ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
I want my artwork to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. I want it to shed light and call attention to beauty, coherence, and unity; and, I want it to cast doubt on falsehoods, oversimplifications, and absurdities. I’d like to be instrumental in deepening our awareness and appreciation of the fullness of life, including its complexities, ambiguities, and paradoxes.
I draw and paint on an iPad with an Apple Pencil or my fingers using a variety of drawing/painting apps; although, I still work in wood and clay as well. iPads are portable and versatile, require little set up, and there’s no clean up. They’re the perfect medium for what I do. I can quickly convert ideas into illustrations and share them or time-lapse videos of them on social media. I can also prepare the images for printing on metal, paper, and canvas surfaces in a variety of sizes.
BIOGRAPHY:
Paul Longo has lived a relatively unconventional life. In his youth, he plowed through dyslexia (before teachers had ever heard of it) and learned that there is, indeed, more than meets the eye. In college, he read Don Quijote in Spanish for the first time and discovered an interest in anthropology. He went on to complete 3 graduate degrees and has lived and worked in 7 countries and 9 states since then. Paul has taught anthropology, education, Spanish, research and evaluation methods, and ESL at 6 different universities. These days he teaches digital art to adults with developmental disabilities and non-credit ESL to adults at a local community college.
Paul was also a Benedictine monk and lived in a monastery for nearly 8 years, until he met and married his wife. Together they were survivors of Hurricane Katrina as residents of New Orleans. But it was not until 2013, while living in a downtown loft in Des Moines, Iowa, that Paul complained to his wife, a CIO in higher education, about not having either a basement or a garage in which to make art. A few days later she gave Paul her old iPad with an installed drawing app and said, “here’s a studio for your lap.” Since then, not only have iPads become larger and more powerful, but the number of drawing and painting apps has increased and each one offers a unique set of features to create original artwork. Nowadays, Paul takes his "studio” everywhere he goes.
Throughout his eclectic journey, Paul has created and shared his art to make sense of the world, to give voice to new identities and experiences, and to engage more intentionally with others. To view more of Paul Longo’s works, digital and otherwise, visit his social media sites: www.portfoliolongo.com, twitter, YouTube, Instagram: @plongeaux, Facebook: Paul J. Longo
Without some sort of tranquilizing intervention, our inner dialogue will mimic the outer dialogue around us; after all, that’s how we acquire language in the first place and “develop” it subsequently. I see this too as related to mitote, which we’ve explored elsewhere here at portfoliolongo.com.
There’s inner mitote, and there’s outer mitote. We’re up to our ears in mitote. Look at what happens metastatically within the comments section on many posts, the countervailing avalanches of polarized opinions mistaken for fact.
What triggers them? How do we tame them? How do we work through them? How do we work around them?
This one took a circuitous route. It started when I was reminded of those TV commercials that feature a series of actors reciting a snippet of what then becomes a more complete sales pitch, something I dislike almost as much as children in ads. Then it occurred to me that this technique is much more emblematic and generalizable.
We hardly ever walk our way into anything of social significance; rather, we talk our way in. Sometimes there’s even a script; sometimes there isn’t. The script is the doorway.
Yesterday’s Valentines Day gathering at Greenstone near Mariposa, CA was a celebration of the heart. When you’re new to a place, you catch life already in progress: the Heart Party, our generous hosts, the other guests, and its setting hit home in more ways than one.
A quick, morning, freehand sketch in Procreate based on an iPhone photo that I took yesterday when nobody was looking.
We rented The Elephant Man (1980) a couple of weeks ago and subsequently learned that it was Mel Brooks who hired David Lynch to direct the film. (See also the Wikipedia entry.) Who better to influence the portrayal of the circus!
portfoliolongo 
