Creative Person

Finding creative people online is not difficult. There are artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, etc. It’s like share-fest when it comes to everyone posting every scribble, drawing, poem, idea, belief and perspective on the internet. It’s common to find people drawing, painting, writing to simply churn out new ideas and interpretations of life. What’s not common is to find someone who is seemingly using every image, every drawing, painting, project and creative venture as an open book to discover what life is all about. When I found John Paul’s site I felt like I was traveling through the the right side of his brain. Not that I want to plant an incredibly gross image in your mind, but you get the idea.

I was so involved in what he could have been thinking, feeling, and conveying in his work that I had to find out more about him. Expecting something like a pat on the head for being such an art groupie, I was so pleased when he was gracious enough to answer my questions. Before I get to the interview I will offer a few of my own impressions of his work.

His work is thought provoking, introspective and at times obtuse in it’s imagery. The exaggerated forms that are representative of human beings take on more of a nod from the “being” part of that phrase. As entities that are misshapen and distorted, compared to what we expect a person to look like, these images that John Paul populates his canvas world with challenge us to see past the superficial and look for the qualities that make sense. The pain, suffering, confusion, determination and indifference are all qualities the figures possess as if they are all of us, revealed for who we really are. Not just who we try to convince the world that we are.

Examining life with a paint brush and questions about existence, meaning and reality is a noble quest. With muted colors, intriguing shapes, lines and compositions John Paul creates a lingering wonder. We wonder what is happening in the paintings and drawings. We wonder who the beings are who inhabit the very alien but comforting environments we see. I wonder where all the ideas come from, but I know they are all grounded in a profound quest to understand life, who we are and what we are doing here. I’m not speaking for Mr. Paul. This is all just my interpretation of what I see. Hopefully that is part of the artwork itself, the ability to make us ask questions and look for answers.

When you look at his Book of Words and Symbols you go even deeper into the struggle between who we are as creatures on this planet, struggling to survive verses the consumer driven, social beings we become through the media, cultural influences and simple human weaknesses.

His drawing style is free from the controlling, unimpassioned rules that take over most of us as we progress past childhood when we used to draw and sketch with only imagination to drive us. This kind of innocent exploration is what you will find in the Book of Words and Symbols. Open expressions of ideas, encompassing everything from cultural, religious, economic, political, personal, and spiritual observations that are both simple and extremely sophisticated. Innocence and a jaded perspective combined to create some of the most profound drawings I’ve had the pleasure of seeing.

Along with his drawings come poems, ideas, life understanding through words. A full range of stimulating work that comes at your brain from all directions.

“these things we do… so bizarre.

what are we striving for?

the squirrel above me,

not questioning, cracks its pecan.

who is more advanced: it or I?

advanced towards what?”

Images will link to the

Book of Words and Symbols

main page.

The way I found Mr. Paul was after seeing the film Waking Life I had to immediately find out who the artists were who worked on this most original, creative project. The work he did on the film is described below in the interview. The film is a series of scenes where philosophical ideas meet stunning animation. Real digital footage is combined with artists’ enhancements to make an unusual, fascinating effect that, even if you are not into the philosophy aspect of the film, visually it never lets your eyes leave the screen. After seeing the film and then seeing the variety of work John Paul does, it only makes me more interested in what is coming next.

Ultimately John Paul is a creative person who takes his internal journey through life and puts it out there for us all to see. How well we understand it all is up to us to decide. Effort is involved to truly delve into some artwork, thank goodness for that!

Interview:

Cid: Where do you live? (not specifically, just country, general region)

Mr. Paul: I live in Texas, grew up in Indiana.

Cid: How old are you?

Mr. Paul: 40

Cid: Do you have formal art training or education?

Mr. Paul: I studied art at the University of Texas. Started grad school there but didn’t see the point of it and left it. I had a couple of good teachers but don’t see that art school is that important if you really want to make art.

Cid: When you were growing up, did you feel that your creativity got special attention?

Mr. Paul: I still remember my art teacher from kindergarten. Mrs. Galloway, an elderly woman who was very kind and encouraging. I liked to make comic books about kids in the neighborhood and would sell them to my parents for a dime a copy. They got a laugh out of them and that was my encouragement from them, but they never tried to steer me in any particular direction for which I am grateful. So, all my mistakes have been my own.

I was always torn between science and art and still have to do things to satisfy both halves of what’s left of my mind.

Cid: Are Art and Design the way you make a living?

Mr. Paul: I’ve been gradually making it so, or maybe I should say lucked into it becoming so over the past 15 years. But it could change tomorrow if the Spirit moves me. I’ve just begun to freelance and have no idea how to go find work. I’ve just lucked into work so far. And I won’t do commercials or advertising, so that makes it even more of a mystery as to what to do.

Cid: Have you been a part of the “art scene” where you live? Do you attend gallery openings, check out the latest offerings of local talent, hang out where the creative community migrate to? How would you describe the art community where you live.

Mr. Paul: The music scene here is much bigger than the ignored art scene. I’ve made some artist friends from working on Waking Life and other projects, but I’m not really a part of the art scene. I rarely ever go look at art except for friends’ openings. Maybe that’s bad. dunno.

I almost never exhibit my work except for my slapped together web page. It’s just not important to me. Maybe I need an agent to crack a whip on my ass.

Cid: Do you feel there is a stigma or blessing attached to being an artist amongst the “normal” people of the world? Hahaha

Mr. Paul: I don’t like to label myself an artist. Don’t like labels. They are meaningless. I am only what I am at this moment. I like to create, that’s all. Sometimes I like to do nothing except breathe. Sometimes I feel guilty because I am not doing physical labor like most of the enslaved humans of Earth. A lot of people have little choice presented to them. I wish we could all go back to Eden and eat the fruit off of the trees with none of this hierarchy based on monetary worth and pushiness. What a pinko!

Cid: Are you interested in computers and the internet? If yes, how does the technological world come together with your creative thinking?

Mr. Paul: Very much a love-hate relationship. I can’t tell if the internet is bringing people together or making them grow further apart, much like television. Already, I can’t remember what it was like to not have email and the web. I’ve NEVER lived in a world without TV. One can ignore it, but it’s still there. All I know is that sitting at a computer is a very solitary activity even if you are in chat room. Being in the same physical space as others is very necessary. Smiling, laughing, crying, touching, yelling, biting, scratching, body language. All the subtle aspects of human interaction are missing with computers, so I try to see the computer as a tool and not “my life”. But it’s a struggle. As far as creative thinking, I pretty much have to leave the computer to be creative. I might end up putting the stuff together on the computer, but something about sitting in front of the screen just shuts me down creatively.

Cid: What plans do you have for the future? Any new mediums or areas of the artistic world that you would like to explore?

Mr. Paul: Avoid explosions.

ABOUT YOUR WORK:

Cid: What inspired your Book of Sketches, Words and Symbols?

Mr. Paul: There was an arts and crafts festival upcoming and I needed to have something new for it. I had these thoughts and sketches that I had collected over time and needed to put them together in some form. Mainly all my work results from my feeble attempts to get my mind around this existence thing.

Cid: Do you go through many drawings of the same idea before coming to a finished piece?

Mr. Paul: No, I usually do one sketch. Mostly I work from a small sketch which is usually drawn without a premeditated idea. Sort of like channeling the ether into a physical form.

Cid: What contributions did you make to the project “Figures of Speech“?

Mr. Paul: Figures of Speech was a series of animated street interviews. We all worked on a few seconds of each interview. So an animator would take his/her little clip of a part of an interview and animate that clip all by his/herself. Then, we would piece them together. So to answer the question, I did a little bit of each interview except maybe one or two.

Cid: What contributions did you make to the project “Waking Life“?

Mr. Paul: Similar to Figures of Speech except we got to do a whole scene or two by ourselves. I got to animate the scene with Otto Hoffmann, the elderly man who spoke to Wiley in the Spider House Cafe. He says, “to say yes to one instant is to say yes to all of existence”. Then I did the scene with the guy jumping out of the train, David Martinez “Hey, you a dreamer?”. There were also a lot of other little short clips like the close up on the pinball action, the LBJ parade, one of the flyover scenes, tv clips, etc.

Cid: Do you think the general public is ready for this type of amazing art/film vision?

Mr. Paul: The jaded producers of junk don’t give the general public enough credit. God forbid you have to use your brain while watching a movie. Waking Life has the advantage that if you get tired of trying to follow the philosophy, you can turn off your mind and just watch the pretty pictures float by. Different parts of Waking Life will strike a chord with different types of people. Something for everyone. I’ve talked to 12 years olds who loved it. That is encouraging. I’ve had a few people tell me about the movie not knowing that I was involved with it; mostly positive comments. I feel you need to see it 2 or 3 times to get the most out of it. Or maybe we should have just done an animated version of Police Academy 8.

Cid: Jesus didn’t have a credit card?

Mr. Paul: “Jesus didn’t have a credit card” is a line from a song written and performed by the great Danny Barnes, a Seattle based musician (formerly Austin). He is one of the top banjo and guitar players I have ever witnessed (not to mention a great lyricist). The song is “Love Your Neighbor” off of the album “Things I Done Wrong”, mostly a bluegrass style. Soooo, the image I made of Jesus’ credit card was inspired by Danny’s music. The message is kind of obvious; y’know, materialism, consumerism etc. which are all the anti-thesis of Jesus’ philosophy, or Buddha’s, or Mohammed’s, or a dog’s, or a cat’s.