National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was looking to provide grants to

artists from previously unfunded regions.  In March 2011, the Allentown

Museum of Art contacted me as they had received funding from the NEA and

were looking for a regional artist for a teaching residency at a local High

School.  They asked me to teach 10 three-hour sessions at Panther Valley

High School in Northeastern PA, located in the heart of Pennsylvania’s once

seminal coal region, the first anthracite coal mining in the country.

These descendants of the coal miners have become blue-collar workers; the

ones I am lucky to know are highly skilled craftsman, masons, woodworkers

and welders. It seems it is outside their experience to consider becoming an

artist as a profession. Historically, the region does not support the arts

in that way and there are very few professional artists. The ones that wind

up there are quite the anomaly. Thus, there is a very limited instructor

base of career artists available to teach art as a professional path.

I introduced my work to the student body in the auditorium. I decided to

show my “Turtle Series” paintings and my book “Daedal Doodle” an ABC book

for word lovers as well as highlights from my 20-year career as an

illustrator.  After giving the presentation to about 300 students,

serendipitously 26 elected to take the class.  There are 26 letters in the

alphabet, 26 characters in an ABC book, and 26 students in the class.

Then with complete certitude, I knew I wanted the class to make their own

version of my ABC book. Over a three year period, I had read 8000 pages of

dictionaries including a 2000-page Merriam Webster that my dad brought home

when I was four; parts of the OED, and my favorite, the Chambers Concise

Dictionary culling obtuse words for my book’s alliterations.

Therefore, the lesson plan mimicked the process I went through to create

“Daedal Doodle.”  Each student was assigned a letter of the alphabet and

that section of the dictionary and encouraged to peruse every word.

While doing so, they were asked to make a list of cool sounding, unfamiliar

nouns and adjectives or any word they were inspired by to create

alliterations they could see illustrating.

My job was to demonstrate a process that could easily be understood, that

would encourage students to come up with something completely new to them

that they could call “Art” and at the same time imagine that art as their

own stand alone product.

The kids were completely open to what looked more like fun than work.  I was

amazed to see them inspired and involved with the assignment, very much as I

had been. A few students remarked that it was the first time they had ever

just “read” the dictionary.

In degrees, my fondness for the dictionary has episodically changed my life.

Language skills allow you to communicate with self-confidence while sharing

ideas. The dictionary simultaneously involves the basics of vocabulary while

seeding visual imagination. The kids could not read these words without

seeing images.

Seeing a room full of students simultaneously reading the dictionary was the

beginning of my “Aha!” moment.

To me, the success of this “accidental” curriculum reminds me of the

accidental invention of Teflon. It seems there was some kind an odorless

substance at the bottom of a can that could not be washed, burnt, or

chemically dissolved away, a strange byproduct of a previous experiment.

After examination by a young chemist, Roy J. Plunkett, Teflon went on to

become a gigantic industry for decades and decades.  Plunkett often told

student audiences, his mind was prepared by education and training to

“recognize novelty.”

I recognize the novelty that reading the dictionary to source words for

drawing can be an important process to bridge art and language, and once and

for all, end the idea of separating the Arts from basic education.  Each

student I taught proudly came up with nothing short of some dizzying kind of

new pictorial word invention.

The required tools are a dictionary, pencil and a pad. The byproduct is the

world of knowledge and the imagination.

Reading scores for high school students taking the SAT this year were the

lowest on record in the 30-year-history of the exam. It is not common to

hear about cutbacks in educational funding, primarily in the arts. More than

ever, there is a greater responsibility to create a direct connection

between the arts and education.

In my experience, they are one and the same.

As an adult, people often ask me where I received my art training, I always

respond with pride, “I went to New York’s High School of Art  & Design.”

After  40 years, the bell rings two names: my favorite teachers were my

English Teacher Sandra Nobel and my Art Teacher Irwin Greenberg.

Art is Education.

Whether I am painting or drawing, I consider myself an eco-surrealist, a social entrepreneur, husband and father. I am the son of Jack Stabin, inventor of scientific instrumentation who received his technical training while working on the Manhattan Project and Florence Stabin, the piano teacher who knows the history of the world through the  music of great European composers. At times I (laughingly) consider myself an ADD survivor. One of my favorite quotes (and I have many) is from Michaelangelo Buonarroti  ”I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”

My influences are the 20th Century Surrealists, the 19th Century Japanese watercolor print artists, Advertising Art of the 20th Century  and the  spirit of the Italian Renaissance.  I am  defined by my work; as  you  follow the path created by my paintings you’ll  see other species stand in as  protagonists, originally narrating the stories of my life and now lighting the path of my life. My goal  is to create artwork that provokes empathy while creating visually tantalizing environments that take you to new places , with the intent of  promoting awareness of and funding for the creatures that share our planet, with  hope to create an enduring legacy for those living beings. Hence, Eco-Surrealist.

A series of less-than-serendipitous, life-altering events began in 1999, activating a renaissance in both my personal life and my artistic creations. Not only did I persevere, but I became my own man and  stronger  artist.

Illness has a way of making you re-evaluate your life and sharpen your focus on the  important – and what’s not. I found that out first-hand when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,  I had a tumor the size of an orange sitting next to my heart. My oncologist informed me I had a 50/50 chance of survival.

Illustrations begin with a phone call. I no longer had the luxury of time nor the desire to wait for the call.

The path my career had taken to that point as a professional illustrator changed. The days of creating art for The New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone Magazine, Time and a Kiss album didn’t hold the same appeal as they once did. Being made aware of the value of time, I decided to create a series of paintings that emanated from my personal desires and visions.

My “Turtle Series” sprouted from this life transition and began telling my story, a story of lifes undeniable connections with nature. This part of my story is more fully explored at my blog entry, “Why Turtles.”

To view the paintings in detail. “Turtles Series”.

The Vision

The vision my wife, Joan Morykin, and I share is to create a destination to bring a variety of cultural disciplines such as art, music and theatre to extend beyond the greater Carbon County area. The dream we hold will support and educate those who choose the creative plane while encouraging environmental awareness and stewardship.

To date we have rehabilitated an old factory into the Carbon County Cultural Project – soon to be renamed The Stabin Morykin Building – an artistic and creative destination that houses The Victor Stabin Gallery, Dynasty Gallery, Flow Restaurant and The Thing Shop.

The Victor Stabin Gallery

Dynasty Gallery    Pennsylvania’s Youngest Gallery

Flow  Bar and Restaurant

theThing Shop

We plan to expand those offerings in 2012 to include the WPA Theatre, a flexible space that offers theatre, music, yoga, juried art shows, workshops, conferences, gallery exhibitions and formal and community events.

Bio

Born in New York City on March 5, 1954, I formally began my artistic journey studying at the Art Students League every summer from age 13 to 17. I graduated from the High School of Art and Design in 1972. I attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California, from 1973 to 1975 before returning to the East Coast to continue my education at New York City’s School of Visual Arts from 1975 to 1976.

A few years after finishing my education, I taught conceptual thinking for illustrators at the School of Visual Arts for five years as I continued my work as a professional illustrator.

My credits as an illustrator include creating nine stamps for the United States Postal Service’s Commemorative Postage Stamp program – four of whom were Henry Mancini, Richard Feynman, Linus Pauling and Edwin Hubble – a mural for RCA/BMG’s corporate headquarters in New York, and illustrations for The New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone Magazine and Time Magazine. Other works include an album cover for the rock band Kiss, Kiss: Unmasked, and designs and illustrations for dozens of mass market books for publishers Random House, Penguin Books and others. Twenty years of my favorite illustrations can be viewed in my illustration attic.

The more recent works I’ve created take on an otherworldly look of a fantasy land along the lines of works created by other surrealist artists. I consider myself an eco-surrealist artist. My paintings transport the viewer to unexpected places through uncanny scenes that merge the realities of everyday life into the not-so-everyday life using other species as protagonists.

My daughter Skyler prompted the creation of this book. At the age of two I taught my daughter Skyler – considered a very high verbal – how to say, “My daddy is a megalomaniac.” Kids don’t realize they are not supposed to know how to use advanced words.

“Acorn Daddy”. For a couple of weeks at age three, Skyler prefaced everything she said with “acorn,” so I decide to make an ABC book for her. Originally the first page of the book was

“A is for Anti Gravity Acorn”. I then transitioned my source for the book from Skyler to the OED.

For three decades I had been an avid dictionary user. As I started to use the dictionary for source material, I realized this book would only be fun for me if I challenged myself. My goal was to make the ordinary extraordinary by finding words that were real but that most people think are not. I looked for words that sounded cool and obscure. The idea was so exciting to me, it eliminated the pain of not painting.

My painting efforts were distracted by the process of rehabilitating a 150-year-old, 15,000 sq. ft. industrial building that my wife and I purchased in 2003. Picasso said “I cannot work except in solitude.” It seems I couldn’t paint in the maelstrom of renovations, but I can draw while drinking a glass of water and standing on my head.

The book idea was a simple assignment , look up words that lent themselves to narratives. I combed through 8,000 pages of various dictionaries, looking for alliterative couplets that eventually became my wacky revue of improbable characters.

Love for my daughter, for words and for drawing propelled me through this astonishing maze of improbable alliterative combinations. I knew in my heart I was creating a work that, while complex, would challenge the ABC status quo! I hoped to remove the boundaries between young and old, simple and sophisticated in the same style I see when I read the works of Theodor Geisel, better known to most as Dr. Seuss.

That is the story behind the creation of Daedal Doodle, my debut artistic book. If you’d like to read another story about a notable compliment received about this work, visit myPraise for Daedal Doodle on my blog.

For my information about my work or other creative muses, visit my Blog.

Ecology Connections

My work supports environmental entities including The Sierra Club, Blue Ocean Institute and the Assateague Island Wildlife Refuge.

To learn more about my ecological viewpoint, visit myGenesis of My Commitment to Species Preservation on my blog

Self portrait as Minotaur        aka      Do You Know Me -I Love You

view more of my work at

Victor Stabin’s Playground

Postscript

My father the inventor basically made whatever popped into his head. Was it a renaissance thing or an ADD thing? That probably depends on who you ask.

Below is a sample of one of 15 sculptures I made using wooden patterns form the Reading Railroad  and casting from of my teeth.   The piece below  is my dog “Fido”  Fido has a slot in her mouth which makes her into a bank for coins.  She weighs in at nearly 80 lbs. and comes with a life time guarantee.  Not only is she gorgeous, she is loyal.  She presently resides at the bar at Flow and is looking for a well heeled bronze dog lover to take her home. That’s the way it is sometimes with beautiful bitches at bars.

Fido           bronze    life size teeth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

9/26/2011

High School of Art and Design :: 1075 Second Ave, New York, NY 10022

For press inquiries contact 212 243 7688

Artist Victor Stabin to Exhibit Works in The Kenny Gallery : One Man Show and Book Signing

September 21 – October 21, 2011

Artist reception October 6,  4:30 – 7pm

After 50 years at 1075 2^nd Ave The High School of Art & Design  is relocating.  Forty years after graduating Victor Stabin has returned to his alma mater to hang his one man show Art is Education in the school’s Kenny Gallery.

Art is Education features the artist’s digital drawings alongside the pen and pencil sketches that inspired the images for his book, Daedal Doodle.  In addition to the book, Stabin is also displaying oil paintings from his Turtle Series. A reception for the artist along with a book signing will be held on Thursday, October 6, from 4-7:30 pm.

Stabin is a renowned artist and author.  As an illustrator, Stabin’s credits include nine signature stamps for the United States Postal Service, a Kiss album cover, and an enormous mural for RCA/BMG’s headquarters in New York. He also has produced numerous illustrations for The New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone Magazine, Time Magazine, Scholastic Books, NASA among others.

For his book Victor Stabin read over 8,000 pages from the OED, Meriam Webster and the Chambers Concise, dictionaries to come up with the alliterations that inhabit his tour de force, status quo smashing  ABC book Daedal Doodle.  Susan Orlean of the New Yorker has called the work “original and sly,” and Leonard Lopate of WNYC radio said it was “a visual stunner with delightful definitions.”   The book has received attention as a teaching tool by the NEA, hence the show’s name Art is Education.

The show offers audiences a rare peek into the imagination and draftsmanship of the artist by documenting Stabin’s process from initial drawing and thought. Often doodled on legal paper or otherwise random napkin drawings  in ball point pen, the final images are digitally rendered with extreme detail and dramatically displayed as oversized prints.

The oil paintings present powerful imagery within the context of his Turtle Series also on view in the gallery. “We evolved as creatures deeply enmeshed with the intricacies of nature, and still have this affinity with nature ingrained in our genotype today. My work attempts to explore these connections with narratives, using the turtle as protagonist,” Stabin said.

Art and Design’s Kenny Gallery, named for the school’s founding principal John B. Kenny, hosts monthly art exhibits of student work, an annual faculty show and an alumnus show. The ground floor art gallery faces Second Avenue and is open to the public.

Art and Design is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Founded in 1936 as the School of Industrial Art, it moved to its present location in the center of the city’s design district in September 1960.

The school is moving to new facilities next year.

One difference between fine art and illustration is that an illustration assignment begins with a phone call.  I no longer had the luxury of time or the desire to wait for that call to get illustration assignments.

When I was 44 years old, the oncologist informed me I had a tumor the size of an orange sitting next to my heart and a 50 percent chance of survival.

The reality of a cancer diagnosis brought me to a rude awakening – it was time to do what I really wanted to do. It was my time to create a personal series of paintings.Yet the havoc wreaked on my body by chemotherapy treatments that poisoned fast-growing cancer cells included an anemia that reduced oxygen to my brain. The resulting ups and downs of chemo and steroids created “chemo brain,” a foggy brain haze that limited my ability to focus. In my haze, I wrote and repeatedly slammed out “Three Chords That I Like,” a harsh-song with three chords and five words. The repetitive chant  created a catalyst for my painting series.
­

Getting Ready    oil on canvas  34″ x 51″

What to paint?

To start the creation process, I gave myself an assignment. I decided to use three elements that would appear in each painting, to hold a series together:

1. The first and favorite element I wanted to include was the soft edge created by the grass where the water meets the land. For ten summers, I enjoyed that magical essence of the moonlit bay on Fire Island, New York, with one side of the island sand bar, the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side the Great South Bay of Long Island.

2. The ellipse is my favorite shape. Elliptical orbits define the shape of the universe plus I had had a long standing secret love affair with a very special set of drawing tools – my elliptical tracing guides.

3. Last but not least, Turtles. For some reason I had always loved looking at other painters’ paintings with turtles.
End Result: The first painting in the series “The Secret Life of Turtles” 48×48″, oil on linen
Why turtles?

Rene Magritte      Le Joueur Secret                                                         Marshall Arisman     Water Shaman

Why Turtles?   Part 1

Despite having lived most of my life in New York City with little contact with the world and creatures of nature, a visit to the Caribbean when I was 26 made a lasting impression. My island friend Ray said, “Man, if you can catch a turtle you will get a ride, man.”

While snorkeling I encountered a sea turtle and tried to catch her. She allowed me to get as close as a couple of inches away, but never allowed me to touch her. We swam together for half an hour, and then she abruptly vanished off into a distant depth. I realized I found myself awed by her playful intelligence and humbled by her dominance of the environment. I was hypnotized by her graceful moves, dazzled by her beauty and stunned by my ignorance.

Years later, I saw a painting by René Magritte, Le Joueur Secret (1927), where he portrayed a leatherback turtle floating above a cricket match.
Soon after seeing the Magritte painting, I was walking past the Barnes and Noble Bookstore on Astor Place, NYC when I spotted a poster by Marshall Arisman, my art college teacher.  It was a stunning image of a man’s head exploding into a bright yellow aura as a turtle floated past him.

For me, this was the my tipping point. I saw and felt a connection between these two paintings and what I was to start creating myself.

Secret Life of Turtles                                           (first in series)                                      48″ x 48″   oil on linen

While my artistic visions continued to unfold, my treatments progressed. My nightmare finally began to subside when the doctors declared me cured after two years of rugged treatments. But my struggles continued when my first wife left me soon after my final treatments. I was given a second chance, my life had been given back to me, but things would be different.

I was alone for five -whole-days before I met Joan. After four months, I asked her to marry me. A month later, Joan told me she wasn’t suffering jet lag from a London business trip, but rather we were going to have a baby. The predictions of sterility due to my chemo treatments were wrong and my new life was moving forward – fast.

My Madonna        48″ X 32″         oil onlinen           Joan three days before the birth of our first daughter

Daughter #2    “Arielle in Slumberland” 48″ x 48″ – oil on linen,  I like the the tension/juxtaposition created by using  a reptile as pet –  a warm and fuzzy affectionate/protective symbol .

Skyler / daughter #1  reading about art history while in my studio.     48″ X 48″ oil on linen

Why Turtles   Part 2

As I continued working on the “Turtle Series,” autobiographical allegories emerged.  I wondered why I was so comfortable painting these creatures and having them tell my stories. A deeper search for the reasons for my connection with this series started.

Like many kids who grew up in the 1950s, a turtlewas my first pet-like animal. But that companionship lasted until the second week when sadly it died. Intellectually this just did not seem like enough history to hinge all this work on.

Perhaps the concepts outlined in E.O. Wilson’s book, “Biophilia Hypothesis,” could help to explain. Very simply put, Wilson contends that humans have coexisted closely with animals until as recently as 200 years ago prior to the industrial revolution. We evolved as creatures deeply enmeshed with the intricacies of nature, and still have this affinity with nature ingrained in our genotype today.

Wilson supported his theory with scientific accounts of interrelations between human beings and other species that appeared more like fables than reality. The more I read, the more I saw the connection to my work.

To date, my “Turtle Series” has created the most natural and personal connection I’ve ever had with my work. It seems only intuitive to paint my family in the context of this beautiful, mythically iconic creature.

Life span aside, I feel these paintings give me an immortality that my children will pass onto their children. These pictures are my stories. The more of this work I do the longer I live.

- Victor

John F Kennedy said “artists do what they do and let the chips fall where they may”.   A good moment is when I run into someone in the gallery who gets it from top to bottom. The best of these chips falling into place moments came in the fall of 2009 when I met a Mr. X in my graphics gallery.

Said Mr. X was professor-ially dressed, about 72 (give or take), he seemed enthralled   by the work, very complimentary and infectiously conversational, so much so I listened more than spoke (not always easy for me).  After talking to him about my Daedal Doodle book for about a half hour he told me the most encouraging wonderful story a 55 year old artist could hear, told with sincerity,  I listened as if  I was a  grandchild listening to a wise grandfather.

In the sixties he was in Amsterdam a friend of his said he I would like to take him to an artist studio – but there was a catch. If you went there you had to buy a print.

He found himself getting a personal studio tour from M.C.Escher. He told me about meeting him and how he took delight in remembering how generously Escher unrolled his long prints for him.  He said he bought prints at $15 dollars a piece, how many he did not say. To this day he gets calls from galleries around the world asking him if he would like to sell them.

Continuing he told me he got the same feeling from seeing my work as he did from seeing Escher’s, a feeling he has not gotten since the day in M.C.’s studio. He told me he knew that Escher’s work was going wide, that the world would know about him and that was the way he felt today about my work .

He put his money where his mouth was and bought an expensive digitally published* copy of the book for $200.  I asked him what he did and he told me he was an economics professor at Wharton.  I told Joan about meeting Mr.X – at the time I remember his name, she googled him and told me, yes he was  a professor at Wharton but that he had also gotten his PHD from MIT.

I started buying art books in high school, I think the first art book I ever bought was M.C. Escher’s first published edition. There is not much for me to graciously add other than it was a stunning compliment and that sometimes – life ain’t much more than a feeling.

PS   I read this story to a friend and she found the gentleman’s name on google again – Dr. Jeremy Siegel. I went to his website where he had a video of Warren Buffet  stating that when he wants  to know what’s really going on he asks Dr. Siegel.  Maybe Siegel can get Buffet to invest in Stabin.

P.S.S:  About a half hour after Mr. X, left a  young pregnant woman asked to buy the book at the $200 price.  Without thinking I asked her what college she went to, she sweetly told me she never went to college and was buying the book for her unborn child.

Hence the line - Daedal Doodle an ABC book  for the ages.

Now Only

Click Me!

For the full doctrinaire: Daedal Doodle: An ABC book for all ages.

Salvador Dali’s pet ocelot shat on the  auditorium stage, the crowd went wild. Not only was Salvador Dali’s cat on the stage, Salvador Dali was on the other end of the  leash.

That’s the first story I heard in tenth grade when I entered the High School of  Art and Design. Today when people ask me where I was  educated , although I went to the Art Students League for  four summers starting at age 13, attended the Art Center College  of Design in LA for two years and the School of Visual Arts for one year, what comes out of my mouth is I went to the  High School of Art and Design.  

When I went to college the  average age of the Art Center student was 26, at 19 I was immature for the crowd but equally skilled, often going over fundamentals  that were learned in high school.

While at Art and Design an illustrator named Murry Tinkleman came to the scene of the cat’s crime, the Art & Design auditorium.  Murray  showed slides of cross hatched drawings of boulders commissioned by the US government.  Enlarged on the screen they showed drama that could not be seen  in the original size.  We were all abuzz, the school was cross hatching for the next month.

During the  presentation I got a chance to show prints from the “Turtle Series” and explained my efforts to help save endangered species.

When my father died I felt like somebody burnt down a library, if you caught him at the right time he was brilliant teacher who could explain complicated concepts in very  simple terms. The older I get the more I am aware that the  process of learning makes us responsible to teach. I called the school in 2009 and asked to show my work to the auditorium  in hopes of having my own inspirational show and tell stage moment.  A year later I got a call and was asked if I could come in the next week.  I showed three classes my work  – spoke for about 6 hours straight, until my throat was President Clintonesque. After my presentation, the  intelligent,  sparkling,  committed and last but not least,  giving – A&D Asst. Principal of Architecture / Art & Design Elma Reingold  asked me to have a one man show in the schools store front gallery, the show will be a component  of the  schools 75 anniversary celebration and the schools swan song show before moving to it’s new building. To broaden the compliment I was also asked to be part of the inaugural show for the new 200 million dollar building the school is moving into. It took more than a year to schedule but it was worth the wait.

Wow.

Victor Stabin Starkist Calling                                    72″ X 72″                                               baby Skyler

Hey Dad

“Hey Dad, what are you going to get me for my birthday?”

“Vic, everyday I’m alive it’s your birthday,” my Dad said.

I was 38 years old when I asked that question. My dad died unexpectedly less than a year later, a week after I took him out to dinner for his 72nd birthday on Oct 15th 1993. He was right, as he was right about a lot of things. Everyday he was alive, was my birthday. It has been 17 years since he died andI think about him…a lot.

Remember somewhere during the Bush #1 administration there was noise about saving the spotted owl at the cost of logging in some pocket of the northwest, It became a rally cry against conservation and tree huggers. One day I asked Jack (my dad) what he thought. Without skipping a beat, unemotionally he noted the millions years of evolution that preceded the owl. He was pith and gravity. I actually googled the owl years later (at that time google was only an idea some kid in stanford went to bed thinking about), the spot pattern on the open wings of the creature is nothing short of magnificent. For along time I had a fantasy about strangling Rush Limbaugh in an elevator – but I digress.

For the most part, I have not been all that connected to nature. I grew up in NYC which is clearly not the nature capital of the world. When I was five years old, my parents rented a bungalow in the Catskill Mountains to escape the city summer heat (pre-air conditioning).

Behind the bungalow was a thin patch of woods and a small stream where I used to go to catch frogs. There were moments when I was hunting frogs that I felt so connected with time – everything was simultaneously standing still and moving forward – a sequence as inevitable as death. It was a feeling of belonging in the world that I now comprehend as an adult. These moments are imprinted on me, so much so I can remember the shapes of the knots on the trees I would grab while leaning over the stream.

Twenty years ago I saw an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine about the decimation of the global frog population. As I read it, I felt as if some part of my life was suddenly being erased. One of my basic, imprinted memories was being altered. It’s strange and haunting to have a part of your history removed.

A few months before he died, my Dad gave me an ancient envelope of photos of relatives. They were not labeled, and except for genetic traits like ears or nose or face shape I cannot tell who they were, or should I say, might have been. They are lost to me. After three generations, memories fade and people seem to disappear. I do not think my six and eight-year-old daughters are going to wax poetic about frogs or bats for that matter. At best we are the stewards of our memories – but is that enough?

Our planet is being taken away from us as we watch. Most of us do little but wait. In my lifetime, President Kennedy rallied the country using the Communist threat as a fulcrum; the Reagan-Bush administrations used religious fundamentalism. I cannot wrap my head around how to reach into powerful political systems that choose to ignore the obvious. Governments and corporations do not have the will or conscience to stop ecological attrition with any reasonable timetable.

I see myself as part of a grassroots cultural shift that is concerned with the environment. I feel like one of those crazy characters in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, wildly, passionately, building replicas of the Devil’s Tower because they felt they had to. Perhaps they would be able to explain it later, but they did not have the need or time to explain it then.

I spend my days organizing my thoughts as to what my Turtle Series might become. What seems to be emerging from my subconscious is a campaign to assist in tending to the species emergency at hand. I want to donate 25% of the total print sales from the “Turtle Series” to species protection organizations. Our goals have to be efficiently linked to the tasks at hand using the tools with which we work best; my tools happen to be art supplies.

I do not have any examples at my fingertips to know if this is going to work effectively enough to sustain itself, but I do know that I do not want to put myself in the situation where my children look at me one day and say, “Hey Dad did you do anything to help save the animals?”

As long as I am alive it is my job to make sure every day is their birthday.

Victor Stabin

September 2010