The Artistic Biker, Jonathan Manning

I met Jonathan Man­ning, @BladeTheArtist, via Twit­ter. He imme­di­ately embraced the idea of doing an inter­view. I am excited because Jonathan pro­motes his art using online video. He is self-described techy and his entire artis­tic jour­ney is online. Jonathan’s answers reflect a cer­tain play­ful out­look on life. I hope you enjoy his art as well as find­ing out more about this artist who has embraced com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­ogy in such an inter­est­ing way.

The Artis­tic Biker, Jonathan Manning

I use acrylics, water­col­ors and spray paints in my books and on can­vas dur­ing my weekly live broad­casts illus­trat­ing the cre­ative life.

Tell us some­thing you want to say about your­self, it can be any­thing. I have a degree in Biol­ogy and have been a mem­ber of Mensa since I was 13. I have a deep love for all things “techy”.

I have been a closet artist my whole life. I have always kept sketch­books and jour­nals. How­ever, at a very young age some­one dear to me told me that what I was doing wasn’t “pretty” and that I couldn’t really be an artist. I was crushed. I quit openly prac­tic­ing. It didn’t stop me from try­ing to do it secretly, though. My secret obses­sion with blank books and pens has cost me a for­tune over the years. When I say it “cost me”, that’s because I never fol­lowed through with it. I would buy them and use maybe two or three pages and then they would go into a closet until they were even­tu­ally thrown out as part of a cleanup.

In 2007, my grand­fa­ther died, and then in 2008 my mother was diag­nosed with pan­cre­atic can­cer. It turned out that hers was just a tumor and was com­pletely oper­a­ble, but the brush with death was all I needed to open my eyes to the fact that I was miss­ing what pre­cious lit­tle life I have left. I decided to start keep­ing a sketch­book again. Inter­est­ingly enough, that entire jour­ney is online. I have shared every moment of that at artisticbiker.com.

Describe your ideal day. On my per­fect day, I awake to my beau­ti­ful wife and we make love. I run two miles, per­form 50 sit-ups, 50 pushups, and 20 chin-ups. Then I shower, and do my morn­ing draw­ing and music exer­cises. I go down­stairs and fix break­fast while she wran­gles the kids. After break­fast, I walk to the stu­dio where I prep one can­vas, work on the com­po­si­tion of one work, and put the fin­ish­ing touches on another piece. I take a break and check my email and fol­low up any phone calls or mes­sages that need tend­ing to. Then it’s back to the works in progress. At lunch, I walk home and eat then take a short nap. I run errands in the after­noon and return to the stu­dio around 5 to prep it for the evening classes. This is also when the rum and cof­fee starts. I teach until 7 when my wife and fam­ily bring me din­ner. We eat in the tea gar­den at the stu­dio and dis­cuss the day’s events. I return to fin­ish up with our stu­dio mem­bers and shut every­thing down by 9. After­wards, I clean up and walk home, where I read to my chil­dren and tuck them in and then go to bed.

What inspires you? Nature, the female form, and other odd­i­ties. I truly try to see every­thing through fresh eyes every day. I’m espe­cially fas­ci­nated by extreme close up views.

What kind of music do you like? My MP3 player has every­thing from The Mup­pets to Metal­lica. I like how the art changes when the shuf­fle brings up Garth Brooks We Shall Be Free right after Pink’s Fun House. Mostly, how­ever, I like music I can sing when the music isn’t there.

If you were an ani­mal, what kind would you be? Are you kid­ding??? Oppos­able thumbs, higher brain power, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, art, tools… Who wouldn’t want to be an otter??

What advice would you give the 12-year-old ver­sion of your­self if you were able to do so? The only voices that really mat­ter are the ones in your head. Make them say good things about you.

Describe a way you pro­mote your art­work. Aside from fill­ing out inter­view forms, I host a u-stream show. I develop works in stages and don’t pro­duce the largest forms unless *I* really like it or there is a HUGE amount of inter­est in it. That way, when it’s painted it will either sell imme­di­ately, or be some­thing that I would want hang­ing in my house.

What is your medium and why do you use it? Acrylic, water­color, and spray paint. I like the lack of con­trol and the amount of finesse required. I work in a lot of lay­ers and don’t think I would have the patience to do that with oil, but I might try it again someday.

What is your favorite sub­ject for your art and why? Inter­est­ing things from unusual angles. Those kinds of paint­ings always look abstract unless the viewer is extremely inti­mate with the sub­ject mat­ter. You also have to be really on your game with col­ors and com­po­si­tion when you do that because MOST peo­ple won’t see it right away.

Or dinosaurs. I love to paint bugs and dinosaurs. Tough call on that.

You can find and fol­low The Artis­tic Biker, Jonathan Man­ning online at

http://artisticbiker.com
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-artistic-biker
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheArtisticBiker
http://www.twitter.com/BladeTheArtist
http://www.facebook.com/theartisticbiker

Thank you Jonathan for tak­ing the time to answer my questions.

NOTE: Gyotaku, lit­er­ally fish rub­bing, is an art form attrib­ut­able to Japan­ese fish­er­men, who would apply ink directly to their catch and make a rub­bing on paper. –Jake Beck­man, Artist, AKAJake.com Come Expe­ri­ence the Art!

The artist obtained per­mis­sion to use Jonathan Manning’s images in this blog, but that per­mis­sion does not extend to any­one else. Jonathan Man­ning retains repro­duc­tion and pub­lish­ing copy­rights to his mate­ri­als. You may not copy, redis­trib­ute, imi­tate, derive OR oth­er­wise use these images in any form with­out the explicit writ­ten per­mis­sion of Jonathan Manning.