Illustration in Context

Painted, Digicut & Animation

Faculty Reaction Illustration in Context Genres Rohan Wayne Patrick rpatrick@hartford.edu

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When asked, why do you do what you do? she replied, “Because I love to paint pictures, it is fulfilling.” Zina Sanders (b.

1953) is a self-directed artist with a passion for social issues. Whenever there is an issue that she is unhappy about, you will see it in her work. A native New Yorker, she attended The High School of Music and Art and graduated in 1970.

Fig. 1 Photographer unknown, Norman Sanders (1907-1989), 1951, Mr. Sanders at work.

She went on to Cooper Union but also learned much about painting and commercial art from her father, illustrator Norman Saunders (1907-1989) (Fig. 1) in the northernmost wilderness of Minnesota. After graduating high school, Norman Sanders was trained in art by correspondence courses with The Federal Schools Inc. of Minneapolis. Along with his diploma in Fig. 2 Photographer unknown, Allen Gustav Anderson (1908-1995), date unknown, portrait.

1927, Mr. Sanders also received a

scholarship to the Chicago Art Institute, which he soon forfeited when offered a full-time job on the art staff at Fawcett Publications in Robbinsdale, MN. Mr. Sanders worked there for six years along with pulp artists Allen Gustav Anderson (1908-1995) (Fig. 2) and Ralph Carlson (1907-1986) (Fig. 3). Mr. Sanders moved to NYC in 1934 and studied with Harvey

Fig. 3 Photographer unknown, Ralph Carlson (1907-1986), date unknown, portrait.

Thomas Dunn (1884–1952) (Fig. 4) at the Grand Central School of Art. In 1935 Mr.

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Saunders began to sell freelance cover art for pulp magazines stories, among them, Saucy Movie Tales. These covers were signed with his little-known middle name "Blaine." Although many early illustrations are signed "Normand," in 1937 Saunders legally shortened his first name to "Norman." By 1938 Fig. 4 Photographer unknown, Harvey Thomas Dunn (1884–1952), date unknown. Harvey Dunn in his studio.

Saunders was a top pulp magazine cover artist. He painted 446 pulp covers

for almost every title and publisher during the pre-war period. Norman Saunders is celebrated as one of the legendary creators of many iconic images of American popular culture.

(Fig. 5) Zina Saunders is the daughter of Norman Sanders. Ms. Sanders is a Manhattan-based artist, writer, animator and educator. This paper is a reaction to her presentation at the Hartford Art School Summer 2012 MFA Illustration program. Ms. Sanders doesn’t care to see the works of other artists, but she does not work in a vacuum. Her style is filled with feelings and emotion; this shows her sensitivity to humanity.

When asked to describe her style, Ms. Sanders commented that she has several. Her first is painted (Fig. 6) – this tends to be loose and experimental. It is also often filled with a lot of color. Her next style is what she calls “DigiCut” (Fig. 7). This essentially is digital wood cut, which Fig. 5 Zina Saunders (b. 1953), title and date unknown, self-portrait.

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is done exclusively on the computer. Her third and final style is animation (Fig. 8). With her animation Ms. Sanders is using a standard that she calls cartoon vocabulary. With this new language, Ms. Sanders is able to speak on many different levels. From different news sources, she has been using this language as a means of political response. This style of working comes easy for her as she is quite proficient in her software of choice, Adobe After Effects. In 2010, for Mother Jones Magazine, she began creating regular weekly animations (which feature Ms. Fig. 6 Zina Sanders (b. 1953), Attack On The Middle Class, 2010, painted style, Mother Jones, cover.

Saunders

doing the voices of all the characters). Her book Overlooked New York (2009) (Fig. 8) is a collection of interviews, profiles and portraits of diverse New York subcultures and hobbyists. Her Overlooked New York subjects include amateur astronomers, bike messengers, carnival costume designers, cricket players, keepers of roof top pigeon

coops, kite flyers, scuba divers, street performers, subway musicians and urban gardeners. The project began in the fall of 2004 with her observation of colorful, decorative bicycles. As she explained:

Fig. 7 Zina Sanders, Obama Angels, 2010, “DigiCut style,� The New Republic.

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Ever since I was a kid I’ve seen older Puerto Rican men riding crazy, tricked-out bicycles, loaded with mirrors and flags and chrome and fuzzy dice and raccoon tails.

I’ve always wanted to paint their pictures and find out why they decorate their bicycles and how they got started, and what this bicycle display is all about. I tracked them down to where they hang out, drinking beer and showing off their bikes. I painted their pictures and asked them questions about who they are and how they got started with customizing their bicycles. These guys are members of an insular community with their own aesthetic, one that the mainstream culture knows nothing about. They are sincere and passionate and delighted with their one-man parades. Their bicycles are their personal vision of beauty and art that they are always tinkering with, perfecting and adjusting and planning and applying, and then riding down the street for everyone to see. That began my mission to discover the seemingly endless variety of enthusiasms pursued

by New Yorkers, whether they were carried from immigrants' cultures from overseas or indigenous to the City landscape. These are real New Yorkers who have found fascinating ways to unleash their joy on the roofs and rivers and parks and streets of New York.

Ms. Sanders is currently involved in a show at the New Britain Museum, called Pixellated: The Art of Zina. Ms. Sanders was asked along with other artist to provide the museum with an “artist statement.” She believes that artist’s statements are a bunch of malarkey, to her way of thinking. This is what she wrote in support of her statement.

I don't believe in artist’s statements. I mean I literally don't believe in them: I don't believe they exist for any reason. I believe they are an invention of the art establishment, the rich and mighty people who sit on museum boards and control the grant-giving foundations, forcing us to contort ourselves into mealymouthed buffoons, just so our pictures will be stuck on the creamy walls of institutions around the globe. I protest this fiction.

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My statement is the statement of a human being ... an artistic one, but a human being first and foremost. And as a member of the human family, I demand that the universal human right be recognized by all museums everywhere: the right of artists to let their work speak for itself and cease this senseless demand that artists submit to the indignity of constructing nonsensical artist statements.

Fig. 8 Zina Sanders, Blind Trust, 2012, animation style, The Final Edition.

To her surprise, the museum actually liked it and sent her an email and an article link commending her for it!

The article, by Susan Dunne for The Hartford Courant, mentioned that Zina Saunders; "Motorcycle Gal" (Fig. 10) also focuses on a memory, of "the coolest girl I ever saw," riding a motorcycle in a miniskirt.

(Saunders' artist’s "statement" really stops the show.”

According to Ms. Sanders, “saying ‘fuck it’ can sometimes be the best way to go.”

Fig. 9 Zina Sanders, Overlooked New York, cover, 2009, Overlooked New York, book.

She has illustrated for a variety of publishers (Simon &

Schuster, Random House, Scholastic Books, Oxford University Press), while contributing

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Fig. 10 Zina Sanders, Motorcycle Gal, 2012, 'Pixelated: The Art of Digital Illustration' At NBMAA.

to magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Time Out New York and Outré. Ms. Sanders wrote about the Puerto Rican Schwinn Club for Time Out New York (June 2005) and returned in the August 11, 2005 issue with profiles of Central Park portrait artists.

Ms. Sanders is quite self-confident and motivated about social issues, but she often doubts whether people will “get it,” whether this issue is strong enough for people to care. To get over this, Ms Sanders will simply let the project take over.

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References:

http://www.courant.com/entertainment/arts/hc-artweek-0802-20120731,0,2356900.story http://www.zinasaunders.com/ http://zinasaunders.blogspot.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_Saunders#cite_note-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_Saunders#cite_note-4 http://www.overlookednewyork.com/contact/index.html http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Harvey+Dunn+illustrator http://www.pulpartists.com/AA.html http://www.normansaunders.com/ http://articles.courant.com/2012-07-31/entertainment/hc-artweek-080220120731_1_digital-media-illustration-department-newest-art http://dakotadiscovery.com/?page_id=204 http://www.kruufm.com/node/11718

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