Re(Fin(d))ing His Creative Practice

What once was lost, now is found

The boy was born an artist. By the year 1992, five years post-birth, it was undeniable. His dreams weren’t yet as vivid as his drawings foretold. Doodles rife with anthropomorphic oddities were the precursor wild dreams. Dreams in which he was able to remain clear on his place and presence. This kept them distinguishable from reality. Spaces to interact with and learn from. This continued well into pubescence. Running concurrently with these dreams was a new catalyst. Video games became a constant in his life around about seven or eight years post-birth. They would eventually become established as one of the cornerstones of his creativity. Through their influence, his drawings were not longer scenes of solo oddities. His pencil strokes instead began to depict ideas for video games. Crudely drawn moves-lists. Character names, weapons and other ideas. Pondering the possibility of authoring a video game became a game itself. One of his favorite.

There was one game in particular that would shine the light on a new path. It was a JRPG. The first he’d played. I was a game by Square soft called Breath of Fire (Bof).

The narrative of the game was standard RPG fare. BoF told the story of a band of misfits, each an outlier in their own way(s), coming together to fend off a great evil. It was his first time interacting with a narrative. Yes, he’d experienced stories before. Through books, movies, music and television. However, those are all passive. The story plays out, you are there to witness it; you simply experience it as it happens to you. With video games you push the story forward. The end and beginning may be predetermined, but what happens in between is of your own design. Experiencing vs. interaction. It was this opportunity to PLAY a story instead of reading that made the idea of crafting his own story much more attractive. Thankfully the spark and opportunity to do just that would be presented to him in his twelfth year.

It was then that he learned that he could write strictly for the purpose of self-expression. Up until his seventh grade English class, writing for him was pragmatic. A tool for carrying out orders. Be they school assignments or repetitive sentences meant as punishment for some transgressions.

When Ms. Collins, told the class that the assignment for the day would be to “free write” for an allotment of time, something clicked. The boy thought back to all the books he’d read; to the game that he currently trying to beat. Why couldn’t he produce a narratives of his own? Why hadn’t he up until that point? Our budding writer had no answers, and didn’t spend much time trying to find them. He simply began to write.

Short stories were the beginning. From there it went to the dream of writing full novels. That was interspersed with attempts at songwriting, finishing countless poems and making journal entries that would later be lost to time. So by fourteen years post-birth the boy was now the Writer. Through till the end of high school, the Writer continued. He accumulated life experiences both bad and good. He reveled in questioning all authority, defining who he was by his own standards, as well as trial and error. A burning desire for Freedom was the underlying theme and driving force of it all.

The origins of which are a discussion for a different day.

Part of the journey was also refining his taste. Music had been as important and present in his life as the books, shows, games and art he interacted with. Though, it wasn’t till after the transformation into Writer that the boy would examine lyrics. A symbiosis formed between what he’d write, who and what he listened to. All influenced by his quest to remain as close to free as he could be.

Sixteen years into his life a new reactant was introduced to his creative brew. With video games, music and a best friend being the catalyst the writer became a skateboarder. An idea planted by Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3.

Our writer-skater first interacted with the game through his best friend at the time, Jason. The two shared a love for irreverence, rock music and video games. It was only natural that when our writer-skater saw that Jason had been taking skating beyond the PlayStation, he sought to do the same.

It would be two years before the writer-skater would have a chance to do so with any real consistently. Though, once he did, it became his primary form of expression. Writing was still there, but now only in the form of poetry. Music had also changed the way it informed his creative life as he had now taken to performing it. He’d become a member of his church choir at the nudge of a girl he liked and remained because the draw to perform was like nothing he’d experienced prior. Until about twenty-seven years post-birth his artistry revolved around poetry, singing and skateboarding.

This would change upon his admittance to Parsons School of Design. It was in this twenty-seventh year that our former boy embarked on this particular journey of discovery. Timing and life experience would make this attempt at an arts education different from his first. That began and ended shortly after he’d entered his eighteenth year. Instead of a mere four months, this time he would remain a college student for four years. In that time, he would dive deep into creative coding, photography and animation.

Code was something he’d played with in his adolescence. Peeking into the worlds of HTLM/CSS via Xanga blogs and MySpace. During his stint as a Parson’s student, his knowledge based broadened to include Java, JavaScript, C# and C++. Later it would include Python. All of it as a means to create artful moving pieces. The former boy’s doodles had been replaced.

Photography and videography were interests piqued by skateboarding. In that world, the norm was to document ones movements on the board. Though it wasn’t until having access to a library of books, equipment to rent and classrooms to shoot in that the Artist was able to really explore it. Now he told his short stories with carefully crafted images in addition to his quick bursts of rhyming phrases.

Animation was an interesting development for two reasons. The first being that interest in it came as a result of diving into other disciplines. Secondly it’s the one that became the Artist’s livelihood [another unintended side effect].

In retrospect, the progression made perfect sense. As a boy he loved cartoons and video games. Appreciating them not just at the surface level, but deciding which were the best based on their art styles and how motion was portrayed. When it came to music, their accompanying videos mattered just as much as the songs for many of them; those that featured animation most of all. These pieces were inspiring not just his dreams, but the work as he made as a writer. However, what led him to actively practicing keyframe animation was necessity.

He needed to to learn keyframe animation for the sake of finishing his game design assignments. Beyond that, he sought to find a more efficient way of combining his code-based generative art with his photography. So, as he’d done with every other form of expression, he worked at it incessantly. Sharing his growth, process and finished products the whole way through.

Eventually the Artist found himself being asked and paid to be part of an exhibition alongside other, more well-established animators.

Following that, the Animator found himself working in an office. He was being paid to create animations. It wasn’t for anything interesting or fun. Simply for the purpose of selling…stuff. He didn’t care though. There was money. More than he’d ever made at his previous jobs. Certainly more than he’d made during his time as a writer-skater-poet-singer-photographer. That is what made the Animator decide it was his profession. Money also made him decide he no longer needed to finish school. He also [unfortunately] surmised that money was all he needed to chase. That fateful choice set him on a path that would make the next few years so incredibly painful for his heart, mind and soul.

Yet another discussion for a different day.

For now let’s refocus on the here and now. The year is 2024. Our former boy is a man in his thirty-seventh year; Relearning who he was and no longer interested in deciding who/what he will be. The man just is. He is once again focused on freedom, expression, learning, sharing, growing and being. Loving his work, his process and most importantly himself again.

His intention is to keep the joy of it all paramount. To safekeep the connections to his past, present and future selves. To make art.

Because then, now and forever.

The man is an artist.