Artist Profile: Jim Christiansen - Illustrator

last updated: June 22, 2008 07:18:18 AM

Residence: Modesto

Type of artist: Known for

watercolors, pen and ink, cartoons, acrylics and posters

Daily job: Community volunteer, landlord, artist

Family: My mother, Virlee Christiansen, lives in Modesto, and I rent from her, while renting out my house, and she puts up with the gallery around our house. I have two brothers -- Larry, a professional grandmaster chess player and reason I am a published chess cartoonist, and Scott, who works for the city of Modesto. My sister, Nancy, is director of Stanford University's Hansen Experimental Physics Lab. My late father, Harold Christiansen, was a real-estate developer who supported our chess book, calendar and other art, chess, music and publishing ventures.

Background: Born in Riverside, was an advanced student at the Riverside Art Association. Went on to studio art as minor studies at University of California, Riverside, where I won an award in student erotic art shows. I was most noted for cartoons and comic strips, including ones that got the UCR Highlander confiscated. I was a contributor and editor for two years of the Highlander Comix Book. I started Mercenary Graphics tradestyle at age 14, producing silk-screen "black light" posters for sale, and concert promotion, and collaborated with high school underground Foolscorner Press, and went on to regional underground comics for a short period. While at UCR, I studied under painters James Strombotne and William Bradshaw, international printmaker regents lecturer Connor Everts, and in the well-rated art history department. However, my major was economics. I moved to Modesto in 1977.

Art experience: Published in Chess Life, Chess N Stuff and Professional Chess News, among other chess-related publications, books and posters, as much related to chess themes of my cartoons as to my brother's international chess career of 38 years. A printmaking series version of the Pawn Shop cartoon hangs in the trophy area of the Boyleston Chess Club in Cambridge, Mass. Received a 1993 first-place award and 2008 second- and third-place awards in watercolor category at the Central California Art Association Spring Show. Operated my own gallery space at home and have done posters or hung art with sales to restaurants such as Minnie's in Modesto and Fiddler's Green in San Francisco. I have art hanging in the Bay Area, Germany, Denmark, Florida and other locations. I have done art related to concert events, festivals and advertising in addition to nonprofit programs and fund-raising events. I help host and show other artists in the downtown Modesto Third Thursday Art Walk.

Advice for young artists: Do you what you love, with passion and keep to it. I found the love of doing it first, then learned the added bonus of comment from an audience, which to me is a wholly different experience. There is no one way to do anything, but it helps to find a mastery of something to do what you feel you want to do at any opportune moment.

Favorite art/music/performance: I paint and drawn musicians, dancers and scenes outdoors or indoors of people. I love poetry and indulge that by attending poetry slams, reading works of others and writing some myself. A current project is combining images from my art portfolio with the best of my attempts at verse. Theater also has been a source for my art, doing set layout, painting and stage crew work, and often the show bills and posters, programs and fliers. If I could carry a tune, or truly play an instrument well, I would, though I get stage fright.

Life plans: Survive my middle years, into a period of senior moments and painterly visions come true. Continue participation in the arts in Stanislaus County, wherever I am. I had a period of not doing art for nearly a decade to attend to mental health, health and other life issues, and am very glad to be back.

How do you reach people unfamiliar with the arts? I do things like newsletters, Web sites and help with the downtown Modesto Third Thursday Art Walk, down to the maps, recruiting new artists or distributing posters to reach the audience we seek.

What would surprise people about your art? If you see my entire portfolio, there is a style to it that says it is mine, but in very diverse ways to express that, from the abstraction to detailed. I do not always plan out some of the more successful paintings and let them tell me what's in them. I hate pencil, so it is rare if pencil marks or evident erasure shows up in one of my pieces. I started doing pen at age 13 to improve my cartoon lettering, figuring practice in ink directly would make my drawings more precise and alive if I could do them without erasing and learn how to draw out of a "mistake."

-- As told to Lisa Millegan/The Bee

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