Welcome Post
Hello and welcome to my website and blog! I am very excited to be launching my new site and hope everyone enjoys it. For my first post I would like to tell you a little more about myself and my journey of becoming an artist. I would also like to tell you about Mountain Bird Studios and what to expect from me in future blog posts. Please like, share, and leave me a commit for me below! I would love to hear from you!
The Journey to Now
Part one: The Early Days~ Can you think back to when you were a child? Children have such creative and free minds, limitless to what we may think is “achievable”. When you were a kid you probably got asked more than once what you wanted to be when you “grew up”. There was no limit to what you wanted to be, maybe you wanted to be an astronaut, firemen, chef, doctor, maybe you wanted to do what your mother or father did. Or maybe you wanted to be a lot of things, like most kids it probably changed like the wind, going from one dream to another. Whatever your dream was though, it seemed like there was nothing stopping you from becoming that. You saw someone else be it so why couldn’t you? Maybe that dream you had faded away as you grew older and the ways of “real life” set in; or possibly the dream you had was dismissed by your parents or someone else. Maybe you heard “you can never be that” or “that doesn’t make any money” or yet, “you cant get a job doing that”. But when you are a child does that really matter to you? No, you are not worried about how much money it will make or your likelihood of getting a job. You want to become that dream because you had a passion and a desire for it and nothing else mattered. Well like you I had a dream. I was about five or so when I decided I wanted to become an artist. From then on I never wanted to really be anything else, I made a decision and that was it. I was always drawn to art, when I was little I was always drawing something (mostly superman). I was captivated by the drawings in comic books and in children books. Most times I wouldn’t even read them. I would just look through the pictures. As I got a little older I realized I had a natural talent for art and it was something I excelled at. Another thing I think is important you know is that I was born with dyslexia. A lot of you may think you know what dyslexia is, but you most likely don’t know the reality of it. I encourage all of you to watch this quick four minute video on dyslexia. It does an excellent job describing what it is and how it effects our brain. (video posted below) There are many different types and severities of dyslexia. I have a more severe case and reading, grammar, spelling, writing is all very difficult for me. The basic “problem” with someone with dyslexia is decoding and grouping letters together into words and sentences. It takes someone with dyslexia five times longer to decode a word than an average person. To say I struggled in school with reading and english is an understatement. I would work at something for hours in school and to read an assignment for class took the whole night. I was in modified classes until high school and then I had modifications on tests until I graduated. Today I have made strides in overcoming the effects of my disability. I will always struggle with it but over many years of learning I have learned decode letters more normally. In fact most of you would never know today that I am dyslexic. With every superpower there is a kryptonite; you see dyslexia can cause a disability in reading but it also causes a greater aptitude to the arts. I do not think of dyslexia as a burden but as a gift. It is part of who I am and it lead me to become an artist.
Part two: Caught in the Middle~ I have always felt like im stuck in the middle when it comes to who I am as an artist. In late high school I discovered the world of graphic design. It was on a family vacation we were in Bar Harbor Maine. We were walking the town and went into a studio. I was intrigued with the work I saw by Alan Claude. He made travel posters of light houses across New England, he had a very simple graphic style. It was similar to the old travel posters made by the WPA back in the mid 1950’s (another huge inspiration of mine). I learned he started out as a graphic designer and from there I set my course to become one. Once in college though I felt like I didn’t quite belong. I started college at the University of North Texas and in one of my design classes my professor referred to fine artists as “down stairs people” that being where the fine arts students had classes but we were designers and we don’t use traditional media. It was there I thought to myself “I kinda want to be downstairs with them”. But yet I never quite felt like I was fully a “fine artist”. I loved graphic design and I loved combining my fine art skills with my design skills. This lead me to a small town in Colorado called Gunnison. I transferred to Western State Colorado University in the fall of 2014. Their art program encouraged you to take a painting class with your design class. It was a small intimate program that lead you to have a lot of freedom with your projects. You could use your skills you learned in that painting class in your design project. It is also here I found my love for Printmaking. After my first semester of printmaking I knew I wanted to continue with it and I found my passion. Printmaking combined everything I loved about both design and art. With some rearranging of my schedule and help from some great professors I was able to double major in both Printmaking and Graphic Design. In December 2016 I received my BFA in Printmaking and my BA in Graphic Design. It was a lot of work and a lot of long hours producing two exhibitions at the same time and hung in the same week.
Part three: Mountains and Birds~ At the top of my website I give my definition of what a Graphic Artist is, combining my graphic design skill set with my fine arts skill set together. Really it is just describing who I am. My work covers a wide range of mediums, from traditional graphic design and traditional fine art, to photography and printmaking using one or more of these mediums together in a piece of art. So, how did I come up with Mountain Birds Studios and what does it mean? Besides the fact I think its a cool name, all three words are meaningful to me in describing who I am. I will describe what each word means to me:
- Mountain- I have always been drawn to the Natural Landscape. I love being outside and exploring. There are many beautiful sights and creations of this world but I am always drawn to the mountainous landscape. To the the cascading peaks reach up and touch the sky, it is breath taking to stand and look up at one.
- Bird- I can contribute my love of birds to my grandparents. They are big bird watchers and it rubbed off on me. They are majestic creatures and represent, freedom and hope. I have always thought it would super cool to fly.
- Studios- Studio simply means a place where an artists produces and showcases their art. It was a perfect name to capture but not limit myself to just one medium.
So That is how I got my name Mountain Bird Studios.
Part four: The Future~ Now what should you expect on a normal blog post from me? Well, I will share current and past projects of mine, telling you how I made them and the making process of one of my projects. The projects will vary to all my different art forms so there is something everyone will enjoy. I also hope to share some of my artists inspirations and give a little art history on particular topic I enjoy. I will share my travel updates. I hope to share some of myself and give you hope that somebody to pursue their dream.
I hope you have enjoyed this I look forward to sharing my first art post shortly! I am so glad to have the support from you and I’m glad that I can share my story even if it’s to just a few people. I would like to end with one of my favorite quotes from a great book and movie called, “The Little Prince”:
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Thank you for reading,
Bryan.
