How did I appear? All of my life I have had a very diverse interest in art. Some of my earliest memories are of scribbling stick figures with my father. These stick figures always found themselves in odd situations. My father and I spent many countless hours sitting on the floor of our living room making these stick figures recreate some of the most outrageous adventures; storming the beaches of Normandy, flying P-51 Mustangs over Europe, traveling through or across the stars like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, or just having wacky adventures drawing and just being silly with my dad. These little figures that we drew day in and day out were my first attempt at attaching myself to some sort of creative expression. It was simple, I had found a way to have fun and do something useful. I wanted to be an artist; I just didn’t know it yet.

As time went on and I continued to gather more and more artistic knowledge and I found that I was growing restless with my own talents or lack thereof.  Stick figures just weren’t cutting it anymore. It was fun but I needed to have more. How far can you actually go making these little guys having grand adventures? I remember asking myself this daily. Not a good thing when you are under six years of age.  I know what you are thinking, how could someone so young grow weary of creating art.  I did; plain and simple. Years went on and my artistic talents seemed to stagnate…That was until a fateful night back in 1977; May 25th, 1977 to be exact.
It was a dark and stormy night….Just kidding, but it really was raining and it was at night.  It was cold and we waited in line for what seemed to be a thousand years for this film that we had been seeing trailers for throughout the entire summer of 1976.  So there we were, waiting to get into this movie. We weren’t used to waiting for movies back in those days so there definitely was something special about what we were waiting for.  As we sat down in our seats, I remember being very wet and very tired. As the lights finally went down and the curtain slowly pulled away, a slow and gentle blackness mixed with flickering film scratches teased the entirety of the movie screen. This slowly gave way to a simple black background and ten simple words: A Long Time Ago In a Galaxy Far, Far Away….
Star Wars.  As that giant Imperial Star Destroyer passed seemingly over our heads chasing that blockade runner, I was hooked. For those of you that weren’t even born at that time, it really is hard to describe just what it was like to be in the movie theater back on the 25th of May, 1977.  Unless you were there, there really are no words that accurately describe exactly how we felt. I found my muse.

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is the Force. Johnnie Houston Estill II

November 23, 2008