost on young, contemporary artists. In Ford’s work he combines violent and comedic elements that resonate.

He moved passed a huge furry mask hanging from the low ceiling and deeper into his studio to a work in progress. “I’m doing a show coming up in April. That’s what this one is for,” He told me as he stood to the left the unfinished painting on an easel.

“I’ve talked [with] friends that have faced the issue of suicide. So, this is kind of a tribute. You’ll notice the brains coming out of the side of his head I painted in gold. Like your ideas are golden. I had this composition in my head and I’ve [wanted] to do it for awhile. I just started yesterday so I’ve gotten this far. There’s a long way to go on it. This for the next show in April.” Ryan Ford is hosting a show April 30th at the Wedge Gallery. The title of the fine arts show is “All Desperate and Golden.”

Behind Ryan Ford hung a large painting dominating the far wall. Its intensity reminds me of an apocryphal vision. Last April, the Mountain Xpress ran an article by Connie Bostic featuring him and Julie Masaoka. In that article Julie wrote: “Ford, who’s now reading the Bible, says he loves the visions these stories inspire. He’s particularly moved… by the Book of Job.” As we moved deeper into his small studio as he told me of the story behind the painting and within the painting.

“I read the Bible. It took me like eight months to read. I’m not going to act like I know everything about the Bible now, because I’m probably just as confused after reading as I was before reading it. So, I was drawn to Revelation. I mean, I love the way it was written. This,” he paused as he looked at his work. “I took from Revelation. The alpha and omega,” Ford pointed to the creature in the upper right hand corner and then casually shuffled to the left side of the painting. “And the angel descending from the sky is dropping seven stars and seven candles. I forget what they are significant of. I’m mixing Revelation with my own little character. His name is Hot-Pants. He’s kind of like the unsung hero. He’s the everyday person. He’s you and me. He’s running blind through his own life. Just kind of taking it as [it] comes, and he’s getting hit from every direction. But he still has a smile on his paper bag.” Hot-Pants is represented by a figure in a red spandex body suit, a blue cap and a paper bag in place of a mask.
“I’ve got a lot of characters,” Ford continued. “This here is our typical businessman who is made a lot of bad decisions. He fears for his life. He’s got his wings right now, but they’re not going to last.”

We discussed other selections of the Bible. We reflected on vibrant imagery in the Bible such as a passage from Zechariah: “I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow; and behind him were horses: red, sorrel, and white.”

“Yeah that’s how it is in reading it,” Ford responded. “It’s like pieces of it really just grip me. Like I read fragments and… like whoa, you know, and get blown away. Throughout [my] life English and art teachers always move me the most, you know. Of course, Iâ??m retarded in math. But I had an English teacher who said ‘if you read one book, I definitely suggest reading the Bible. If nothing else for the literary quality’.” He turned back to his painting and continued to explain his vision.

“Another central figure here is a rapper. He’s got the armor piercing lyric logo above him, because he’s kind of like the Christ-figure. He’s using his voice as a weapon. And then Jacob’s ladder connecting heaven and earth. I also put [it] in there because it’s one of my favorite movies.”

“It’s just pieces I put together, you know. Actually a lot of the characters I sketch in there one day but a lot of it kind of grows as I go along. The cloud-eater… like what the hell is that? What does that mean? I don’t know. So, I took a cloud-eater [and] made this little monster that’s attractive to me. I don’t try to explain. It just fits for me. And it’s fun.

“My roommate always makes fun of me, ‘All your stuff is like a kid. You can’t grow up.’ Yeah, well, that’s what’s fun to me. I’ve got reference to Mario Brothers with the little bricks. That’s referencing to childhood… nostalgia also.”

Reesa Grushka, in a recent essay, wrote, “Translation usually makes what is foreign familiar. An inverse translation claims what is familiar as the domain of the foreign.” The creations of Ryan Ford seem to translate ancient themes of truth and beauty into contemporary visual stories. Inversely, his use of pop culture icons woven into early renaissance structure communicates well to the modern audience.

(Originally published in The Indie, April 2004 issue.)