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
I’m bookmarking this tool for my own benefit so that I can whip it out before I click on Publish from now on.
Yesterday’s post, i.e., the previous post, two guys looking through a telescope, more precisely, my commentary on that illustration, elicited a couple of useful comments that have served and will continue to serve as an important reminder for me to scrutinize how I write about what I draw much more carefully. The drawing said one thing; unfortunately, my commentary said something else; evidently, it said the complete opposite. And why? Because I hadn’t unzipped for myself either the paradigmatic or syntagmatic significance of what I meant to say, and instead I simply and quickly wrote something that I thought was funny. Not so.
I did go back revise the title of the post by inserting a reference to optical delusion. Too little, too late.
I’ll keep this heuristic tool, i.e., the quadrazipper, handy.
We try not to take sides here at portfoliolongo.com because there are so many sides to take. It’s complicated. We have discovered that once in a while two or more sides can be taken at the same time either because of the structure of the inquiry, or because it’s just funny, or both.
While I was waiting for a call back from Apple Support on a GarageBand issue, which involved my laptop being out of commission and in the safe mode, a topic for a forthcoming illustration I can imagine, I had time to doodle. I’d like to thank my model for being so patient.
portfoliolongo 