I find the common
misunderstanding that television stifles creativity to be very funny. Looking
at an artist as talented as Dave Perillo, one can see that television can also
be a source of great inspiration depending on the person; In my opinion, a true
artist can find inspiration in anything. The shows and artists that Dave found
his inspiration in have inspired so many other artists as well, in the form of
other television shows, movies, Easter eggs, prints, songs, everything; The
artists who created them no doubt found inspiration from other artists in some
way shape or form. There is one Bugs Bunny short in particular that comes to
mind; “What’s Opera, Doc?” which parodied Wagner’s 19th century
opera.
I relate to
Perillo, in that I had a hard time concentrating on the subject matter at hand
in grade school. I would constantly get called out for doodling in the margins
of my notebooks. I even drew caricatures of all of my fourth grade classmates.
All I wanted to do all day every day for a number of years was sketch
everything around me and give my creations to my grandmother, my fiercest
supporter.
I find it
interesting that sketching has moved onto sketching then editing in the
computer. I feel conflicted about it. There is something really special about
that original hand-drawn piece. It’s like a children’s creation in
kindergarten; It’s inspired by something, but it’s not perfect, and each piece
is a little different, sentimental and unique. On the other hand, it’s near
impossible to create the exact uniform shade of purple for those violets on the
front porch by hand, and a computer makes it a thousand times easier to get
that crisp line for the shadow on the hand of the grandfarher next door.
With a computer,
we can save our artwork in a cloud in case of fire or flood, etc. Lastly,
connections are made by using sites such as Deviantart. If it wasn’t for
someone discovering Perillo on Deviantart, I would not be reading this
interview right now, nor would I be wishing I owned his Gotham Records piece,
or Mario Bros. piece for his Squares 4 Squares exhibit at Gallery 1988. I’m
also a huge Whovian, and I sincerely hope he gets picked up by BBC to do an
official piece, preferably featuring the Tenth Doctor.
I can
only hope to one day be successful enough to work with companies like Disney
and The Simpsons. I have officially found an artist to seek out at Comic Con.
I’m going to work on making my own style. Like Perillo said, “a million
Garfields” is “a scary though.”