Like Stars by Jack Whitsitt

Today we have another ArtOMatic artist interview.  I’m getting lots of comments that folks like reading these.  Well, I love making them.  I very much enjoy learning about how other artists deal with their medium and their lives as artists.  So this works for all of us!  Can’t ask for much more.

I am fascinated by Jack’s focus on story and narrative for his artwork, as that tends to be mine also.  His outcomes are very different than mine, which is as it should be with story and a storyteller.  Lately I’m finding "story" everywhere!  Makes me happy I focused on that for my master’s work – good foundation for where the world seems to be headed.

Describe your artistic process and how you came to your current art style.

A number of people have noted that my work tends to be done in a very wide range of styles.  This is true when you compare one piece to another, but when you look at my work in bulk, it keeps its own rhythm over time.  I try and let my subject matter at the time, and how I’m feeling about it, dictate technique.  I’m much more consistent in subject matter than style and almost neurotically draw faces.  When it comes down to it, I think the only things that matter to a story – real or imagined – are the characters and who they are.  Everything else in between is just a mechanism to describe people.  That’s just how I’ve always been and despite a couple of ill-conceived attempts to change subject matter in the past, that’s what I’m stuck with for better for for worse.

Technically, I love working with color and enjoy the tactile experience of working with conte-crayon, chalk, oil pastels, etc.  The act and process of creation is cathartic for me and I will often sacrifice the end result of a piece by overworking it in the name of fun and enjoyment. I get stuff all over me.  My taste for color has evolved from my initial fascination with charcoal.  i love its quick and dirty nature and how it allows me to race my hands around a page until an emotional sketch with lots of movement emerges minutes later.  I still do like that kind of interaction with my work, but an art teach in High School taught me (whether she knew it or not ) to be able to abuse color in ways that helped me tell stories occurring beneath the surface while still keeping my forms somewhat literal.  That is what led me into the conte and pastel work.

What/who are your artistic inspirations?

I don’t really follow any particular artists or style intentionally in my own work, but I’m a big fan of pop art in general, anything that uses juxtaposition, mixes metaphors, exhibits tautological truth in art, and anything that really can nail down physical and intangible realities at the same time.  Other artistic inspiration comes from the music I listen to, the books I read, the people I meet, and the things I see.  Off the top of my head, I tend to like Michael Parkes, any loosely sketched and emotional comic book work, Malcolm Liepke.

Why did you choose to show in ArtOMatic?

I chose to show in ArtOMatic primarily because I didn’t want to be left out!  I originally wasn’t too excited about it, but after participating in Art Outlet’s Flux (a small Salon style even that went on in Arlington) and hearing the ArtDC crowd go on about ArtOMatic, the enthusiasm spread to me and I jumped in.  Since I’m also on the board of directors for Art Outlet, I thought it would be a great chance to network.  Ultimately, though, it just seemed like it would be fun.

Where else can people find your work?

My work can be found online through my blog at http://sintixerr.wordpress.com and in my virtual world gallery for DC artists, the SintixErr Gallery.  Directions to the SintixErr can be found at http://jackwhitsitt.com/dcsl.  I also have other pieces in private collections.

Are you a full time artist?

I’m not a full time artist.  I work in the security industry and am on a contract right now to TSA to do information security architecture over there.  My past work has focused on the research and operational aspects of how to best "find hackers" and some of that research has been referenced in other people’s thesis level work (as well as used by government and military networks here and there).  Some of my digital art comes from the data visualization work I’ve done as part of those "finding hackers" efforts when we looked at traffic on large, multi-continent networks.

Do you have any tips for artists out there?

Work on pieces and projects constantly, whether you feel like it or not.  Practice matters.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I run a free art gallery for Washington, DC based artists in the virtual world, "Second Life" [here’s a YouTube of Second Life Art Gallery] called the SintixErr Gallery.  Second Life, beyond the hype you hear in the news, has value in that is provides an associative social context for collaborative interaction with information, i.e., you remember and process things usually mostly in the context of their surroundings and other things.  Second Life does a much better job than the web or text or TV or IRC in providing the human social components of context and so experience and learning tend to be much more valuable there than in the other mediums.  Because it also has a viable market economy that translates into real world money and because live audio and video can  be imported into the virtual world from the real one, these three tings together make it an ideal place to create, present, sell, buy, and explore art and merge real and virtual events.

[Here and here are more articles and another video on Second Life.  That’s a new concept/term to me and so I thought I’d share my explorations]

Not only that, but Second Life’s nuance, restrictions, capabilities and interactive nature make it a unique medium for the creation of art – Second Life art is unlike any other works you’ll encounter.

I’ll be talking more about these things at a couple of workshops at ArtOMatics, will be broadcasting some of the live ArtOMatic events into Second Life, and there will be a live video projection of the gallery in the artOMatic Digital Arts room [ed note:  6th floor, I think].

Here are some more of Jack’s work, Hackers Like Stars, and  2nd Life Gallery

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Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s post on The Secret, which appeared, as it happens, in yesterday’s Washington Post, Self-Help’s Slimy ‘Secret’ .  You may have to log in to read it, but it’s free and only takes a minute. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but it’s an interesting tag-on.

thought for the day:  ‘Be kind to you.’  The ocean spoke with a sweep of magnitude and a suppleness that could polish rocks and shells and broken hearts and driftwood. ‘Be even kinder to yourself when you feel fear.  Love, not anger, inspires right action.  It takes tenderness to breed the fierce.’  Tama Kieves, This Time I Dance:  Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love