"Artist" Appreciation

I'll be the first to admit- okay, maybe third- that I'm not very good at keeping up to date with current artists, especially considering my major. That's why my list looks… a little 'off'. Don't worry, I checked and double-checked this list, and it is exactly the way that I want it. It is incomplete, yes, and has some people on it that might be considered to be running jumps to the "artist" definition. However, I appreciate ideas more than style, accessibility more than 'creativity', and I firmly believe that art is found in everything that we see and do.

Azuzephre- I like the way that he takes complex and sometimes vague ideas and simplifies them with his characters.

SilverStitch- This person uses a very simplified style that draws players through a journey that they might not have taken otherwise.

Terry Pratchett- Simply a genius with blending his chosen medium- words- with ideas in a way that his audience can relate to.

Eiichiro Oda- Crosses borders with his characters and storyline that I find very impressive.

Patrick Rothfuss- If this man were to write at the same volume and depth and Terry, I could die happy, it's as simple as that.

Randal Keith Milholland- I appreciate the level of commitment that Randy puts in to create a quality drawn and written comic.

Leonardo Da Vinci- The man was undeniably brilliant- it's impossible not to learn something from him.

Tim Burton- His designs and plots simply fascinate me.

George Carlin- Got his message out through a medium largely ignored- comedy- and succeeded magnificently.

Eyezmaze- Has a style that I feel reflects my own fairly closely, but in a distinctively different environment.

As for my artist's statement, I think only one will really do: Azuzephre, since he's the only artist on my list that actually focuses almost entirely on visual art.

For starters, my name is Jeff, and I’m living between Los Angeles and London, in the process of transferring from Art Center College of Design to Maidstone University for the Creative Arts.

I first started drawing Pon and Zi in 2004. I was an angsty, antisocial junior in high school, and the violent themes of the first comics reflected my disconnect from people.

I began dating in December of that year, and as I became less bitter and more cuddly, so did the comics. Originally gray and nameless, Pon and Zi were named and given colors along with different personalities. Pon, colored yellow, is usually the optimistic instigator, and Zi, colored blue, retains some of the disconnect and apathy found in the first comics. Neither is assigned a gender because each of their personalities could be identified by either male or female readers, depending on the comic and dynamics of the relationship the reader is involved in.

Pon and Zi, blatantly very simple in design, were originally drawn as doodles on notes, never to be taken more seriously than a side project to the illustration portfolio I’d been building since before their inception, so currently, I’m going to school, working on my portfolio and seeing where it takes me.

The reason why I find this profound is that this guy is still in school, trying to graduate college, but his creations- doodles, basically, that he likely threw onto Deviantart on a whim- have affected the hearts and minds of most likely thousands of people. That is influence. That is power. That is absolutely among the most amazing things that I've ever encountered.