Meeting Baseman

Last week I had the experience of meeting one of my favorite illustrators. Gary Baseman gave a lecture and afternoon workshop for the Raligh Chapeter of the AIGA. I was a little worried about meeting one of my idols. I have to admit when I 1st met him it didn't reallly go so well.

I introduced myself to him and told him I was a design teacher and aspiring illustrator. He basically told me you can't be both. He said if you want to be in illustration it's a full-time gig. He also said he was trying to get out of illustration so he could focus on his gallery work and designer toys that he is doing now. It was a little disheartening.

But after hearing his lecture and spending time with him the next day in the workshop, which was really just a personal Q&A session with him where we all picked his brain, I understood where he was coming from with his statements. His main point was that design/illustration/gallery work/new media are all now blending together and will continue to do so.

Overall, it ended up being an amazing opportunity to listen to him speak about his work, his creative process, his thoughts on marketing and being successful in a creative field. It was worth going just to get his sketch portrait of me during the workshop. He said I looked like a bunny to him (see picture). i also won a really cool door prize at the lecture which is a limited edition toy called a circus punk. There are only 150 of these made and they are all numbered and signed editions on the bottom and signed by the artist. Visit circuspunks.com or garybaseman.com to see more work.