23 June 2011

Personality Snapshot du Jour

Meet Jeff: The Designer


We had a tough time with this one because we didn't know what to call our buddy Jeff.  He's an artist, of course, but the word artist is too simplistic to describe his many talents. He draws, designs sets, acts, does graphic design and animation, and industrial design. He could also probably rewire your house for you if you asked nicely, but that's beside the point. This native Arkansan (born in room 201 at Doctor's Hospital, if you were wondering) had a stint at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He went on a schooling hiatus due to family health issues, but intends to pick back up on his studies in industrial design and production design and graduate in 2013. Which really comes as good news to anyone out there looking to utilize the skills of such an adept mind. Now's the time to snatch him up before he's back off to Savannah, because who knows where this guy's ability will take him after that! Trust us, we've seen what he can do.

Have You Been There: What inspires you the most?
Jeff Fuell: Listening to Cinematic music, as well as bringing simplicity to complicated situations and/or systems.


HYBT: Do you have a mentor? Who?
JF:   Tons…Leonardo Di Vinci, Gandhi, My 12th grade humanities teacher Mrs.Wood, Rembrandt, Mozart, Michelangelo, Donatello, Rafael, James Cameron…Basically anyone who history recognizes as a master visionary who has created large scale master pieces that because of their very nature, make those who view them want to better themselves. But if you view mentor as a person who actually councils you and teaches you in life personally then my Mentor was and always will be my Mother Gina Fuell. May she rest in peace.


HYBT: Where is the most interesting place you've traveled to?
JF:  Savannah Georgia. True it was for college and I ended up living there for 7 years but because it was an international college my friends came from many different countries like Honduras, Columbia, South Korea, Beijing, Britain, South Africa, and several other parts of the USA. Learning more about my craft with people from so many different walks of life teaching me about their cultures along the way and adopting some of those characteristics into my own behavior and way of thinking ALL while in a city as historic, beautiful and full of culture as savannah was probably about as interesting a place as I’ve ever been.


HYBT: What is your favorite piece of art, be it a film, music, painting, etc.?
JF:  Without a moment’s pause it is the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. The chapel itself has 3 major pieces that cover its interior. The north wall is a fresco, “The Last Judgment”, by Michelangelo and basically depicts the end of earth and the Judgment of all men. From 1477 to 1482 a team of great Renaissance painters that included Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio created a series of frescoed panels on the south wall depicting the life of Moses and the life of Christ, offset by papal portraits above and trompe l’oeil drapery below. But it is the ceiling that was done first by Michelangelo with its 26 individual frescos that make up the whole that has from the age of 9 captured my attention and never let go. While he of course has his assistants to mix paints and fill in the backgrounds it was one man who was allowed years to paint arguably the greatest large scale and meaningful painting of all time. And it was the fact that it was mainly one man and his singular vision that inspires me so much and everyday reminds me that with time, patience, a hell of a lot of passion and a never ending need to be great, not to mention the proper funding LOL, a single person is capable of doing simply remarkable things that will resound throughout the centuries and bring wonder to this world.


HYBT: What effect do you think the place you grew up had on you and your work?
JF: A painter at heart but with a constant need to work on large scales and in as many areas of design as possible, my favorites being Production, Industrial, Furniture, Interior, Lighting, Graphic, and Architectural Design…I would not be worth my spit if I didn’t have the life I did. Growing up in, for lack of a better term, Ghetto and feeling the stigma associated with that has always made me yern for something better. Be it by creating larger scale, more inspiring/better art like murals on big blank walls; by bringing beauty to places that have none like creating a park where once was a couple of abandoned trailer homes, the need to see potential and make real the vision of something better in my head has been a very strong influence. Growing up in Arkansas has made me appreciate the smaller and simpler things of life and maintaining a sense of pleasantness and need to sweet to everyone I meet and always try and think spherically, give people the benefit of the doubt, and never stop trying to learn from new situations. And Growing up in the melting pot that is the USA with its style of schooling (imperfect but if nothing else broad) has made life a smorgasbord of races, lifestyles, and books that teach me of all places beyond our borders that I can’t help but learn from, grow from, and adopt unto myself the best parts of humanity itself which leads to paintings, sets, posters, furniture, spatial moods, products, and buildings that I believe are more well-rounded, perfected by the philosophy and art that the great cultures and artists of old have left behind, and speak with a voice that is not necessarily my own but belonging to the best parts of the human spirit and its history.

The only thing not falling into place about my work due to where and the way I grew up is financial backing. The create grand murals on such large scales, get products that would better the technological systems of the world and make real the spaces and buildings in my head one first needs a degree which I am once year from getting but 3 years behind others my age in doing so, and also having the money to buy 5 gallon drums of paint, wood, tools, has been slow and time consuming. However Necessity is indeed the mother of Invention so I have become nothing if not resourceful and more inventive in how I take on a project. So there is some good that comes from not having a multi-million dollar bank account.

 
HYBT: What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
JF: In living life, performing a job, or sketching a new piece I’ve noticed that my thinking and my actions are always BIG PICTURE based. For instance in the last answer I gave about my environment affecting my art and all the things I learn from; that thinking about cultures and other people is always in the for front of my mind. I don’t seem to get as down or depressed as those around me in times of stress because I remember there are millions of other people around the world dealing with far greater situations than me at that moment. I multi-task more doing tasks that most others at my jobs don’t want to do because I know if they don’t get done, then everyone even those to lazy to do the jobs will have even more of a rough go at their work. And lastly I get to attached to places that I work. If it’s a theatre getting on its feet I will drain my bank account and take time away from more important things in an effort to clean, redo interiors, and build more elaborate sets with higher caliber lighting all because I want the theatre; this thing with these people that I want to be a part of and care so much about, to be the ABSOLUTE BEST it can be. This is a part of that whole “bringing beauty to places where there was none” aspect of my personality. And and doing and creating things for the places I work I give of myself and get way more attached than most anyone else around me. However at the very first theatre I worked for most everyone was just like me and for 5 years it was truly a home for us to live work and play in, however we were all volunteers so no pay hahahah.


HYBT: What's something you'd like to learn to do?
JF:  I’d like to learn to gymnastics. Besides the health benefits and the wonder it would do to get my body in the shape I always wanted it to be in…the way the body of a gymnast moves; so graceful, steady, so flexible and yet so strong is something ive always been fascinated by and respectful of.


HYBT: What's something about you that would surprise people?
JF:  Im really a Kangaroo in disguise! LOL  Hrmm…Well most people that know me are actually very surprised to find out that I sing. And that my singing voice sounds nothing like me hahaha. Possibly due to a couple years of smoking clove cigarettes and also my voice finally completing its change from adolescence which didn’t end til I was 22, my singing voice is actually pretty raspy with an age to it like that of someone in their 50s. Friends that here me sing for the first time are like, “holy crap that sounds nothing like you but it was awesome!”  Picture a combination of Michael Buble and Paulo Nutini and you have my singing voice.



HYBT:  Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?

JF: 20 to 40 times a day. Driving down the road seeing neighborhoods and business and cemeteries randomly placed with no rhyme or reason, images on tv, every time I even think of the government or international trade. These crazy systems and hodge podge urban designs are why the world is both the bane and reason for my existence. Again, my all-consuming need to bring simplicity and beauty to all things around me means my brain is always seeing the chaos that is and dreaming of and designing the “loveliness that could be.” Urban design is easier than say the system by which the government works but the principles are still the same. With a system I first have to study it more and boil down for myself how it works. After that I can weed out the bull and red tape that gum up the works and turn it into a system that not only works but doesn’t end up becoming its own opposition which whether you know it or not happens WAY more than it should.
HYBT: Who's your favorite television or movie character?
JF:  Ceilie from the Color Purple. This part was played by Whoopi Goldberg in one of her first performances and from the first time I saw it at the age of 7 that role and that movie has stayed with me like no other. The pain, loss, abuse, and indignities the character experiences along the story with only fleeting moments of real tenderness, and love for her to hold on to for all she was worth just so she could get through it all made me always want to appreciate the real moments in life and be as real and as kind and as genuine with absolutely everyone I ever meet. Ceilies’ was just one story, fictional though it may be, but real none the less. Pain like this and many many many other kinds exist in the world and to see this film at such a young age made my life one dedicated to not putting out into this world any more negativity. There is to much of it already and its not doing anyone any good and I WILL NOT add to it if I can absolutely help it. Darn it! hahaha





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