Makers: Modesto sketch artist loves to keep it live

There’s not a bad seat in the house when Jim Christiansen sits down to draw at the Barkin’ Dog for a Blue Monday show.

If he’s got a clear view of the band, great. If not, he may focus on the diners at a nearby table. Or a server. Maybe just a still life of wine glasses on a counter. A recent night found him drawing his table companion, Chris Murphy, for whose Modesto View magazine Christiansen writes the monthly Art View column.

Over the course of an evening, the 61-year-old Modesto artist may move around and capture all of that. After all, he works fast, and all he needs is a black felt-tip marker and a drawing surface. Usually, the surface is drawing paper, though the gallery at the rear of the restaurant – what Christiansen calls the 5-year-old “Barkin’ Dog Project” – also includes framed drawings done on napkins and even a Modesto Certified Farmers Market flier.

Christiansen, who’s from Riverside but has lived in Modesto full time since 1977, said he greatly enjoys painting in watercolors and acrylics, too. Those works are colorful, figurative and at times abstract, he said. He’s won awards for his watercolors and recently had works at Gallery Red in Las Vegas and at the Degas Gallery in New Orleans.

But pen and ink are easy to do anywhere, and he enjoys the interaction of doing live-event drawing. “I’ve done this here (Barkin’ Dog), at the Vintage restaurant, Minnie’s, the Tree Frog Tavern. ... It’s a conversation starter, a way to get a beer off somebody,” Christiansen said. “I’ve had people say they can tell me the set list from the night I’ve drawn something.”

He’s drawn more Blue Monday jams – they were held at other venues including Clayton’s, which became Jax on H, before they moved to Barkin’ Dog – than other music events. But he’s also drawn at Deva and Tresetti’s. “I did the Sharpie mural at Tresetti’s, and 11 of their bar paintings for Tresetti’s Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday events.”

There are so many things about event drawing that appeal to Christiansen. He calls his work performance art in the sense that without the musical performance, he wouldn’t be drawing, and without his drawing, he wouldn’t get input from musicians and audience members. Some of his drawings are good likenesses, while others are “vague enough where people can self-identify,” he said.

He enjoys meeting people because of his live drawing. “You can meet people you would have never met. There were people from New Zealand who happened to be visiting Modesto on a particular day and are on the wall now. They asked if I’d draw them.”

Christiansen also thrives on the speed at which he has to work at a performance. “It’s a fast-drawing exercise. They move around so much in a set,” he said.

The idea, wherever he’s drawing, Christiansen said, “is to capture the event.” For that reason, he often aims to include the chandeliers that quickly identify the location as the Barkin’ Dog. Similarly, he’ll aim to include distinctive bars or beer signs that distinguish other venues.

Ink in his blood

Christiansen retired from a career in construction, real estate and development with his family’s company, Altamont Builders Inc. “I used to work here in the summers – that’s how I got located in Modesto.”

Graphic arts always has been his second career, he said, dating back to creating posters when he was 14. “I wanted to be a cartoonist,” he recalled, “and happened to be at the Riverside Art Association in the ’60s when silk-screen posters came out, and my first one was a surfing Richard Nixon.”

He did two printings, about 100 each, of the poster and sold them for $1 apiece, Christiansen said. “I understand a couple of friends still have them.”

His felt-tip work has been informed by decades of cartooning, he said. Humorous works on his page at fineartamerica.com include pigs toasting one another with ale at a place called the Man’s Head Inn, and chess pieces milling about at a “pawn shop.” That one, Christiansen said, he did for his brother, who’s a master chess player.

“I used to try doing panel cartoons on submission,” he said. Though he’s been published, it’s a tough market. His brother came up with the “freelance flake” term Christiansen uses to describe himself on fineartamerica.

This weekend, he’ll be doing interactive artwork that doesn’t involve a music venue. Christiansen will be working at his Bodem Street studio as part of the Stanislaus Artist Open Studio Tour, for which he’s publicity chairman.

And he’s impressed with the arts community in Modesto. “There really are quite a number of creative people of all types, really quite accomplished,” he said. “For the Open Studio Tour, we’re up to 81 artists this year. The goal is 100, to be commensurate with Santa Cruz, which is at 500.”

Christiansen also posts the Artists of Modesto page on Facebook, gathering information relevant to area artists and patrons. The Modesto area has “a lot of live music, great live theater, live poetry,” he said. “There are a lot of venues downtown showing local artists. ... It’s good to see the community come out and check it out.”

This story was originally published April 20, 2016 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Makers: Modesto sketch artist loves to keep it live."