Chuck Redux

Do You Red Dot?

You'll have to forgive Chuck Redux, but we are obsessed with the art that's been donated for this year's Red Dot Auction. From the four corners of the continent--North American, that is--to the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity the works of art have been flowing in this past couple of weeks. We are close to receiving 100 works -- which was our goal -- to celebrate the centennial year of Chuck Jones. 

There are paintings of horses...

...and then there are paintings of horses <nudge, nudge, wink, wink>. 

There are abstract works of art -- including photography -- that are as brilliantly conceived as the most complex oil painting.

Yes, it's a photograph.

And there are charming re-imaginings and what-ifs:

In other words, there is something for everyone at the Red Dot Auction! Bidding begins at only $100.00--and all of the proceeds help fund the creativity programs of the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity like Pastelicious and Dynamic Dioramas led by the Center's resident teaching artist, Christopher Scardino, who by-the-way, has contributed a stunning work of art to the Red Dot.

So, do you Red Dot? Would you like more information about bidding long-distance? Contact any of our galleries, or Chuck Redux and we'll gladly help you find the work that means the most to you. Which artist's work will you take home?

Chuck Redux: robert@ChuckJonesCenter.org

Chuck Jones Gallery, Costa Mesa: CostaMesa@ChuckJones.com or 866-Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones Gallery, Santa Fe: SantaFe@ChuckJones.com or 800-290-5999

Chuck Jones Gallery, San Diego: SanDiego@ChuckJones.com or 888-294-9880

The Sensational Ron Burns Paints Bugs Bunny!

The Chuck Jones Galleries are pleased to announce that art superstar, Ron Burns, he of the neon-colored dogs and cats, is working on new original work utilizing the characters created and developed by Chuck Jones. His first work, a portrait of Bugs Bunny, is on the easel; you'll be able to follow his progress by clicking here. 

Over 20 years ago, artist Ron Burns picked up a paint brush for the first time and started painting as a release from the corporate world where he was running his Los Angeles based marketing and design studio.  It was only a couple of years later, in his quest to find what truly inspired him, that he looked down into the eyes of his newly rescued puppy Rufus that began his fine art career of painting bright, colorful, loving dogs.

It wasn't until he sold a few paintings of the family four-legged-kids, that his wife, Buff, said she could no longer part with the paintings and so, once more, Ron found himself looking for inspiration.  He found it next, when taking a trip to the local animal shelter while on vacation in Aspen.  After painting several of the dogs and selling the paintings, he donated a percentage back to the shelter beginning what Ron calls, Art is Going to the Dogs.

He might have remained content painting only shelter dogs, but on September 11, 2001 after taking his morning run, he turned on the TV to see the world change forever.  As he watched the events unfold he saw the story of Sirius, the explosive-detection dog that lost his life in Tower II.  He reached out to David Lim his handler which lead to the painting of Sirius and then on to meeting pet therapy dogs and search and rescue dogs involved in the tragedy.

Since then Ron has painted numerous dogs that have survived insurmountable odds, dogs that devote their lives through their service to humans as well as continuing to portray the beauty of rescued dogs and the much loved family member.

His work has been seen throughout the media world from CNN to Time magazine, collected around the world and honored by various awards.  It is now fair to say that he has accomplished what few artists have; and that is an art movement.  Today artists around the world see his art and are inspired to paint like Burns.  Who could ever have imagined, that looking down into his best friend furever's eyes could have changed his life so drastically as well as the art world.

Don't forget to follow Ron's progress as he paints everyone's favorite cartoon rabbit, Bugs Bunny!

Meet Your Mind--A User's Guide to the Science of Consciousness

Chuck Redux stumbled upon To the Best of Our Knowledge website the other day and we were really taken by this series on the User's Guide to the Science of Consciousness, particularly the part on the neuroscience of creativity. There are six components that range from "Memory and Forgetting" to "Extraordinary Minds", each one is available as an audio interview accompanied by its transcription. Really amazing stuff, here's the intro to the series:

Your thoughts and feelings, your joy and sorrow....it’s all part of your identity, of your consciousness. But what exactly is consciousness? It may be the biggest mystery left in science. And for a radio show that loves 'Big Ideas,' we had to take up the question.  

In our six-hour series, you’ll hear interviews with the world’s leading experts - neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, philosophers, writers and artists. We’ll take you inside the brains of Buddhist monks, and across the ocean to visit France’s ancient cave paintings. We’ll tell you how to build a memory palace, and you’ll meet one of the first scientists to study the effects of LSD.
 
How do our brains work?  Are animals conscious? What about computers?  Will we ever crack the mystery of how the physical “stuff” of our brains produces mental experiences?

What does science tell us about the most personal question of all:

Who am I?

Take some time and investigate. It's well worth your time. 

"Famishius Fantasticus" Premiers at Dakota High School

Michael Markowski, a composer and longtime fan of Chuck Jones, recently was commissioned by the Wind Ensemble of Dakota High School in Macomb, Michigan to create a musical work for them. The result was "Famishius Fantasticus" a four-minute "wild concert-closer" in the words of the composer. 

Mr. Markowski writes in a letter to Chuck Redux: "Thank you so much for allowing me to share my music with you. Chuck Jones has been a surprisingly big part of my creative life, from watching Looney Tunes as a kid to studying them in college as a film major. Famishius Fantasticus was so much fun to write, and I'm excited that I will be able to share my love for the original Looney Tunes cartoons with the current generation of high school and college music students who, in most cases, have never even seen one." 

In the foreword to the score, he's said, "When I was first asked to write a piece that "captured the energy of the students," I couldn't help but think that Wile E. Coyote was the man (or animal) for the job. The title, Famishius Fantasticus, is a direct allusion to the faux binomial (the scientific Latin name) of Wile E. Coyote, as shown in the opening freeze-frame of the 1956 Looney Tunes cartoon, There They Go-Go-Go! 

"...[Famishius Fantasticus] is dedicated to all my friends and colleagues who vehemently go after their dreams, who never give up, and who continue totry new things no matter how many crazy ideas might blow up in their faces."

And we agree! Here, then is the Dakota High School Wind Ensemble of Macomb, Michigan, performing Michael Markowski's Famishius Fantasticus. Enjoy! (Please pay close attention to the percussionists, they work overtime for this piece. You may also note that ping-pong balls, an air horn and the magnificent Mahler Hammer are utilized to produce some delightful sounds.)

 

How Creativity Works (sometimes)

Chuck Redux stumbled across this poem by Frank O'Hara, one of mid-century America's great poets and critics, the other day, as one does when surfing the internet and over the intervening days as it has sunk in and had time to percolate, CR has come to think of it as a poem about the nature of creativity and thinks you will too.

Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES

"From the Acme Catalog" a Sunday Crossword by Merl Reagle

In the Sunday, October 21, 2012 issue of "The Washington Post Magazine" they published a crossword puzzle by the indomitable Merl Reagle titled "From the Acme Catalog". It features clues from eight different Chuck Jones cartoons and one from Robert McKimson's "Boston Quackie" of 1957 that involve products ordered by Wile E. Coyote (except for McKimson's "Boston Quackie" when it is ordered by Daffy Duck). Results (and laughs) guaranteed! 

Many thanks to long-time collector of Chuck Jones artwork, Bill, for sharing this puzzle with all of us. Enjoy! (Click on the puzzle for a larger, printable version.)

 

Infused with Enthusiasm

One of the attendees at the Center's recent fall fundraiser, Creativity Season, Laura Tanimoto, along with her mother, Lisa, sent the Center's Council president, Tracy Tanner, a wonderful thank-you note that they've graciously allowed us to share with all of you. Laura is a film studies student here in Orange County and supports the Center's efforts to reinvigorate the creative spirit in all of us.  

The card reads:

Dear Tracy Tanner,

I want to thank you so much for inviting me and my mother to such a wonderful event. I was 1000% fulfilled by all of the artwork and people I met there. especially as a film major in college I thought it was very helpful to meet so many people that appreciate film, animation, and art. I was really infused with enthusiasm.

I also want to say congratulations on bringing the state of California to recognize all of the phenomenal things the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity does for the world. Art is so important and I would never wnt it to be forgotten in legislations. This was such a great thing to do and my mother and I were so proud when you were recognized!

Thank you once again Tracy for an exciting evening and for the gift of inspiration, enthusiasm, and passion that was left on our hearts! Sincerely Laura Tanimoto

And a quick note from Laura's mother: 

Dear Tracy, 

Laura wrote everything I wanted to say. Thank you so much!! Lisa Tanimoto

 

Where Does Your Inspiration Come From?

Where does your inspiration come from? Chuck Redux thinks this photo of Chuck Jones sitting in the high desert outside of Los Angeles in 1961 on the folded-down convertible top of his Ford Consul painting is inspirational. There's beauty all around us everyday, whether it is the wet pavement on 35th Street in New York City or the dry, parched desert of southern California, and all that's needed is for one of us to stop for just a moment (put down that digital device now!) and look for it. See, it's right there.

Please share with us where you find inspiration to be creative in the comments section!

Photograph of Chuck Jones courtesy the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity.

"The Chuck Jones School of Creativity" by Jen Myers

Chuck Redux stumbled upon the blog of Jen Myers, a professional designer/writer/speaker/teacher, and a post she wrote recently titled "The Chuck Jones School of Creativity". In her post, Ms. Myers writes about how she came to understand and nurture her own creativity as she read Chuck's autobiography, "Chuck Amuck." Her perspective is one well-worth sharing and so we've posted a bit of it with a link at the end to the rest of her story on her own website. Enjoy!

When I was a teenager, after I had completed the mandatory girl career aspiration phase of marine biologist, I determined I wanted to grow up to be an animated cartoonist. It seemed to be the natural fruition of my interest in sketching, my attraction to the bright and frenetic and my affinity for philosophical anarchy. I studied the limited number of films I had access to, planned to go to art school and thought that, since Disney was likely out of my reach, I would shoot for a job at one of the smaller network studios.

I am not an animator now. I didn't even come close. I decided not to go to art school, with the help of stunningly nonsensical logic along the lines of "I'm not good enough" (isn't that what you go to school to fix?), and thus began an almost comical progression of educational and professional missteps, false starts, backtracks and strange, unforeseen successes. I managed to stumble into a job I love but which is very unlike the one I first anticipated.

At least, it is superficially. As a web and interface designer, I'm not drawing cartoons. But I am creating things, and creativity draws both inspiration and instruction from a variety of sources. There are still lessons I learned from cartoons that I apply to my life and work now - especially as it concerns the creator who me want to make them in the first place.

I have a theory that Chuck Jones is the most well-known and yet most overlooked creator of the twentieth century. Everyone knows what he made, but not many people know he made it. Which is a shame, because beyond his legacy as the artist/director who made some of Warner Brothers' most famous characters and short films during the 1930s-60s, he was also an astute observer of human character, a learned storyteller and one hell of a writer. Most notably, he knew how describe and explain his process of creation. This is very rare, and equally valuable to someone else learning the process. His two autobiographies/drawing manuals are treasure troves of stories, advice and guidance on how to be creative. Which, as I've discovered, you can be no matter what you do.

START ANYWHERE AND STICK WITH IT

... my first instructor at Chouinard Art Institute, like Nicolaides at the Art Students League, greeted his beginning classes with the following grim edict: "All of you here have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them, the better it will be for everyone." ¹

More than ten years after I more or less gave up on being an artist, I started drawing again. It was, in a word, demoralizing. Whatever skill I once had has most certainly fled with disuse, and I'm essentially a beginner again. There's an impulse to repeat history and declare I'm simply "not good enough" as a precursor to quitting.

But I think often about this anecdote. It's not truly grim, even if you're just starting out. In fact, when you're just starting out, it's liberating. It takes away the pressure of being judged. It's okay if you create something bad. It's okay if you create many things bad. You need to get it all out.

And it leads you into the next lesson - you need to keep doing it, over and over again, until it is good.

To continue reading, click on The Chuck Jones School of Creativity, it will open in a new window.

 

 

A Few Photos from Last Night's Red Dot Auction

What a night! The Chuck Jones Center for Creativity held its 2nd annual Red Dot Auction last night and it was a spectacular evening. There was art, there was food, there were cocktails, there was an art project ("Connect the Dots!" which was awesome, more on that in a future post), there were raffle prizes, there was a gong, there were many, many bids on the silent auction artwork, and the supporters of creativity raised their paddles during the live auction making it a memorable evening of love and enthusiasm. These are just a few of the photos Chuck Redux had time to snap at the beginning and at the end of the evening...more to come in the next few days.  

First there was peace and quiet as we finished the installation of the Red Dot Auction art.

61 works of art were donated to the Center from over 50 artists from around the country. Thank you all for donating your creativity and talent!

And then it was all over...John Ramirez (l), one of the participating artists,  met up with a friend and artist from Rowland Heights High School, Andrea and her husband, Jeff.

The Center's resident teaching artist, Christopher Scardino (left) with artist Mike Kungl (center; both contributed beautiful works of art to the auction) pal around with art collector Stuart P.(r).

Artist, muralist, and actor, James C. Mulligan (l) with one of the Center's community ambassadors, Linda Krall.

National Sales Director for the Chuck Jones Gallery, Mike Dicken (far left) with his wife, Jamie (2nd from left) and collectors Sandra and Louis L. take a break from discussing all of the art they won in the silent auction. Thank you all for a great evening! We couldn't do it without donors like you.

Pam Marsden, program director for the Center with donor Tom M. compare patterns at the end of the evening.

Did I mention there was a gong? The magnificent, the talented, the beautiful Juliana Hansen takes a swing at our noise-maker. You can catch Juliana at the El Capitan this summer in the theatrical review that opens the new Disney film, "Brave".

Watch this space for more photos and details from last night's gala fundraiser for the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity. In the meantime, Chuck Redux is going to go take a little nap and rest his weary bones.  

And many thanks to the hundreds of people who came out last night and declared their support for creativity through their generous donations at both the live and silent auctions--we appreciate you!