Home

Resume

Artwork

JIm Saw

BIOGRAPHY - Reality Check (1980 to 2003)

I started painting again in earnest during the eighties. The first show I had was at the San Diego Museum of Art's Sales and Rental Gallery in 1980. They were trying to expand their offerings so I showed the series of airbrush paintings that I had done from meditations about having diabetes. I had show at many galleries from San Diego to as far east as Georgia during the seventies but felt like I had been taken advantage of by most of the private galleries. I needed a new place to show my work.

Knowles Gallery in La Jolla started showing my work in 1981. Mary and Bill Knowles were very good to me and finally gave me a gallery experience that was positive. My paintings sold well and I was inspired to create. Mostly I painted landscapes.

I started painting more seascapes using the airbrush. They were quite abstract dealing with light and reflections of light on the water. Some of the airbrush paintings were of landscapes but mostly the landscapes were oil or especially acrylic paintings. See the painting and airbrush pages for examples. Though I sold well I never made much money (I did make my car payments). Since I had a good job the art sales supported my habit and it generally kept me out of mischief.

The car I paid for was a mid-life crisis special, a red Toyota Celica GTS. On it's first trip I took it to Death Valley for a photo outing. I put over 100,000 miles on it in 6 years (geographically undesirable girl friends and lots of trips) then traded it in for a van. With the van I could camp in relative comfort.

I know car pictures are a guy thing. But I have had some interesting cars over the years: 1927 Pontiac Sedan Delivery (I called it the Paddy Wagon -- never got that one running), 1947 pontiac "woody", 1950 Buick hearse (I had that one when I was in the Army in Oklahoma -- sometimes they would not want to sell me gas), 1953 Hudson Hornet (Jan's dad collected Hudsons), and a red 1960 Cadillac convertible (a part car for the 1958 sedan I drove --the kids played in the convertible).

One of the best benefits of being a teacher is the time off. I have always loved to travel and camp (as long as it was easy and comfortable). Every summer I would go on a trip of some sort. When I was married, Jan and I would take the camper. After I was alone I still took trips where and when (and with who) I could.

The picture to the left is me on a five day white water raft trip on the Rogue River in Oregon. The guides were friends that live in Northern California. There is a picture from that trip, "Fern Falls" in the Artwork section of the site. The shirt I have on was from the Art Department softball team, the Sables (undefeated).

Other trips I took in the eighties include: a tour of the Southwest, a week in a house boat on Lake Powell, a great trip to Glacier National Park, lots of ski trips to Mammoth (I started skiing in 1984), a couple of trips to Hawaii and then finally Europe.

In 1986 I went to Europe on tour sponsored by the Art Department and lead by Harry Bliss and his wife Becky. We had a great time and many of the paintings and buildings that I had studied all those years in art history classes came to life. I had been content up until then to see the USA. Now I was ready to see the world

All of the trips provided me with inspiration for paintings. I always carried a sketchbook but rarely opened it. I used my camera (the smallest, lightest point and shoot I could find) as a sketching tool.

Since I took a lot of pictures and wanted to keep them organized and ready to display I started making photo albums. I used old scrap books at first but later used new ones. I like to cut up the photographs to make better compositions (I use a wide angle lens and just shoot "in the general direction" then clean it up later). Since I am part pack rat I keep all kinds of paper goods (ticket stubs, fliers, matchbooks, etc.) that also go into the books. So far there are 24, some covering a whole year and some recording just a long trip. Unfortunately I am almost a year behind as I write this (damn this web site).

Meanwhile, while I was having all this fun, my son, Scott (left below), was going through the hell of growing up. I'm sure he was glad to see me gone so much so he could visit his brother and mother or just hang out with his hoodlum friends (most of whom are in remarkably good situations now). Scott was majoring in sex, drugs and rock and roll in school. In an ironic way he was my alter ego -- friendly and outgoing the girls loved him -- everything I wasn't at his age.

He dropped out of high school and finally tested to get a diploma. After a few crummy jobs he started working construction, then painting houses and finally started his own house painting business. He was always good with money (when he was small we would borrow money from him to pay his baby sitter).

After the house fire he lived on his own, spending a couple of winters in Mammoth doing the snow board bum thing. One of his girlfriends was a beautiful Chilean woman who spoke no English so Scott went to Mira Costa Junior College to study Spanish. The romance didn't last but he discovered that he liked learning and was very good at it. He continued taking classes and he graduated from San Diego State University with a business degree and a minor in art. He is now the Art Director for a company in Carlsbad. He just needed a little time to find himself. He and his wife Tara live in my old house in Leucadia.

You can see Scott's art at: scottsaw.com.

My other son, Will, was more the deep, quiet type. He stayed in school and took it seriously. He went to UC Riverside and got a degree in electrical engineering (I knew the EE gene was in the family somewhere). He met his bride to be, Judy, at UCR and they were married in 1995. They own a home outside of Scottsdale where he works as a systems engineer. I couldn't be more proud of both of my sons (here looking more civilized than usual).

As the eighties came to an end the Knowles decided to retire and sold the art gallery. About then the economy took a dive and the art market fell apart. By then I was tired of painting. I had tried too hard and was painting to sell and not because I liked to do it. I quit painting. Perhaps when I am retired I will take it up again. I'm just now starting to miss it.

At three o'clock on Christmas Eve morning, 1990, a fire broke out in my house. I heard the fire alarm but it fit somehow into the dream I was having. Scott's shouts woke me to find the top of the wall heater in his room burning. We used the fire extinguisher from the kitchen to put out the fire but it started back up in a few seconds. We put it out a second time but when it restarted we called 911. After putting it out a third time the fire extinguisher was empty and the fire bigger than ever, the house filling with smoke. I got out of the house with a only pair of pants on. Scott had on a shirt and pants but no shoes. It was a record cold night for the coast. After the fire was out the street was a sheet of ice. I can't remember ever being more frustrated or feeling more helpless.

The fire department was less than two blocks away but they didn't come very quickly. The local company was out on another call so an engine had to come from the other side of town. By then the fire was going great guns. They put it out and saved much of the house but the contents were pretty much destroyed. Scott put all he could salvage from his room (shown to the right) in a shoe box. All of my favorite paintings were destroyed except one.

The loss was just "stuff" and we were safe -- but homeless and nearly naked. One of the greatest losses was the more than 400 slides my artwork. The paper records survived because they were packed so tightly together. All of my sketchbooks and documents look like kid's pirate maps with burnt edges. Fortunately my studio was detached and it and the art stored there was not damaged.

The house was rebuilt better than ever. I had the kitchen enlarged and two rooms combined to make a large living room. It took seven months until I could move back in. Just as the house was getting done I took another trip to Europe with Harry Bliss, et. al. This time I was truly on my own since Scott was moved out and on his own. He painted the house while I was gone. I named it the "Leucadia Ball Room".

Because so much was damaged or destroyed by the fire I took up wood working to make some new furniture. Almost everything else I had ever done was flat (as a painter I felt like the world was flat and only sculptors thought it was really round). I enjoyed working with wood I love the feel of it and the wonderful texture and color it has when it is polished. Since I had a small studio (now a shop) made from a one car garage I needed to work with hand tools. All of the furniture I made was with the goal of being able to make things by hand with as few machines as practical. The last piece I made, a stereo cabinet, put that to the test and left me a bit frustrated. It turned out beautifully but took more effort than I thought I could supply for more big projects.

Instead I took up guitar making. I bought my first (an up until then only) guitar in Mexico in 1964. In all the years since I never got much good at playing it. But I wanted to and needed to get a steel string guitar. My wife to be, Nancy, and I were in Pennsylvania and took a tour of the Martin Guitar factory. I bought a guitar kit. After making furniture by hand it didn't look too hard to do. It was but I was up to the task and that guitar turned out so well I was inspired to make another (and another. . . ).

I made five in all. The last one was part of my sabbatical leave project (did I say I loved being a teacher?). To research that guitar Nancy and I took a 12,000 mile camping trip in her dads little RV. On the trip I interviewed many of the top guitar makers in the country. The archtop guitar for the project came out well but took 400 hours to make (and I thought furniture making was slow). By then I had plenty of guitars (and still couldn't play in spite of finally taking a year of lessons).

While writing for my sabbatical (I wrote a book about making the guitar) I started using a computer for the first time in 1996. I liked it. It could spell! My first computer was a wood burning black and white Macintosh SE. I had bought it for Scott and when he started doing better in school. When I got him a better Mac I took his old one. We kept handing down the computers as his got better and better until he switched to a PC. Now he is on his own -- I'm a Mac guy.

Now all the "art" I do is digital. This web site is the latest project after writing an on line texts and work books for my Design and Composition course. Nancy started feeling like a computer widow.

But I digress. . . . about 1988 I started to go to see more live music at the Belly Up Tavern. There were lots of good blues and roots rock shows and there would always be a group of swing dancers there. I loved to dance so started taking swing dance lessons. It took me several times through the class but I finally got the hang of it, thanks to some personal help from the teacher. Since then I have spent far too much time at the Belly Up and have enjoyed every minute of it. I limit myself to one beer (because of my diabetes) but still have a great time if the music is good -- and it usually is. In 1998 Nancy and I were named "Patrons of the Year" at the Belly Up Tavern and their restaurant, The Wild Note Cafe.

I met Nancy at the Belly Up. We started as dance partners then became friends and finally a couple in 1992. Besides a love of music and dancing we share many other interests. One is travel. We take two or three trips a year plus a few short hops to see friends or to camp in the mountains or the desert. I bought a bigger van so we could have more space (take along more stuff). When we were to go on our long trip for my sabbatical we talked her parents into getting an RV. We keep it at our house and take care of it for the family. It is a wonderful way to travel and we have been to thirty plus states and part of Canada in it. The only states I haven't been in yet are Alaska and Kentucky.

Another love is books and reading. After I moved in with Nancy I built a floor to ceiling book shelf across one wall of the room we use as an office and we struggle to keep it from overflowing.

We married in June of 1997 in our back yard in Solana Beach under a redwood arbor I built and planted with passions flowers. We went to Europe on our honeymoon -- another one of Harry Bliss' trips. The pace was too much for us this time and we didn't relax and enjoy ourselves until we got to Patmos, one of the Greek isles. We kicked back there and had a ball. I have the scars to prove it (a motor scooter accident). We have been back to Europe and have gone to Mexico and Hawaii a couple of times since.

I retired in December, 2002, after 30 years teaching at Palomar College. It was a great job and I count my blessings that I was able to be part of the fine Art Department there.

Since then we have remodeled the house, adding an ocean view bedroom and deck on a second floor. We have a new RV and will use it to see even more of this fine country. We went to China for three weeks in late 2003 and hope to see more of Asia. I may start painting again, who knows what muse I may follow. The sure thing is that there is too much to do and too little time to do it. It is hard for me to imagine ever being bored.

So much for the past. If you have gotten this far you are more patient and/or are more desperate for information than is reasonable -- but thanks.