"Thinking Made Visible" Video Shorts

Here's a little teaser for an upcoming gig back at the University of Alaska's Museum of the North. Along with a hundred other artists, my work - both as a cartoonist and also as a drawing instructor - will be featured a part of an exhibit that'll run for almost nine months, titled "Thinking Made Visible" (direct links here to videos for "Sketching the Glacier Bear" and "Sketching the Beaver"). Absolutely great footage shot & mixed on-site by the director of exhibits, and seeing firsthand all the outstanding effort, time and energy put onto every wall at the museum by all of the awesome staff of designers, perparators and student assistants - they really know how to put on a show!

It's been since 2017 that I had a solo show up at the museum, but I'm on site each and every semester leading my posses of aspiring talents on sketching field-trips every semester for many years. It's an outstanding resource for research, reference and inspiration, basically a big ol' box stuffed with stuff to draw - every trip I always discover something new, and the students plenty to draw upon for their upcoming pen & ink assignments. Included here as a special bonus for this post are two recent demos that I just did a few weeks ago for a couple Beginning Drawing classes this very semester. In fact the originals of each (ballpoint + various Sharpies) will also be a part of the exhibit - along with my man-purse/gear bag and a small pile of actual sketchbooks from the studio.

I have a bad tendency to talk to the monitor and/or screen instead of directly engaging listeners with repeated eye contact. My bubbling, outgoing and vivacious personality while lecturing is pretty much a controlled panic reaction to being in front of people, and so actually locking eyes with anyone would derail my squirrelish attention span. Case in point on the videos you get the same exact view my wife usually gets of me when at home while I'm on the goddamned computer for hours at a time.

In the almost thirteen minutes between the two shorts (7.29 + 5.25) I manage to turn around only once - right at the end of the bear session, with a smartass quip about needing an applause sign, throwing money and saying “cut!” The flip side of that is I also never shut up the entire time, providing a running commentary on my process of sketching, defining Art, Love & God, and my fursona. While I might not be quite up to Bob Ross boss level – I even occasionally drift away while doing a demo and disengage entirely from communicating with speech – I can effectively walk AND talk… and chew all at the same time (if not weighty topics, then at least some gum).

It's all worth it if not just for the initial footage of sharpening a pencil with a knife (definitely frowned upon by official museum administration) whereupon I am shown deeply inhaling the aroma freshly-shaved pencil and uttering the timeless words “...because nobody ever sniffs a stylus” – which I, for one, am glad to have such a precious moment captured forever for posterity.

...mmm...