Brian Ewing Lecture

Poster Design by CCAD Senior Taylor Hicks

Brian Ewing
Illustrator and Graphic Designer
Monday, March 12
11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Canzani Center Auditorium (map it)
Free & Open to the Public

Brian Ewing is one of the most prolific, iconic image-makers in rock music and pop art. Like his heroes and mentors—Frank Kozik, Coop, and Tara McPherson, among others—he has built his success in poster art into a career that spans illustration, album covers, original art prints, skate decks, and shirt designs. Informed by art nouveau, ukiyo-e woodblock printing, SoCal “kustom” car culture, and the comics, Ewing’s work fuses his explorations of perspective, color, and space with classic imagery from American youth culture. His clients have ranged from Metallica and the Warped Tour to the Strokes and Death Cab for Cutie (not to mention The New Yorker and a number of advertising agencies).

Currently a resident of New York City, Ewing attended the American Academy of Art Chicago for Illustration and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design for Fine Arts. His first monograph, Don’t Hold Your Breath: The Art of Brian Ewing, was published by Dark Horse in 2010.
www.brianewing.com

Classic Illustrators for Class

Classic Illustrators

The Gestalt Principles

Rule of Thirds

Or would you rather be a .....

Fish

Being Human

The Multiverse and other Cosmic Farts

RSA Animate

RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilisation

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

First Preview of Art for Story One Black & White

Relevant Articles

Adobe Kills Mobile Flash

Steve Jobs Design Philosophy

Art in Crisis

Future of Books

Digital Comics Discussed

DC and the Kindle

Barnes and Noble vs DC

Literary Influences and Philosophy

Several books have already been discussed on this blog as they have contributed to a particular insight on one or more of my stories, as with Miller's Death of a Salesman informing The Lover story and The Promise. As stated in earlier posts the three greatest sources of inspiration for The Golden Thread are drawn from Somerset Maugham's Razor's Edge, As You Like It by Shakespeare and Will Eisner's Contract with God. The Razor's Edge is used for the message and Contract with God and As You Like It for the structure and form. But there are still a few philosophical concerns that have lead me to four unique authors: Ayn Rand, Charles Bukowski, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.

When I was constructing my seven stories last semester it was important that each of my characters have their own backgrounds and ideologies to make the tales richer. I have no interest in writing or reading narratives that are just didactic soap boxes functioning to force feed an audience the author's beliefs. Regardless, I would be naive to pretend that the situations I construct do not create an environment which draws attention to my biassed concerns. It is in this mind set that I have utilized these authors to enrich my perspective before I create the final artwork.

Joseph Campbell's interviews with Bill Moyer as well as his Myth Course and The Hero With a Thousand Faces were great with regards to understanding motivation and establishing a compelling argument against some of my main beliefs. Campbell says," People say what we are searching for is a meaning for life but I don't think that is what we are really seeking. I think what we are seeking is an experience of being alive so that the life experiences that we have on the purely physical plain will have resonance within those of our inner most being and reality. So that we feel the rapture of being alive. That's what its all finally about." The interesting part about that statement is the stress on the experience rather than the meaning. Another compelling point of interest is when Campbell juxtaposes western against eastern religion and how each differ dramatically in their approach to relationship with man and nature.

While digesting Carl Jung's Man and his Symbols I felt like a kindred spirit. Most of my own philosophies lay very near the notions put forth in this book. His work regarding the soul, dreams, the primordial self and the notion that fulfillment can only be reached by harmony between the conscious and unconscious mind seem to tie alot of the other theories together for me.

With Rand ,specifically in her master work Atlas Shrugged, I was interested in her notions of the individual found in her philosophy of Objectivism. The whole of responsibility rests solely on the shoulders of the self and the mind. All morality can only be discerned valued and perceived through the act of a thinking rational mind. As an artist my favorite passage is from her character Richard Haley.

"But I mean it," said Richard Halley, smiling. "I'm a businessman and I never do anything without payment. You've paid me. Do you see why I wanted to play for you tonight?. . . I don't mean your enjoyment, I don't mean your emotions – emotions be damned! – I mean your understanding, and the fact that your enjoyment was of the same nature as mine, that it came from the same source: from your intelligence, from the conscious judgment of a mind able to judge my work by the standard of the same values that went to write it." (3.2.4.3-7)

And as far as Bukowski is concerned I just needed to bring my mind back down to a place below the clouds with the grit and drudgery of human experience.

“There is a time to stop reading, there is a time to STOP trying to WRITE, there is a time to kick the whole bloated sensation of ART out on its whore-ass.”

The most interesting question posed to me by Walter last year was:

Does life have an innate meaning or do we just assign it one and does it matter?

This semester with Stewart it is:

Whats the difference between an archetype and a stereotype?