So, a number of months ago, I was walking to work along Broadway - a fairly busy street - enjoying a crisp, sunny morning. As I approached a driveway, I glanced at an SUV that looked like it was going to pull out in front of me to enter the street. I was sure the driver saw me approaching, and would wait for me to pass. As I crossed in front of the SUV, it started nudging out into the road, and I found myself leaning over the hood, with my feet sliding along the asphalt.I skated like this for a foot or two, hitting the hood with my hand, and immediately, the driver snapped her head to me, and a look of horror crossed her face. Obviously, she hadn't noticed me at all! I must have crossed in front of her hood just as she was checking for oncoming traffic from the opposite direction.
She slammed on the brakes, and I took a breath, stepped past, and waved her off as if to say "don't worry about it". I was adrenalized but otherwise completely unharmed, and wanted to get along to work as quickly as possible. I figured from the woman's facial expression that she might never drive again, and I decided never to assume anything about motorists.
Flash forward to last week: my wife and I were at our local H&R Block to have our taxes done. We were looking forward to seeing the same lovely lady who has prepared our returns for us for the past few years. Sure enough, she was there, and we greeted each other happily, and sat down in front of her desk.
Then she took a second look at me and started saying "Oh my god! It was you! Oh my god!"
I started to realize what she meant: She had been the driver of that SUV that had very slowly run into me! She said that she was so sorry, and that she really didn't want to lose me as a customer - especially not like that! I replied with something cute about how death and taxes always seem to be related to each other.
I saw her again just this morning at her driveway. She was pulling out and I was almost walking past. There was an obvious need to keep our eyes out for each other now, with this little scary moment in our past. She greeted me with a huge, warm smile and enthusiastic "Hello!" and held her hand out of the driver's side window for a handshake, which I happily returned. I said "I saw you!" and she said "You too!" I told her that it was always nice running into her.
April 30, 2009
April 27, 2009
Who Watches the Watchmen? We do - Again.
"Watchmen" is the movie I waited for with anticipation for years. Alan Moore's dark, complicated and apocalyptic story of flawed good and evil - and the difficulty in telling one from the other- became a benchmark, a high water line, for other comic book writers to emulate throughout the eighties and nineties. It was unnostalgic and unsympathetic to the plights of its characters, and utterly uncompromising in its realistic portraits of damaged men and women running around in strange costumes in the wee hours of the night.
So, in addition to being a total Watchmen fanboy, I was happy to learn that Watchmen (like Fantastic Four and other recent superhero movie franchises) was filmed here in Vancouver. Reading director Zack Snyder's blog back in 2007, I'd also learned that a major portion of the city street scenes were filmed on a backlot located somewhere on South-east Marine Drive, near where the southern edge of the city meets the Fraser River. Unfortunately, I had no idea where the set was located, having only seen a couple of promotional photographs on the web.
Yesterday, my wife and I decided to see the Watchmen a second time before it left the theatres for good. Driving from our Starbucks-of-the-day, passing the corner of Byrne Street and Marine Drive, I noticed a large paved lot in front of a warehouse. Standing up on the lot was what looked like half-completed buildings on some sort of construction site. On second glance, I saw completed storefronts, sidewalks, signs and light posts. It had to be the Watchmen outdoor shooting location!
A security guard in a truck honked at us, and waved us off - in other words, it was time to leave!
As we were driving off, I saw the following words spray painted on the back of a set piece: WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?
We did... twice in the theatre, and now from behind the scenes.
Relates Links:
Watchmen Movie Photos
Watchmen Backlot
Watchmen Locations (IMDB.com)
Watchmen FAQ
So, in addition to being a total Watchmen fanboy, I was happy to learn that Watchmen (like Fantastic Four and other recent superhero movie franchises) was filmed here in Vancouver. Reading director Zack Snyder's blog back in 2007, I'd also learned that a major portion of the city street scenes were filmed on a backlot located somewhere on South-east Marine Drive, near where the southern edge of the city meets the Fraser River. Unfortunately, I had no idea where the set was located, having only seen a couple of promotional photographs on the web.
Yesterday, my wife and I decided to see the Watchmen a second time before it left the theatres for good. Driving from our Starbucks-of-the-day, passing the corner of Byrne Street and Marine Drive, I noticed a large paved lot in front of a warehouse. Standing up on the lot was what looked like half-completed buildings on some sort of construction site. On second glance, I saw completed storefronts, sidewalks, signs and light posts. It had to be the Watchmen outdoor shooting location!
A security guard in a truck honked at us, and waved us off - in other words, it was time to leave!
As we were driving off, I saw the following words spray painted on the back of a set piece: WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?
We did... twice in the theatre, and now from behind the scenes.
Relates Links:
Watchmen Movie Photos
Watchmen Backlot
Watchmen Locations (IMDB.com)
Watchmen FAQ
April 09, 2009
"Owe Nothing" is now published!
"Owe Nothing" is now available for purchase
at Trafford.com
After a part-time effort that took six years to write, and over a year to edit and publish, I'm very excited to have finally reached this stage!
I hope you will take a chance to enjoy Owe Nothing!
Join my Owe Nothing page on FaceBook:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=info&edit_info=all#/pages/Owe-Nothing-a-novel-by-E-John-Love/81433960464?ref=ts
A Few Related Links:
Fiction by E. John Love: http://fiction.ejohnlove.com
http://ejohnlove.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-fiction-do-over-of-real-life.html
http://ejohnlove.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-become-writer-part-2.html
http://ejohnlove.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-become-writer-by-john.html
March 31, 2009
Is Fiction a "Do Over" of Real Life?
Since 2002, I've been writing fiction (well, trying to write fiction), and over the past six and a half years, I've cobbled together a fairly extensive cast of fictional characters, all inhabiting a world that has numerous similarities to my own - but better.
Surprise, surprise.
In my first book, titled Owe Nothing, my main protagonist (there are a few of 'em) is named Jack Owen. Jack is a slang or familiar form of John, or so I have been told throughout my life. (Given that I was apparently named for my grandmother's brother, John Edward, who was my Uncle "Jack", I take it as gospel.) So, Jack is a twenty-ish version of me. Kind of. Or, the me I almost with I could have been when we briefly lived in motels.
Jack's Dad is named Jim, after my Dad. He's about 55-ish, and his main issue is that generally, he questions how he got to this stage in his life with apparently so little to show for it, and with such a weak and tenuous relationship with his son (so he thinks). I'm 43 - not so far behind Jim's age that I couldn't imagine his predicament. Both my Jim and his son Jack are in a kind of life path rut, but while Jack is near the beginning of his journey, his Dad is closer to the other end.
Jack has an older sister named Kelly. I drew a lot of inspiration for Kelly from my sister Kim: her love of animals, her tenacity, and her ability to defend others to her own deteriment. A seconmd character also represents qualities of my sister: Regina Coffey, who suffers through an abusive relationship, and struggles to assert herself while raising her two sons with very little income. Regina is a survivor, but not a prosperer in life.
The world of "Owe Nothing" is a 2001-2002 version of East Vancouver, with a few curious throwbacks or hold-overs from the '70s left intact. The main incongruity is that the two large, neighbouring motels in which much of the story takes place exist at all. The Mountain View Motel (where Jack's family lives) and the Peacock Court Motel (where Regina Coffey and her sons live) were real places, both bulldozed sometime in the mid-1980s, I believe. The motel culture of Kingsway in East Vancouver was dying even when I lived in it briefly, as a kid in the mid-1970s. It was grimy and harsh in places, but also lively and friendly - like a motor-hotel version of a low rent, big city tenement project.
More to come...
Join my Owe Nothing page on FaceBook:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=info&edit_info=all#/pages/Owe-Nothing-a-novel-by-E-John-Love/81433960464?ref=ts
A Few Related Links:
http://ejohnlove.blogspot.com/2008/10/about-plucking-old-strings.html
http://ejohnlove.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-become-writer-part-2.html
http://ejohnlove.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-become-writer-by-john.html
December 28, 2008
A Good Room to Work In
A good room to work in is both a luxury and a necessity, at least if you feel that you're someone with something to say, or someone who needs somewhere to store your thoughts and ideas when you're not using them.
A good room to work in is a haven, a safety zone, and a refuge where you can reflect on the past, face your fears and look at yourself with serious intentions for minutes at a time. Perceptions, waking thoughts and even your own breaths are all fleeting and transient, making your desk a kind of shrine to remember yourself by.
A good room to work in can also be a shrine to important memories of people and places. I have created many images of my late parents there. When I think about it, I realize how much I hate the phrase "my late parents". In my own small ways, through images on web sites, on my walls, and in sketch books, or by journals or in my fictional stories, I will try keep them alive somehow
Maybe then, my good room to work in is also a meeting room - a place to commune with the people and things that have made me.
A good room to work in is a haven, a safety zone, and a refuge where you can reflect on the past, face your fears and look at yourself with serious intentions for minutes at a time. Perceptions, waking thoughts and even your own breaths are all fleeting and transient, making your desk a kind of shrine to remember yourself by.
A good room to work in can also be a shrine to important memories of people and places. I have created many images of my late parents there. When I think about it, I realize how much I hate the phrase "my late parents". In my own small ways, through images on web sites, on my walls, and in sketch books, or by journals or in my fictional stories, I will try keep them alive somehow
Maybe then, my good room to work in is also a meeting room - a place to commune with the people and things that have made me.
October 28, 2008
My Life Between Man and Machine
 |
| The Animatronic Andy Warhol... To me, the ideal symbolic merging of creative imagination and technological processes. |
My father was an electronics technician for many years. My mother was a performer, an artist. Each of them and their tendencies and backgrounds have influenced me. Although it sounds like a sexist stereotype, my father was usually the calm, rational one - the authority, the controller of my family. My mother suffered from depression - possibly bipolar disorder- alcohol addiction. She could have small bursts of creativity, and be spontaneous, energetic and fun. Dad was the responsible one who kept things running as they needed to. I'm sure that this is where my man-machine dichotomy was formed.
Growing up, I always wanted to know how things worked, and so I would would take things apart to see, only to be unable to put them back together again, and get chastised for "breaking my toys".
All my life, I also loved creativity and imagination. I loved to draw, to colour, and to read picture books or newspaper strips, and to have someone's images and words transport me to another world where my imagination could run free.
Early Ideas of Man and Machine
Since I was old enough to recall, images of human-shaped robots have been a source of fascination to me. When I was four or five, my Dad bought me a fascinating metal walking robot toy. It required four D cells and weighed a ton. Most amazing of all, it walked upright, shuffling forward by sliding its feet one at a time, kind of like a hospital patient in thin slippers. After a few steps, it would stop and doors on its chest would swing open, revealing little guns that would blaze ("rat-a-tat-a-tat!"). After strafing the living room in a 360 degree pivot, it would close its chest and begin striding forward again.
As a kid, I was fascinated by the excellent mechanics of it, and the light-up excitement and cool sound effects. My Dad said he bought it for me at the Rosetown Fair. (Looking back, I figure that it must have been some kind of import from Japan or somewhere. They always make the coolest robot-shaped toys.)
Pre-teen Robot Boy
As a pre-teen, I became a huge fan of the TV show "Six Million Dollar Man". Many of the plots were dumb or a bit predictable, but I was really watching the show to see the electronic stuff that was implanted inside Steve Austin. I wanted to see them roll up his fake skin on that bionic arm and show me the wires and circuits inside. He was a man, but also a machine - a CYBORG ("CYBernetic ORGanism"). I didn't know what Cybernetics was, but I knew that he was a step beyond a human-shaped machine - he was a blend of man and machine under the skin.
The late 1970s and early 1980s were a great time to be a science fiction fan. Many science fiction TV shows and movies (most of all "Star Wars") featured at least one android or robot, and usually in a humanistic shape.
My Mom, as a Cybernetic System
In 1981, my mother was admitted for long-term care to the Riverview Psychiatric Hospital. She had suffered permanent brain damage as a result of kidney failure after extreme alcohol abuse. I understood that she had almost died, and that her brain had been irreparably altered. Her memory was altered - memories from most of the past five years were apparently wiped out - and her personality was also different. She seemed a bit more simplistic and direct in her wants and how she expressed them.
By 1984, I had begun to see her as "a broken system" - a burned-out circuit. It was painful and difficult to picture her as a person first and foremost. I loved her in a child's longing, loyal way, but she had never connected with me very well, and I could never recall her speaking more than a few words to me at a time over the years. We never had a discussion in any way. So, in a way, she was probably not humanized enough in my heart and mind, and this remote objectivity and de-personification of her probably served as a convenient screen for me to hide behind. It was probably easier to think of my mother as a broken system than a hurt, scared and lonely woman whom I knew had trouble remembering me and whom I was supposed to love.
The Image of Animatronic Andy
Around 1984 or 1985, American pop artist Andy Warhol was recreated as an animatronic puppet in order to portray him in a "no man show". The image of the robot's pale eyeless rubber face mask layered over the bare steel skeleton stuck with me. It reminded me of my mother's pale, scarred skin, her pure white, short-cropped hair, and her impassable, sometimes blank facial expression. Sometimes, I couldn't read her at all. Occasionally, a prolonged, direct eye contact would be my reward for persevering through a visit with her. It was rare to know if she recognized me at all.
I began to draw images of her face with empty, black holes where living eyes should have been. It has been a recurring image in my head - my internal image of her.
Art School Cyberneticist
In 1985, during my Foundation (first) year of studies at the Emily Carr College of Art, I learned how to use graphics software to create images, and I became a fan of the pixels that made up the images on the computer screen, and a fan of the electronics (or the ideas behind them) that painted the pixels in the first place. I started teaching myself a little programming, and then studying how computers and electronics had been used to create art and interactive, shared experiences.
As I continued to take more of an interest in computers, electronics and artificial intelligence (or "artificial rationale", as my instructor Gary Lee Nova called it, insightfully), I appreciated more about how far A.I. still had to progress, and also how over time, as A.I., robotics, and other technologies progress and converge, we will get closer to building a useful human-shaped helper. This is a big reason why Honda and other major manufacturers have spent so much time and effort developing Aibo and other anthropomorphic, walking robots: they are developing the synthetic Butler's and nursemaids of the future, for an age of Japanese baby boomers.
Throughout my senior years in art school, I studied cybernetics (essentially, the study of systems), and with the help of my classmates and instructors, I developed ways to connect myself even closer to computer graphics by mounting joystick parts on my hands and arms and wiring them into the game ports on Atari 800 and Amiga computers. I wanted to get closer than a keyboard and a mouse, and connect in a more direct way.
And Today...? What Will These Robots Think of Us?
One piece of art that expresses the issues in the "evolving" (hee hee!) of a synthetic race, is "AI - Artificial Intelligence", developed by Stanley Kubrick and directed by Steven Spielberg.
I still think it might be really cool to have a bionic hand, and even cooler to make friends with a robot. Maybe one that's just as interested in me as I am in it. Then, perhaps the "man-machine interface" would be the relationship itself.
October 13, 2008
About Plucking Old Strings
As I slowly evolve my second novel, a question that has come up in my mind:
For how long can you mine old emotional veins - pluck old strings - in the service of creating compelling stories?
This question stumps and almost staggers me. When will I run out of gas, and have nothing interesting left to say? Without that, I'm dead as an artist.
I can't see the future, and by myself, I can't answer this question, but the prospect is scary as hell.
Ironically, why would I worry about this when I still haven't even begun the career as a writer? The first story is yet to be published, and I have little idea how good or bad it is as a work. Maybe it's premature to even worry about this... Maybe. All the same, I've got to go there.
What Strings Can I Pluck?
There are a number of themes I can harvest for telling stories of fiction:
However, a recent biography gives me some hope for my creative process in the long-term.
The Life of Cartoonist Charles Schulz
Schulz is the creator of "Peanuts", Snoopy and "good ol' Charlie Brown". He's probably the most famous cartoonist of the post-war era. In the book "Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography", author David Michaelis illustrates how a man can mine insecurities, painful losses, and personal defeats, and weave them into character traits, phrases and attitudes that can fuel a small world that people in countries all over theworld have visited for over50 years.
Schulz' Peanuts characters looked like children, living in a world of invisible (or at least off-screen) adults, and yet as a kid, I knew that his kids were telling truths in a sophisticated, grown up kind of way. I didn't understand all of it, but looking back, I think there was angst, cruelty, power issues, depression, love, fate, philosophical pondering, and flights of fantasy, all played out with subtlety and intelligence. There was depth and heartfelt emotion.
I think that Charles Schulz built a world for himself in which he could say the things that he needed to say, to express his truths, through the personas of the little people he created. The fact that he was still expressing these feelings dozens of years after the fact, tells me that he had resonant, meaningful things, unresolved meaningful things, to say. That they resonated with such a large audience for so many years tells me that he was very talented and committed to his art.
There are a lot of crappy, shallow daily comic strips being published today - the three panel equivalent of cheap, rim shot jokes. Schulz and other significant artists, were able to get beyond that, and extend what is a very limiting medium into something better.
I think that if Schulz' material hadn't come from a powerful reservoir of personal experience, it wouldn't have been so good for so long. This gives me some hope for my own efforts.
For how long can you mine old emotional veins - pluck old strings - in the service of creating compelling stories?
This question stumps and almost staggers me. When will I run out of gas, and have nothing interesting left to say? Without that, I'm dead as an artist.
I can't see the future, and by myself, I can't answer this question, but the prospect is scary as hell.
Ironically, why would I worry about this when I still haven't even begun the career as a writer? The first story is yet to be published, and I have little idea how good or bad it is as a work. Maybe it's premature to even worry about this... Maybe. All the same, I've got to go there.
What Strings Can I Pluck?
There are a number of themes I can harvest for telling stories of fiction:
- A life's potential lost because of manic-depression and alcoholism. What is a person worth? What are they obligated to accomplish?
- A father's/leader's loss of control - loss of power and leadership - because of bad choices, age, depression and chronic guilt. Can he redeem himself and his integrity?
- A young girl's sense of betrayal because of physical abuse; the horror of the loss of family security. Can she find security and strength?
- A child torn between loyalty towards one parent or the other, and fear and insecurity towards each of them. Is the child trapped?
- The joy of finding surrogate parents in friends and relatives...
- What do you do when your hero becomes a villain right before your eyes? How can you love someone close to you and hate them at the same time?
- Why do people carry childish jealousy, envy and pain within them throughout their life? How does it affect the people around them?
However, a recent biography gives me some hope for my creative process in the long-term.
The Life of Cartoonist Charles Schulz
Schulz is the creator of "Peanuts", Snoopy and "good ol' Charlie Brown". He's probably the most famous cartoonist of the post-war era. In the book "Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography", author David Michaelis illustrates how a man can mine insecurities, painful losses, and personal defeats, and weave them into character traits, phrases and attitudes that can fuel a small world that people in countries all over theworld have visited for over50 years.
Schulz' Peanuts characters looked like children, living in a world of invisible (or at least off-screen) adults, and yet as a kid, I knew that his kids were telling truths in a sophisticated, grown up kind of way. I didn't understand all of it, but looking back, I think there was angst, cruelty, power issues, depression, love, fate, philosophical pondering, and flights of fantasy, all played out with subtlety and intelligence. There was depth and heartfelt emotion.
I think that Charles Schulz built a world for himself in which he could say the things that he needed to say, to express his truths, through the personas of the little people he created. The fact that he was still expressing these feelings dozens of years after the fact, tells me that he had resonant, meaningful things, unresolved meaningful things, to say. That they resonated with such a large audience for so many years tells me that he was very talented and committed to his art.
There are a lot of crappy, shallow daily comic strips being published today - the three panel equivalent of cheap, rim shot jokes. Schulz and other significant artists, were able to get beyond that, and extend what is a very limiting medium into something better.
I think that if Schulz' material hadn't come from a powerful reservoir of personal experience, it wouldn't have been so good for so long. This gives me some hope for my own efforts.
September 12, 2008
Walking into Art School.
Back in 1984/85, I went everywhere with a cheap felt pen and $1.99 sketchbook that I'd bought from Shopper's Drug Mart on Davie. My high-school art teacher, Mr. Prinsen, had impressed on me the importance of keeping a sketchbook, and I tried to be that guy.
1000 sketches of people's faces and the backs of heads on the bus on the way out to Coquitlam to visit my Mother in Riverview. Once, when she wasn't awake, I got a very nice sketch of her sleeping. Slowly, my hand became able to do what my eyes saw. It was a goal that started to give me a sense of control and accomplishment.
Getting There...
Once I decided to apply to Emily Carr College of Art, it became a major obsession. For weeks, I worked on drawings and sketches that might help my portfolio. An older guy named Les Gallus was a practiced illustrator and gave me some advice on prepping my portfolio, plus a little practical tutelage on how to improve a few pieces. He also showed me his portfolio: a collection of slides of 2D and 3D pieces from some art program on the prairies, I think. Les never seemed to have that much interest in actually working for a living, but I never held that against him. He was a super friendly, helpful person, who helped me get a couple of sketches published in the Community Arts Council magazine, and whose advice and support bolstered my confidence. I was scared as hell of going to art school. All I knew was that it had to lead to better experiences than those I'd already had.
When the interview day came, I remember literally walking across Granville Island from my summer job, over into the school's entrance, entranced. My interviewers had been a black haired man named John (whom I was convinced was humouring me - my insecurity at work), and an older, gentler bald man named Dennis, with whom I immediately felt comfortable. I also saw an energetic and slightly authoritarian bearded man in the hallway whom I would later learn was the school's Dean, a gentleman named Tom Hudson.
Weeks (or months?) later, I received my acceptance letter in the mail. I couldn't believe it. At that moment, it was the biggest positive thing that had ever happened to me. I was living with my Dad in an apartment on Hornby Street, although I can't remember if during this time he was home, or if he was in hospital.
I felt like I'd just squeaked through the portfolio interview process, but who knows how. If it's possible, I think I felt simultaneously proud and ashamed of my portfolio pieces - a series of pen and ink drawings and sketches - mostly scribbly portraits of my face and my friends and family, plus a couple of felt pen "pointillist" attempts done in Grade 12. "This art school must have some kind of quota system for taking in new students" I thought later. My East Van neighbourhood felt a long way away. I was 19 and still very, very green in my views.
Being accepted made me want to sketch the people and things around me even more - I felt I needed to prepare myself for a massive new challenge, so I tried to bolster my meager skills however I could. I took a life drawing session down on Granville Island, and blushed a little at the young woman who posed naked while we all scratched away on large sheets of paper. She saw me blushing and smiled at me, so I smirked and blushed some more. Dad would never approve of this, so I never told him. Years later, when I recounted a similar experience in Life Drawing class, he practically lost his temper. "What the hell do you need to draw a naked woman for?!" he almost yelled. "Why not draw fruit!" I almost doubled over laughing at him for that one. My dear old Dad didn't get it at all - not back then. (He got it later, and eventually was 100% on board.)
In what could only have been some subconscious act of self-defeat, I actually slept in on Registration Day! I showed up hours late, in a panicky state, mentally berating myself with every put-down I knew, feeling sure that I had just fucked up the first good thing I'd ever done before even getting a chance to do it.
I wandered around the school for a few moments, not knowing where to go or who to speak with, but soon enough, I saw a familiar face, Dennis Rickett, the older bald English gent who had been one of my interviewers. I explained my predicament to him, and within a moment, I was sitting with two Foundation Instructors, John Wertschek (my other portfolio interviewer) and Sam Carter. Soon enough, they had me slotted into my Foundation classes, and I felt immensely relieved to have my situation sorted out.
Going There...
Like every new school I've ever entered, my art school smelled unique - vaguely like acrylic paint and freshly cut cardboard. This was the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in September of 1985.
The white walls, blue doors and window frames and lego-like IKEA flooring hinted at a modernism that I wouldn't be familiar with for a year or two. Boys and girls with punk hairdos and black leather jackets strutted together looking like and talking about lifestyles that I was sure were foreign to me.
My first class, on the morning of my first day at Emily Carr was Creative Process, with John Wertschek. It felt like some alternate universe version of homeroom in high school: a bunch of young people blinking at each other across wide work tables, not knowing what to say. This was the first time I saw my classmates, and I could tell I wasn't the only young 'un in the room. John had set his room up with black walls, low lighting, and some nice Chinese paper lampshade hanging low over the massive table in the middle of the room. We did an exercise he called "The Rock Game". Everyone took a turn placing or moving a rock on the table. I didn't "know" what the hell I was supposed to do, but I felt something out of it, or at least I thought I did... I tended to worry about things in my life a lot, but that didn't help you in the rock game. You pretty much just had to do the game. I decided the rock game was very cool.
1000 sketches of people's faces and the backs of heads on the bus on the way out to Coquitlam to visit my Mother in Riverview. Once, when she wasn't awake, I got a very nice sketch of her sleeping. Slowly, my hand became able to do what my eyes saw. It was a goal that started to give me a sense of control and accomplishment.
Getting There...
Once I decided to apply to Emily Carr College of Art, it became a major obsession. For weeks, I worked on drawings and sketches that might help my portfolio. An older guy named Les Gallus was a practiced illustrator and gave me some advice on prepping my portfolio, plus a little practical tutelage on how to improve a few pieces. He also showed me his portfolio: a collection of slides of 2D and 3D pieces from some art program on the prairies, I think. Les never seemed to have that much interest in actually working for a living, but I never held that against him. He was a super friendly, helpful person, who helped me get a couple of sketches published in the Community Arts Council magazine, and whose advice and support bolstered my confidence. I was scared as hell of going to art school. All I knew was that it had to lead to better experiences than those I'd already had.
When the interview day came, I remember literally walking across Granville Island from my summer job, over into the school's entrance, entranced. My interviewers had been a black haired man named John (whom I was convinced was humouring me - my insecurity at work), and an older, gentler bald man named Dennis, with whom I immediately felt comfortable. I also saw an energetic and slightly authoritarian bearded man in the hallway whom I would later learn was the school's Dean, a gentleman named Tom Hudson.
Weeks (or months?) later, I received my acceptance letter in the mail. I couldn't believe it. At that moment, it was the biggest positive thing that had ever happened to me. I was living with my Dad in an apartment on Hornby Street, although I can't remember if during this time he was home, or if he was in hospital.
I felt like I'd just squeaked through the portfolio interview process, but who knows how. If it's possible, I think I felt simultaneously proud and ashamed of my portfolio pieces - a series of pen and ink drawings and sketches - mostly scribbly portraits of my face and my friends and family, plus a couple of felt pen "pointillist" attempts done in Grade 12. "This art school must have some kind of quota system for taking in new students" I thought later. My East Van neighbourhood felt a long way away. I was 19 and still very, very green in my views.
Being accepted made me want to sketch the people and things around me even more - I felt I needed to prepare myself for a massive new challenge, so I tried to bolster my meager skills however I could. I took a life drawing session down on Granville Island, and blushed a little at the young woman who posed naked while we all scratched away on large sheets of paper. She saw me blushing and smiled at me, so I smirked and blushed some more. Dad would never approve of this, so I never told him. Years later, when I recounted a similar experience in Life Drawing class, he practically lost his temper. "What the hell do you need to draw a naked woman for?!" he almost yelled. "Why not draw fruit!" I almost doubled over laughing at him for that one. My dear old Dad didn't get it at all - not back then. (He got it later, and eventually was 100% on board.)
In what could only have been some subconscious act of self-defeat, I actually slept in on Registration Day! I showed up hours late, in a panicky state, mentally berating myself with every put-down I knew, feeling sure that I had just fucked up the first good thing I'd ever done before even getting a chance to do it.
I wandered around the school for a few moments, not knowing where to go or who to speak with, but soon enough, I saw a familiar face, Dennis Rickett, the older bald English gent who had been one of my interviewers. I explained my predicament to him, and within a moment, I was sitting with two Foundation Instructors, John Wertschek (my other portfolio interviewer) and Sam Carter. Soon enough, they had me slotted into my Foundation classes, and I felt immensely relieved to have my situation sorted out.
Going There...
Like every new school I've ever entered, my art school smelled unique - vaguely like acrylic paint and freshly cut cardboard. This was the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in September of 1985.
The white walls, blue doors and window frames and lego-like IKEA flooring hinted at a modernism that I wouldn't be familiar with for a year or two. Boys and girls with punk hairdos and black leather jackets strutted together looking like and talking about lifestyles that I was sure were foreign to me.
My first class, on the morning of my first day at Emily Carr was Creative Process, with John Wertschek. It felt like some alternate universe version of homeroom in high school: a bunch of young people blinking at each other across wide work tables, not knowing what to say. This was the first time I saw my classmates, and I could tell I wasn't the only young 'un in the room. John had set his room up with black walls, low lighting, and some nice Chinese paper lampshade hanging low over the massive table in the middle of the room. We did an exercise he called "The Rock Game". Everyone took a turn placing or moving a rock on the table. I didn't "know" what the hell I was supposed to do, but I felt something out of it, or at least I thought I did... I tended to worry about things in my life a lot, but that didn't help you in the rock game. You pretty much just had to do the game. I decided the rock game was very cool.
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