How to become the best artist you can be? Well, I can only share what has helped me on what can feel like a lonely journey and sometimes a wild roller coaster ride. I am talking about the kind of artist that believes art really can change the world.
Please let me share with you a short version of my life. I was born in Portland, Oregon May 6, 1981 (Taurus, the bull). My family moved to Frankfurt, Germany about two years after i was born. My dad, Richie was in the Army; I think we lived on base, but not sure. I remember eating MRE's from time to time, can you even call the shit food? My wife and I have no kids, but if we did you couldn't pay me $500 to feed my kids MRE's, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We left Germany and moved to Salem, Oregon. We lived in a low income apartment complex right next to some lush Oregon woods. I would fish for crawdads in the woods with a stick, fishing line, paper clip and bacon or hot dog. It was a calm and probably polluted stream about 6 feet wide. I would boil them and eat them with butter and garlic, yum. If I wasn't fishing for crawdads, I was fishing across the street for Bluegill with a fishing pole, red and white fishing bobber, small hook and worms, not just any worms but big, plump and juicy Oregon Nightcrawlers. The best kind. I remember one fishing trip with my dad, I must of been around the age of 10, fishing for Salmon on the Santiam River, no luck fishing day one, but I do remember seeing the massive decaying salmon carcass on the side of the river. We might of missed the salmon run. We camped in the back of our stealth pick-up truck camper in front of some yard. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, looked outside the camper window to see my dad standing in front of a door of a house. The door opened and some lady who was not my mom walked outside. My dad and the lady then walked into the house. Kind of a fucked up thing to see when you're a kid. But what do you expect when your dad was from the Bronx, New York who went to Woodstock 69' when he was 18 years old and then became a drummer in a rock band. I also remember on a different fishing trip I caught my dad smoking a cigarette. We didn't catch anything this trip so he bought a huge Coho Salmon from some other people fishing next to us. When we got back, my dad put the Coho Salmon into the bath tube. When my mom got home, my dad lied and said he caught the fish. I told my mom about dad smoking a cigarette and he denied it.
As a child, I had reoccurring, vivid dreams of being in different locations. I didn't know what to think of the reoccurring dreams just yet. One day in the summer I think around the age of ten, I was playing in the front yard and my beautiful mom Rhonda walked outside and said we're going on a drive somewhere. On that drive on a country back road, we got into a bad car crash. Some guy ran through a stop sign or traffic light and smashed into our car. My mom broke her leg, arm and some ribs. My sister broke her leg. My dad was in a coma for two months with a bad head injury that still effects him today. I was not injured, but don't remember any part of the crash. My sister was the only one who remembers the crash. Shortly after the crash, my mom found out my dad had a gambling problem and my parents got a divorce. My dad moved to Atlanta, Georgia and my mom moved us to a small country town Silverton, Oregon. My mom bought a cute dark green two bedroom house across from a park. My mom and sister shared a room and my room was created by blocking of a space with a curtain. My mom worked hard, often doubles as an activity director of a nursing home in Salem. I played basketball and golf growing up. After High School, I worked in Yellowstone at Lake Lodge for a summer. A winter job fair was held in the lodge with what seemed like all of the ski resorts in the U.S. The first booth I went to was Aspen, Colorado, not sure why, but I got a job right then and there as a lift operator for Buttermilk ski mountain. It payed $9.00 a hour, maybe I'll get rich off that, how expensive can it be in Aspen? I took a Greyhound back to Oregon, packed up some of my things and took a train from Salem down to Sacramento then across to Glenwood Springs, CO. It took about two and a half days through some beautiful country. This was my first time to Colorado and I never skied or snowboarded at this point. This was the winter of 2000-01 when I arrived to Aspen. I stayed the summer and fell in love with the beauty of Aspen. I did many of the service jobs; lift operator, snowmaker, caddy, limo driver and ski instructor.
In July 2007 after backpacking around Europe for a month and a half, I started warning people that I felt a major economic crash was about to happen. I guess I just had that feeling. Sure enough the housing market crashed and crashed hard. I think I really started to wake up to how fake the economy is in the western world. I saw that we had a major tech bubble in 2000, a major housing bubble in 2008 and I believe we're in the EVERYTHING BUBBLE right now. When I say everything I mean stocks, housing and the bond markets. I am pretty sure you can't print yourself out of a debt crisis like the western world did in 2009. As a child, I was really into art and art making. I got back into painting in 2009 to use art as an outlet for my emotions when I started to really learn just how corrupt the banking system was of the western world. I started using my limo job just to hustle and sell my art to wealthy art collectors. It has been said that about 20% of the top art collectors in the world have a second home in Aspen, and I knew I wanted them to own my art. I got to the point where I hated all of my service jobs and needed to just paint in my studio.
March 2010 is when I met my beautiful wife. I was her instructor in a private snowboard lesson. She and her family were in Aspen on vacation from Tampa, Florida. She has been a blessing in my life in many ways.
I have been a full-time, self-taught artist for about five years now. Here is a list of things that helped me become the best artist I can be...
I stopped drinking anything with fluoride in it. I also started eating 100% organic, fuck GMOs. Doing this cleaned out my 7 chakras. I started seeing the world from a different perspective. I realized most of humanity has been and is living in the Matrix. My 3rd eye started work again and I started to see that we are all one consciousness. My reoccurring dreams I had as a child in Salem, Oregon came back to me. I realized I used to dream about Aspen/Snowmass. I dreamt about walking around the three buildings I eventually ended up living in. I would dream about walking around what ended up being real roads and going up the Buttermilk chair lift and seeing people ski down around me. I also avoid pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines and alcohol.
Supplements...Research and consider Ayurvedic medicine and organic supplements like Spirulina, Chlorella, Gotu Kola, EDTA, Tri-Boron, Nascent Iodine which cleanses your 3rd eye (pineal gland) from medals and toxins.
You must become obsessed about making art, have the urge to paint everyday and every night and do it because it's your calling and passion. From time to time it's important to take breaks and get outside, be in public and in nature. I am always coming up with new inspiration and ideas.
Avoid boring and decorative art, be honest and truthful to yourself. As scary as it can be, don't be afraid to make a powerful statement, what people want to see and don't want to see.
If you're over 21 and live in a state where legal recreational Mary Jane exists, maybe try an organic hybrid of sativa to get your creative thoughts flowing.
Listen to good music. Maybe you're in the mood for 432 hz DNA Healing/Chakra Cleansing Meditation/Relaxation Music or classical music like Beethoven , classic rock like Crosby Stills Nash and Young, rock band like Radiohead, jazz like Miles Davis, old country Patsy Cline to Waylon Jennings.
Start painting, and from time to time step back to view your work, then keep painting. If something doesn't look good to you, that's okay just paint over it. Get creative, try new things and take chances. Understand it is okay to make mistakes, my best work come from messing something up and what someone might see as a mistake.
Look to the master, learn about art history. Here are some of my favorite artists: Mark Rothko, Tracy Emin, Jean Michel Basquiat, Georgia O'keefe, Judith Scott, Cai Guo-Qiang, Anish Kapoor, Claude Monet, Yves Klein, Chris Ofili, Damien Hirst, Lynda Benglis to name a few.
Stop listening to mainstream propaganda media, it's fake news. Seek out alternative, independent news and think for yourself. The chakras are our inner compass.
Your studio should be organized chaos, at anytime something in your studio can give you inspiration in the art making.
Make your art, finish your art, love your art, then send it on its way. Sell that art; too many artist just want to hang on to their art. Your art is a seed, plant that seed, and if you're able to get it in the hands of big art collectors the better. Re-invest sales back into your work and try to make every artwork a masterpiece. With that said, not everything will be viewed as a masterpiece, just set the bar high.
The painting is done when you can't add any more paint to the painting.
Learn about astrology. A great person to follow is Kaypacha Lescher on YouTube.
If someone asks you how long it takes to make a painting, you tell them a lifetime.
To view more of my works, please visit my website http://www.shawnbenton.com/