My son, whom I call The Great Chet, is an immensely gifted and entertaining human being.  Maybe that is to be expected coming from a home environment of art gypsies: his mother is a writer, his brother is a fantastic guitarist, his sister was a twenty year old, maverick entrepreneur, starting the first vegetarian restaurant in town.

As a small child The Great Chet was shy, but he quickly blossomed into a Pied Piper that everyone wanted to be around. Our house was like a Renaissance circus and Chet was the ringmaster, his bedroom being his creative construction site which housed objects found on his way home from elementary school; blocks of concrete, injured mice, a King snake, bolts, screws (you name it, he had it) and all were put to good use.  It wasn't unusual to come home and find fake blood on the fence, or open a closet where some weird looking monster was lurking, be shocked by a mechanical hand walking across the carpet, finger by finger, all inventions he came up at a very early age.

Because I've always been an artist, people think I've been his teacher but the truth is his talent was so unique that I never interfered with his development; I only answered the questions he asked, and encouraged him to trust himself; he is truly a self-taught artist.
After working many years as an FX artist for the movie studios, he promised himself that he would only create his art out of his own interest and joy, rather than for the purpose of selling.  And aren't we lucky he did, because outside of his beautiful painting technique his subject matter is not only innovative, it has tremendous humor, often pointing to our social idiosyncrasies.

I'm so honored to be one of his biggest fans, not only for his great artistry but also because he is one of the most loving human beings I've ever known.

James Zar, Artist www.jameszar.com

What's on your easel at the moment?
Right now I am painting for a 4 person show (me, Lola, Nathan Spoor and Kevin Peterson) at limited addiction gallery in Denver, Colorado in September.  It's called "Sanctuary".
I have 7 oval portraits nearly finished for that show and I am pretty happy with them. I usually work on a bunch of pieces at one time so I can trade off when I get sick of one or get stuck on something. It's often best to set it aside for a bit when you're just spinning your wheels on a piece.

Sounds interesting.  Can you describe a few of the pieces?
They are all head and shoulders of portraits of various distorted figures in odd expressions. The backgrounds are landscapes of some strange world from God knows where.  I am trying out a technique of using only the three primaries (red, blue and yellow) and black and white.  It's surprising how much variation you can get using only the primaries.
Once each piece is about 75% finished I will glaze some other colors over certain areas just to punch things up a bit.

I'm also sculpting some appliques for the frames, little gas masks that fit in each corner of the frame. When I first started showing about 8 years ago, I wasn't too concerned about framing.  I figured people would just re frame a piece they bought to go with their decor, but I have found this to be untrue. Collectors seem to appreciate a piece more when you go the extra mile to give it a complimentary frame, so now I'm doing more custom frames.

Sounds like you put a lot more into your work than other artists.
I’m always trying to improve my technique and have each painting be better than the last.  I’m pretty obsessive about my work.  I do my best.

The image of the gasmask resurfaces quite a bit throughout your work.  Does it have any particular significance to you?
The gasmask is a symbol I’ve been using since I was a kid. I grew up in the 70's and 80's during the end of the cold war and the possibility of a nuclear war was something that was always in the back of my mind. I always saw the gasmask as the modern day symbol for death because of what it represented.  It also always reminded me of a skull. When I was in high school I designed a crude version of the gasmask and missiles/skull and crossbones logo that I still use today.  Back then I spray painted the stencil onto the doors of this cool old 1962 Corvair station wagon I had.

So anyway, I paint gasmasks a lot because they represent death in the modern day.  It's a theme that I like to explore in my artwork.

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