Zero Calorie Valentine Chocolate Moose

“You need to put your drawings on YouTube,” my wife told me this past Christmas, as she was peeling the last of the wrapping paper off of her brand new video camera.

“How do you plan to do that?” I asked, dutifully. “Zoom in on the picture while I stand there and talk about it?” I could tell from her contented smile that I was catching onto the idea pretty quick.

The sudden, un-Seasonable chill of stage fright was overwhelming, all the worse because I wasn’t anywhere near a stage. I was supposedly safe at home, minding my own business, in my own living room, on a Holiday, sitting barefoot in my pajamas and a Santa hat, not even through with my first cup of coffee, and here she was toying with the idea of pointing a TV camera at me. “Do I at least get to put on a clean shirt?” I wondered aloud.

“Not right now, Silly.”

Whew! One bullet dodged, but once that girl gets a good idea in her head, chances are I’ll be going along with it, sooner or later. I know. She gets lots of good ideas.

***

“Hey! You could use one of your funny voices! You know, like you used to do with the kids,” she insisted, a week or two later at the studio. That icy feeling started to creep in again, but this time I managed to shrug it off.

“Why not.”

(Click on 'Why not'.)

Creativity

A trained scientist, stage performer, corporate marketer, amateur historian, gardener, fry cook and qualified diaper-changer, I have chosen to spend the last 25 years making my living as a ballpoint artist, rendering graphic puns in a style reminiscent of Arcimboldo.

The latter part of this unusual pedigree should grant me some authority on the subject of art, and what it takes to create new and unusual things, yet I find that my philosophy of creativity differs greatly from that of many friends who were trained in the fine art world, and even some of my scientific colleagues.

Recently I was asked to participate in in a panel discussion on ‘artistic inspiration’ and ‘the creative process’, where my mundane views on the subject were largely dismissed by the other panelists as an oversimplification of a profoundly complex and obscure phenomenon.

Our disagreement stemmed from a belief that creativity is something that you do, not something that happens spontaneously. My feeling was (and is) that what we call creativity is nothing more (or less) than an intentional association of ideas. The product of these associations is what we call Art. Or Music. Or Literature. Or a new brand of toothbrush.

The fact that I have been chased out of a variety of fields probably allows me to make more frequent and uncommon connections than the average person. Add an endless curiosity, a tendency toward mischievous attention-seeking, and a basic inborn stubbornness, and you wind up with someone who spends hours arranging words and pictures in his head, and doesn’t mind working overtime to get his silly ideas down on paper.

While my background may be unusual, my creative process is probably no different from anyone else’s. I imagine that most people are busy doing more practical things than making jokes with a ballpoint pen. I also imagine them doing all sorts of creative things, every day, to make themselves and their families happier. They do these creative things by rearranging their thoughts, and then acting on those unique mental connections, minute by minute, day after day.

I can appreciate that those who are unaccustomed to identifying with their internal creative machinery might feel that the product of an artist's mental labor is some form of magic – or worse, some kind of proprietary skill that is unavailable to ‘regular’ people. Why shouldn't they? Our everyday discussions of the subject of creativity are steeped in mystery and exclusivity.

As I frequently tell my friends and customers, I am creative mostly because I am unencumbered by the distractions of regular employment. Creativity and freedom are essential bedfellows. Experience counts, too – I am just as fond of saying (quite truthfully) that any six year old could do what I do, after twenty years of practice.

This practical view of creativity is finally gaining some ground in the scientific community, and may be starting to take hold in business as well. Creativity is work, pure and simple. Fun work, to be sure, but it doesn't happen if you don't make it happen. Those who take time and energy to develop the skill of thinking new thoughts and making new connections will be able to solve problems more easily, generate new products and processes, and market them more effectively. It’s all about the ideas one chooses to consider, and an individual’s comfort and experience in associating them in new, unusual ways.

My critics tell me that when I talk this way I am overlooking the wonder of art, ignoring an essential gift of inspiration – that special something that is mysteriously imparted to creative people by the ancient Muses. They could be right about that. After 25 years of indulging in this process, I’m still very much aMused.

And I’m working hard to stay that way.

Why Ballpoint Art?

Most artists train for years to master a specific medium, perfecting their technique as they strive to create a consistent, recognizable body of artwork. Not me. Not intentionally, anyway.

I did spend years discovering the practical applications of the ballpoint pen, becoming an expert in the use of my chosen medium to render letterforms and images from cartoons to detailed line drawings. I just didn't do it in the art studio.

Like every other college student, I spent hours every day writing pages and pages of lecture notes, essays and research papers with a regular ballpoint pen. Because I was a science major, I also wound up drawing lots of little pictures of plants and animals for biology class, chains of bent lines and hexagons in chemistry, and all kinds of angles, arrows, ramps and pulleys for my physics courses. This process continued on through medical school, only at double the rate. In the hospital I filled reams of chart paper with ballpoint ink, writing patient admissions, physical exams, progress notes, procedural outlines, lab reports and discharge summaries.

By the end of my internship I had worn a permanent, pen-shaped groove between my writing fingers.

Ironically, the only place where I did not regularly use a ballpoint pen was in the art studio. After some difficulty convincing my college advisor to allow me to take an introductory drawing class (he felt it wasn’t the kind of thing a serious pre-medical student should have on his transcript), I tried using the ballpoint to sketch out my assignments. This unusual practice was soon discovered, however, and the lowly pen was banned from the classroom. Thereafter I was only allowed to use ‘legitimate’ art media (charcoal, pencil, and paint) in the art studio.

Of course this prohibition only increased my desire to work with the more familiar medium, though now all my ballpoint sketches had to be done outside of the art department, in my spare time. None of them would be included in my official student portfolio, and would not be considered in determining my grades.

Fortunately, my ballpoint drawings were eligible for consideration in the student literary magazine. In fact, one of them managed to take first prize – and I took home the $25 award. (I know that doesn't sound like much, but this was a very long time ago, and I was a poor college student. Twenty-five bucks was a lot of money to some people in those days, and I was definitely one of those people.)

Fast-forward five or six years, and very little had changed. I now had a degree and a medical license, but I had also made the decision to leave the hospital and become a full time artist, with very little in the bank, and a large educational loan hanging over my head. (We can debate the wisdom of that choice another time.) Suffice it to say that twenty-five dollars was still a lot of money, and the bills were piling up fast. If I were going to make a living creating artwork, it had to be with a medium I already knew how to use. There was no time to polish up my minimal painting skills, or improve upon my marginal ability to wield a pencil (which could be summed up in a single word: Messy).

Ballpoint was the only way to move ahead with any hope of success, so I settled on the happy medium I knew best.

Genetics

This latest picture in my ongoing series of medical drawings is all about Genetics: Two pea vines (courtesy of Gregor Mendel, the Austrian monk who deciphered the rules of genetic inheritance by carefully observing these plants in his garden) entwined in a double helix, with pods in the role of nucleotide base pairs. The order of base pair alignment (A=T, C=G) is spelled out in the CAT TAG, while birds, bees, and a Crick-et named Watson look on. That's a jean-etic marker stuck down in the ground, with X and Y symbols, and a FISH (Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization, a fancy way of identifying genes in the laboratory) close by. The dice dangling above represent the random association of inherited traits. Oh, the little guy? He's Gene, the gnome.

My Kind of Art

Whenever people talk to me about my drawings, the same questions come up again and again. At art shows, in classrooms, and in general conversation, folks are curious about the unusual approach I take to art, and how I came about drawing in this manner. From time to time I will try and offer explanations and excuses regarding my choices of style, media, and subject. Consider this my first installment.

Did you invent this approach to art?

No, I did not invent this stuff. Artists have been juxtaposing images for centuries, for their own entertainment, for practical communication, and sometimes even for pay. For example, Aztec writers often drew separate pictographs together, combining the names of those objects to make new words. (I can only imagine what the cave paintings at Lascaux or the Anasazi petroglyphs would say if we knew the languages of the artists who made them.)

Many artists have embraced this idea of drawing lots of pictures inside a larger one. Most attempt this as a harmless diversion, an innocent experiment in design and technique. The results usually sit quietly in their portfolios while the artists murmur ‘Look what I got away with’, and vow never to do such things again. Having successfully completed one of these projects, few of us are misled sufficiently to repeat the error. Fewer still foolish enough to try and make a career out of it.

What do you call this style of art?

What style is it? Beats me. If this approach to picture-making has a widely accepted name, I haven’t heard it. That’s probably because there aren’t enough artists doing it to constitute a Movement, or even to catch the attention of the people who decide on things like art trends and style names. (If you know any of these people, please invite them to visit our studio, or at least the web site.)

Perhaps the most famous artist to create these complex images is Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who painted in this style (above) back in the late 1500’s. Some historians have lumped Arcimboldo’s brand of art into a larger group called Mannerism. Dali considered him the first Surrealist, even though similar designs were created before his time. Contemporary artist Octavio Campo refers to his version of this kind of painting as “Metamorphic”. Other observers add these designs to the broad categories of Puzzle Pictures, Optical Illusions, or even Trompe l’oeil. They could just as easily and accurately be called Still Life. The designs that include double meanings or other elements of wordplay are Visual Puns.

Aren’t these just collages?

Somewhat surprisingly, my pictures are not collages. Collage is a physical assemblage of paper, photographs, news clippings and the like, all glued together to make a design. (No scissors for me, thank you. The temptation to run with them is overwhelming.)

I assemble my designs in my head and directly on paper, first in pencil, then in ballpoint ink. For lack of a better term, I call my art works Composite Drawings, Composite Images, or just Big Pictures Made Out Of Little Pictures. If you can think of a more interesting descriptive phrase, I’d be delighted to hear it.

Medic!

Happily and quite surprisingly, my Iwo Jima drawing, Uncommon Valor, has been extremely popular since its release on November 11, 2010. More than any previous effort, this picture has gained nationwide attention, and has generated record sales, in addition to a number of positive comments from individuals who might otherwise have never been interested in this unusual style of artwork.

Not long ago, I received a very complimentary e-mail from a Marine who had purchased one of the Valor prints, asking me to draw a Caduceus dedicated to all Corpsmen & Medics.

"As a Vietnam Veteran and a three time recipient of the purple heart, I have a special love for OUR CORPSMEN," he told me. He hoped I could come up with a design that would cross all branches of combat service, honoring those selfless heroes known to wounded soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen respectfully as “Doc”.

In just a few hours, this sketch fell out onto the paper, and quickly met with the veteran's approval.

A few weeks passed before I could find the time to tackle the drawing in earnest. I took the pencil sketch with me during an October art show tour, and chipped away at it during idle hours in my hotel room.

The caduceus design contains a helmet with traditional red cross emblem, bandage, bandaid, blood bag, butterfly, clamps, challenge coins, corpsman’s knife, dog tags (Stan N. Harmsway), dressing pouch, oral & nasal airways, pain pills, safety pin, scalpel, scissors, side arm, stethoscope, stop watch, stretcher, sulfa, syringe, thermometer (silver bullet), tongue depressor, and a Purple Heart.

Finally completed earlier this month, the Medic drawing is now available in a limited edition of 100 digitally generated giclee prints.