My Dad's He(art)

As a navy brat, my father grew up moving every year. For someone who felt more comfortable with animals than meeting a classroom filled with new faces, this was really a diffucult way to live. Part of how he coped was to delve deeply into his imagination, which created a natural desire to draw & create things. His art has always been his heart and as far back as I can remember my dad was always, Jake, THE ARTIST.

I have seen him go through many phases. As a kid, I watched him paint Native American scenes, horses, and desert landscapes on flat, circular baskets. He also painted birds on driftwood. His ability to easily render just about anything has always been amazing to me. When there were birthday parties I attended, we never had much money, so he would make things. Two friends of mine, horse-crazy like the rest of us, got a matted illustration of them with a horse. Another girl got a handpainted handmirror, with her name on it. Whatever the stage of his life, he's always been working and inventing. His homes have always been crammed with junk he's found--crushed trumpets and Mexican rugs hung on the walls, along with his paintings and various inventions. Now that he lives in the suburbs with a young family, he religates his "dumpster diving" asthetic to his two work spaces in the garage, and at his office at work.

His most recent art works are created with an apoxy, I think, for patching up walls and other home repair matters (that elude me). It comes in a powder and then you add water. Once wet, he works at it, shaping it and carving it into shapes as it dries rather quickly. When it is dry, he paints over the surfaces with acrylic paint in various layers, so that the carved markings are clearer and more vivid.
It's a mysterious world that he creates. Every time I look at them, I notice more things. They are the things that dreams and memory seem to create--visual poems. Over Christmas, various relatives asked how my dad was doing, and a few of them asked, "Does he still do art?" I think this is the most rediculous question you could ever ask about my dad. Does a bird still fly? Does the Empire State Building still stand? I answered that yes, he still does art and he may be doing the best work of his life (so far).

He was my first teacher. The earliest lesson I remember at age 4, leaning over a sheet of white paper and a pan of watercolors. He taught me to wet the paper first and the dot it with color to form clouds. I remember using black paint to create gray rain clouds and loving the feeling that the wet paper created a mood for me. I still learn from him every time I see his work.