FASO, the company that hosts this website strongly suggests that I forego the traditional artist’s bio, the one that’s written in the third person and lists accomplishments, education, that kind of stuff. They suggest a bio that really tells a story. I think it should be called an autobio, because they believe that potential buyers want to hear about you in the first person. Currently, I have one of those third person bios on my “about” page, but it’s not really traditional. It’s kind of irreverent, so I might just leave it and add a second “autobio” that contains background information about me and how I got to be this Cubo-Weirdo you find on my website!
So last week I started writing that autobio, but it got unwieldy. Well, it got to be pretty long. So I thought maybe I’d share some of that here and then edit it down for the “about” page.
So how did I become the extremely talented (and humble) artist that I am today? Why do I gravitate to the humourous or at least amusing side of things? It’s an interesting question because when I was in Art School and again when I was in grad school a number of professors questioned the honesty of my approach and even told me they thought I was “hiding” behind humour. I should mention that in Art School, I was making clunky cut-out animations that made people uncomfortable and also made them laugh and in Grad School I created my “muscial/comedy performance art alter-ego” Stan Dickie. Anyway, since I was meant to take these people seriously, I did give that some thought, but I knew all along that they were wrong. And honestly I find that kind of comment strange. I mean would you say that to a comedian, or someone who writes a funny comic strip? Why question the concept of humour in art?
I knew deep down that my approach was honest. As far back as I can remember I wanted to so do something funny, or make funny things. When I was four or five I told my parents I wanted to be a rich clown. And that’s bloody hilarious! The only thing I was ever ‘serious’ about, was music and I wanted to do that too. So at some point I had to decide: do I want to be a cartoonist who writes a funny newspaper comic strip? A Stand Up Comedian, or a comedian in a sketch comedy show? Okay, I was too shy for those ones. Or a Rock Star? Fun fact, I never did a newspaper comic, but I do have a webcomic that I may update again in future: www.gorillainthemidst.com, and at times at least, it’s pretty damned funny.
Funnily enough, I didn’t let the extreme shyness stop me from pursuing that Rock Star one. Spoiler alert, I didn’t become a Rock Star but I also didn’t win a lottery either. So after high school my dad got me a not-so-great acoustic guitar and it sat in a closet for months, just like he thought it would. But I was in my first year at the University of Manitoba (where I’d eventually get a degree in History) and planned to spend the summer learning to play the damned thing. There was no way it was going to stay in that closet forever, like my dad thought. So that summer, days were spent at a summer job and evenings were spent with the pretty crappy guitar. And learn to play I did.
After graduating with my BA, I started to answer ads for people looking for lead guitarists. I soon joined a band and we played our first gig at a Battle of the Bands and won it! But I’m not going to go into too much detail about my music career. Suffice it to say it’s hard to keep a band together, especially when one of the members develops a severe health issue. So playing music went on longer than it should have and I didn’t make much of a living at it.
I’ll continue this next week. For now, here is a brand new and amusing painting of Dwight Schrute from the American Version of the Office. Because I do what I do!