Michael Gaydos Event

          I attended the Michael Gaydos exhibit in the Winter Center at Millersville University on Tuesday December 4^th at 6pm. The event was an artist talk where Gaydos spoke about how his career started to where he is today. I learned several interesting things about Gaydos. I also did some research of his work that really inspired me. Gaydos is a graphic designer, illustrator, painter, and sequential artist. A main point that struck me was that Gaydos started working for a friend who illustrated the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Mirage Publishing. I loved this series as a child. It also reminds me a lot of my brother. He then spoke about the comic he illustrated, “Scorched Earth” that was published in 1991; the author was John Gentile. This comic was one of a six projected series but only three were actually published. Gaydos got his big break when he began working for Marvel Comics on “Alias” and “The Pulse” with Brian Michael Bendis. He also illustrated a mini-series “Powerless” and “Daredevil Redemption.” It struck me that he drew all of his models from real life people. Almost all of “Alias” was based off of his ex-wife which is pretty interesting. I read that he approaches all of his work first in black and white and then after it is complete, he goes crazy with color. It reminded me of what you told us about our logos, if it works in black and white, it will work in color. He focused a lot on expressionism which is very similar to my own work. I am an art education major and I am not extremely familiar with a lot of graphic work but through my printmaking work, I put a ton of my emotional experience into my prints. I take the reality of losing my brother and distort the meaning and idea of his loss. Another thing that struck was that Gaydos emphasized having a feast rather than a famine, which I have never heard these terms before this event. I live my life everyday by this mentality. Living it to the fullest rather than struggling to survive because of the tragedies in my life.