Please enjoy the wacky world my pencils and paints create for you. As an illustrator I try to bring you a world in which you have not read before or have seen in movies yet. My minds eye comes from behind the curtain in that chocolate factory that Willie Wonka didn't let you peer behind. Now I am opening it for you! Come in and take a look...
Well that was one comment. I have been a public spectacle for now over 25 years on the North Shore. To some I give a good laugh. Others love to see me dance. Inspiration to many to dance themselves. See I distract the audience to look at me so you can feel safe no one is watching you. If you need to be center stage, don't worry I usually find my own corner. I am the ice breaker or comic relief.
At times I have found out that through dance you become the sixth instrument in the band. As a dancer you keep a second rhythm. You and the band feed off each other making new compositions as you go. Sometimes you provide the inspiration for a band to do miraculous things when they started off with a lackluster crowd. Afterward, the place gets jumping and the band hits the spot.
I have been called Crazy Legs, Dancing Guy, That Guy, the Salem Dancer, and the Dancing Viking. I inherited the icebreaker role from my aunt Gloria. It's genetic. My Uncle John on the other side also dances as much as I do a week and he is in his eighties.
I have seen people videoing me for years, even before YouTube, but I only found 3 videos of me dancing. There is rumors that there is years of Salem Access TV shows of me dancing at various festivals? So if you find me dancing, post your videos below in the comments. My future kid could blackmail me in the future or have an understanding of who I am through the years.
So if you see me, come out and dance! It will do your soul GOOD!!!
He is one of my favorites and also one of three artists
who I enjoy immensely that would die on my birthday, 01/23. The other two
being Dali, and Durer. Today he is most famous for his angels and his
work illustrating Dante's Inferno. He also was the inspiration for the look and feel of Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchhausen.
Slam Dancing, Sword Fighting, Keystone Cops, and Painting...
For twenty years I have been dancing and painting behind live bands. What I have found out is throughout the performance the audience are creating in their minds several images before I finish. They end up doing far more work than I do. Before I am done they have created 20 separate paintings in their mind for every time they look back and pay attention to what I am making they create in their mind another image of what the finished piece will look like. Even after I am done, their different experiences and attitudes still interprets my finished piece different than my intention. Which is Awesome. The painting takes a life of its own after I give birth of to it. Paintings take their own life like children do and then you let them go.
I have done this in nightclubs on small easels, large chalkboards, and large canvases. Other times the venue could be in public parks and at music festivals. I have inspired someone in New Orleans to make a living painting large murals as he runs on scaffolding in a jazz club. Sometimes I get the next generation of artist to come up and paint these canvases with me. The youngest being 3 years old.
Dance Painting is great. I get to dance back and forth to the music and apply the paint as I go. Is it more dancing or painting, who is to say but it is definitely gestural... At times I have straight men or women paint with me. Once I had a model in a bikini pose for me. For two hours I would not let her move or almost breathe. What the audience had seen which she couldn't was I was drawing stick figures which had nothing to do with her. Than at the end of the performance I painted her head to toe. Her boyfriend thank me the net day and I have heard she still treasures the shorts I painted her in to this day 20 years later. I also had another person I painted with who I shared the canvas with. We slammed dance and wrestled to get space on the canvas, painted each other, slapped one another with brushes, dropped kick a corned beef and cabbage at each other, and painted over each others' work.
It has been a fun time. Keeping look in different venues and parks this summer, you might just see me there. Plus I am still hoping for someone to catch me painting and dancing at the same time in these picture. But for now, I can only hope...
Cheers,
Chris
For more info on Chris and his illustrated books visit www.salemhousepress.com. Plus you can email him at chris.dowgin@salemhousepress.com to book him for your venue.
Well my mom had always said I was warped. Here might be my backwards odd way of making illustrations. I tend to scan in the different steps of my illustrations just in case I screw up, as an offshoot you get to see the process to make the various books I have written. Some people like the process of art better than the finished piece. Each to their own...
So enjoy the sketches below from A Walk Above Salem.
Cheers, Chris
Sketches and illustrations from A Walk Above Salem, the final book in the Salem Trilogy. For more info on Chris and the Salem Trilogy visit www.salemhousepress.com.
Jon Tenniel was the lead illustrator of Punch, creating over 3,000
caricatures. Then on top of that he is the original and still the most
respected illustrator of Alice in Wonderland. Others illustrating it is
like someone trying to out do Gene Wilder in Willie Wonka... Take a
look!
The American
Imagist Collection has been assembled over more than four decades and is
comprised of the finest American illustration art works extant;
including the largest collection of originals by Maxfield Parrish,
second largest collection of Norman Rockwell, largest J.C. Leyendecker
collection, Howard Pyle ("Father of American Illustration"), NC Wyeth,
Charles Dana Gibson, James Montgomery Flagg, Jessie Willcox Smith,
Howard Chandler Christy, Violet Oakley,
John Falter, and over 150 others. They exhibit approximately 125 to 150
works at a time, much like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in
Boston. They are exhibited in a distinguished architectural setting of
great note. An on-going rotation of art will complement the permanent
portion of the Collection on display.
I Have Seen Everything When I Have Seen Pigs Fly...
If you want a real fun tale about Salem follow Mr. Zac through the
Unzipping Tree and enter the magical whimsical side of Salem! Go ahead and read A Walk Through Salem if you dare! You will never be the same afterward...The book
is available at Remember Salem, the Harry Potter store. Also on Amazon.com.
