The last few days I have been posting a lot of old work I did at the beginning of my career on INSTAGRAM and it’s been a lot of fun. For years some of this stuff had ridden around in my portfolio case until one day, when the shape of my work and commercial art itself, had changed completely I removed it, replacing it with a lot of game art and 3D modeling and stuff like that. At the time it was invigorating. Sadly it was also necessary in the face of the changing art scene and the tastes of younger art directors. Once I was told that I was passed over for a job because my style was “too Eighties”, something these days I think would be a complement.
When you start out as an artist the work you do and the work you show is, in a word, pure. Untainted by market forces (and the whims of art directors and clients), the work on the board reflects only you, what you love and how you relate to your audience. As you start working in the field you lose sight of that purity, all you see are the flaws with the slightest imperfection inflating in your eyes to the size of Mount Rushmore.
The third area you get to, the place I am now, is reflecting on your more productive years and recalling the joy of the time when your art was your first love and mode you special. Before deadlines, before egos, before critiques there was that time when you whole heartedly set aside the world and lost time in the images on your drawing table.
As I look at the stuff from my start I get flashbacks to those times, like opening a window in the dead of winter and having early spring run in to fill your studio.
