For my entire career, I've straddled two warring worlds: Fine Art and Illustration. One familiar with my childhood might notice a running theme, as I was often the mediator between parental disagreements. I work in two fields that seem like they should be on the same page, but they operate as if there's only room for one of them to be right.
I first noticed the chasm in college. While my parents' divorce finally came through, I was navigating the landscape of what it meant to be an artist in the late 1980s. I tried to avoid my fate by majoring in Psychology, but it wasn't long before my creative needs pushed my path toward Art. And there, I discovered that my ink drawings of dragons and knights were considered Illustration, a lowlier form on the way to the intellectual obscurites of the artistically mature. I was supposed to eschew representation in favor of conceptualism; to express high ideas without revealing opinion or emotions. Yet I still infused personal stories into the mediums I learned, from sculpture to printmaking. After college, I got a job in printmaking at Gemini Graphics Editions Limited, where I worked with premiere artists of the time—but when I got a job as a show designer at Walt Disney Imagineering, my colleagues were appalled, and advised me to stay with them.
An early ink drawing from high school
I started doing more of my own work, which became more expressionist, emotional, and confrontational. My colleagues at Disney were often baffled by my painting. I did my commercial art well, but not with the same enthusiasm as they had for the work.
"In the Garden of Ancient Violence, I Cannot Close My Eyes," from early 1990s
The fight between the fields was still alive and well many years later, when I got an MFA program in Illustration at Cal State Fullerton. It was fighting for equality with Fine Arts within the Art Department. My Illustration and Animation professors didn't even pretend to understand the conceptual work being done within the same building. The Fine Arters considered themselves the real arbiters of what constitutes art in our culture. The two were like warring branches of the same tree.
I've had to reconcile the two within my own approach to art-making and money-making. I used to protect my fledgling painting practice by refusing to sell my own art—leaving that job to my commercial work. Somewhere along the way, I offered my oil painting skills to commercial clients, and I found a bridge between the two worlds by doing commissions. But I still keep my expressionist work close to the chest. It doesn't fit comfortably in either world.
An attempt to blend Illustration with Fine Art and new (at the time) digital tools
And yet it's all part of who I am as an artist. I've learned as much from drawing Disney characters as I have from painting expressionist mandalas. Each informs the other, back and forth, as I heal divisions inside myself. Art is a great healer, no matter what the subject or medium.
This Tuesday evening, I'm offering an online workshop that touches on these ideas. "Lessons from Disney" is the theme, but it's not just about the art I've done for Imagineering. It's really a presentation of the gems I've gathered along the way, as I navigate a popular commercial product with an outsider's lens. As a creative, I observe and translate. I look for the lessons. And I share them in ways that help others find clarity in their own paths.
If you attend, you'll hear some stories, learn a few drawing tips, and get an interesting look into the unique world of theme park design. If you can't attend, you can still access the recording to watch later.
One of my favorite artists who bridges Fine Art and Illustration is Greg Spalenka. He's also hugely successful, which is so nice to see. He's currently creating a graphic novel about broad themes like the passage of time, for which he's also writing a musical score and doing animation.
It seems "timely" that I learned about his graphic novel in progress today, just after I read Maria Popova's beautiful essay "How Not to Be a Victim of Time: Rebecca West on Music and Life."
