Four Artistic Stories to Spark Creativity

I started painting music just because I would try to explain synesthesia so many times it never quite made as much sense to describe it verbally so I thought it would be best just to put it on canvas just because I've always been an artist and it made it much easier for people to be able to understand it my name is Willis McCracken and I am a synesthetic artist synesthesia is a neurological condition where your brain is basically cross-wired so certain stimuli will come in and it'll create the wrong response in my brain so from me that's listening to music and it's translated into color in my head I'm going to paint superstition by Stevie Wonder I love the song superstition just because it's dynamic and funky and just fun and expressive whenever I start a piece if I have to listen to the song first to even know what kind of colors I'd like to use there are some songs that I hate that I like the way that they look a little bit like a lot of pop music it can be pink and purple and you know just all these fun bright colors but songs not that good so one of the other I appreciate it somehow you know you kind of really have to be in the right vibe to be able to paint if you're not in the right vibe you're not gonna make anything good I think the prettiest onra of music is jazz music I love blues and golds and whites and it just seems very pearly and iridescent a little bit when I listen to Etta James at last the thing that stuck out most to me was just her voice at the very beginning when she goes into the last then it's just a very bright and but also warm sort of feeling and very kind of classic jazzy which jazz music generally has a very gold and blue sort of look to it music has always been a very big part of my life and my older brother is very musical and when I think back of him playing the guitar for me I think of the colors of what those memories are I was always a little disappointed because I was never very musically inclined it was really cool to have a way to bring music and to you know my life in a different sort of way [Music] now remember my first experience of seeing this amazing production of art that was different than what I had seen and there was such a personal expression by the person making it they may or may not have had language they may or may not been able to communicate with me but they're making this work that's really you know a window into their soul when you ask someone who's been disenfranchised their entire life to tell me your story it's amazing how the door opens [Music] creative growth art center is the oldest and largest Center for artists with disabilities in the world we were founded the idea of disability then was so radically different than what it is now we didn't come out of a hospital setting no we didn't come out of a vocational training program we came out of some artists getting together in a home in Oakland putting paint on the table in the garage and just saying this is what artists do and this is how we can change the social fabric from those kind of humble beginnings we now serve a hundred and sixty two artists with disabilities in our studio every week it's a very big space within that you'll find almost every possible expression of visual art you'll see the rug making area in the woodshop the ceramic studio the fashion area the painting and drawing area and everyone's working together and everyone can see each other it's different than most places and some people don't believe it some people think like you must have doctors and you must have all these other things so how do you deal with the the studio every day it's like no you know art is the common language and a lot of our folks don't verbalize or speak or they speak sign language but art is the language that moves us forward this is called the oil red cheat number one red is the only color I can see you look at work of an artist like Danny Miller you know he's pretty much nonverbal his mother tried to encourage him to speak by telling him how to spell words when he was a boy every night and he never spoke them until he started to draw them look at an artist like Monica Valentine she takes pins and she takes sequins and colored beads and she strings those together on the pin and she puts them into styrofoam forms to form these optically charged sculptures when you realize that Monica has trust etic eyes and can't see color or see anything it moves into this whole other range we want the voice we wanna is pure and personalized as it can be and 45 years later it continues to work how's that building come along Pete it's looking good the record of success that creative growth has is phenomenal it's off the charts in terms of what an art school or any other sort of enterprise would consider to be acceptable we have three artists with work in the Museum of Modern Art permanent collection in New York in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art collection and this year we have the first two people with developmental disabilities they've work in the Venice Biennale the Venice Biennale is the most important prestigious by invitation-only exhibition in the world their work is sought after you know a piece is done and there's a waiting list Rosina I haven't even said hello to you yet today how are you to be able to work in a place like this is beyond anything I had hoped for I get to work with phenomenally talented people and and to see how they negotiate the day every day how they get around obstacles how they continue to say yes when everyone is telling them no that's an amazing thing that's a life lesson I get reminded of every single day [Music] these paintings they aren't done with acrylic oil or watercolor it's good did you know Tomas Microsoft Excel the computer program this is a story about tats well the Microsoft Excel artist [Music] what does she wanna put each tattooing no not even an outside this when tats will retired he decided he wanted to paint but there was one problem he was cheap husband cocking on a ship were chosen to get Easter Bunny pass uncle day no sorry I'll get the rope in the mukou gonna mean he wasn't named mrs. Dooley somebody was in it he didn't even want to pay for an art program so he used what was already on his computer the soyil day Gina Carano exhibit ya see pretty cousin so how do you paint in Excel the line tool it's usually used for spreadsheet graphs that you can make trees with and the bucket tool it helps with subtle shading on for example the crest of a volcano the Sioux equal 20 unit that you know MA so that sort of a hawk in the you al can take a Muslim votaciones saved a Yokohama Tony Tony sending kernels Volta Teton Sioux June and conventional caçapava so simple rocket yeah cream at an encode a toasty at entire package anakov boffin and a in Okanagan accepted in the Excel selection [Music] it's a you know Nagaraja 399 oh she were very missing today what does he know when they put a hot tip reverse time today baby to see you got time disking [Music] the idea came from my father he told me that there are pictures on the walls and the subway stations of old buildings old New York 20 years later after going through everything school college and all that stuff I thought I've been fine and give it a look and just see what my father was talking about it was going to be a short article as an illustration station with some pictures and tells stories but it kind of ran away with me what I set out to do is make a record of the appearance of the subway stations in New York City I take drawings of the mosaic or fans designs on the walls which embellish the station I devoted much of my time as I can to doing it evenings weekends vacation time even you know it's all it's a sort of a consuming project so far I've completed four volumes I'm one two three and four my ambition is to take care of all the lines until all four hundred and ninety four hundred ninety six hundred sixty nine ordering seventy stations have been recorded and soon [Music] why am i doing it okay my purpose in doing this study is to make a record of what we've got I want to like document when it was done and who did it so that's what I wanted to do that's my focus is to give credit to those who made it possible I really started in earnest in 1978 and I thought I'd get this project finished ooh wrapped up by the year 2030 which is only fourteen years from now perhaps I have a theory estimate and suggest maybe close to the 2040 I mean you know 90s then but I can still see [Music] pleasure doing the job is his payment I've committed to it that's all it's my prayer is my purpose it's my life it's become my identity so I'd look up to it [Music]

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 90,933

Rating: 4.9687152 out of 5

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, artist, art, painting, excel, paint, great big reels, new releases

Id: KtfzhVJv708

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2019