Transcript:
[MUSIC] That’s a soda pop from soda, Hughes, and you’re watching the lock. And today we’ve got a pretty exciting book to go into. This is going to be a book, highlighting Tom Lavelle. I think it’s lavell. Maybe it’s. Tom Lovell. I never met the guy. He was a very talented and successful illustrator. He was actually inducted into the Illustrator Hall of Fame. It’s a book by Dan Zimmer. This guy does a lot of art books. The covers at least are very impressive to me and so far. I’m liking the design of the book. I like the typography. I like the layout. It’s a nice size. It’s a pretty big book as you can see and it’s constructed well. Yeah, Tom Labelle. Uh, originally wasn’t going to become an illustrator. Uh, I was reading up on him. A little bit, and it seems he was inspired by a friend, a roommate, a couple other people to start getting more into illustration, and when he started, he did a lot of, you know, Western crime pulp sort of covers you can see, uh? He’s got something for. He’s starting to do editorial illustration for cosmopolitan and stuff like that. You know, he’s got a very, uh, he’s an American illustrator, and I must say he does have a very illustrative style and a very American looking style. He’s very talented, very good at telling a story and he said that, uh, I think he was saying that. He considered himself a storyteller with a brush and that a lot of the sort of early pulp, and some of the smaller magazine commissions really pushed him to become a more concise and better visual storyteller because he wouldn’t have a long time to work on something he would have. You know, 10 days to maybe work on one spread or one one page and so his work is very evocative. Oftentimes, a lot of emotion is being expressed from the face very inspiring. I think, uh, one of the things I was reading is that he also was a valedictorian and that he spoke. Um, I think he might have spoken either graduation or some sort of a conference early on about the mistreatment of the indigenous peoples of America. Because, uh, he didn’t. When he was younger. He didn’t receive a formal art training when he was a lot younger, but his, uh, I guess he lived near a museum and he was very interested in a lot of the art there and he would go there and he would also really look at a lot of the indigenous artifacts and history that was in the museum and he was fascinated by it. And I also read I. I don’t know as much about history or a lot of historical artifacts. I know a little bit about certain art, history and certain, uh, historical artifacts within that context. But otherwise I’m not an expert, so I couldn’t say if it’s not true but, um. I think I read a couple things That said. Lavelle was, uh, that’s nice. I really liked, uh. Yeah, just the way he works with color too. Some of the contrast and the way some things really stand out in the composition also is just incredible. How your eye can just scan across it really incredible stuff. Uh, but anyway, sorry, got distracted. I was reading that he, you know. With his fascination of history, he would often try and pursue some semblance of, uh, historical accuracy, even going as far as to, you know, make models and spend a really long time just researching and planning out the outfits, Just the way people would look so you could have some of that historical relevance within his, uh, artwork. Yeah, just the story in some of these. I mean, because of the, uh, time and the, uh, marketing aspect of a lot of it, you know, you can definitely see some evidence of the times, which you know was not a great time for civil rights equal rights. Uh, sexual, sexually progressive beliefs, so in a lot of ways, the work is sort of dated in those ways, but I do feel like a lot of, um, this old American style of illustrating and a lot of this sort of evocative storytelling. I would be interested in kind of capturing that and starting to try and do some things like that. You know, the storytelling of this and Norman Rockwell? I think I would like to start, uh, to inject some of that into some of my art. Eventually, because I feel like a lot of that is just lost. You have a lot of sort of, uh, empty or, you know, works without narrative that are aesthetic. And that there’s nothing wrong with that, you know? I love that, but I feel like this. Uh, sort of visual storytelling has kind of dissipated in many ways. Huh, that’s very nice. Oh, god, I wish they showed way more of his sketches and drawings. That’s one of my favorite things to see by any artist is their sketches, their drawings, the cochlear or whatever it’s called. I don’t know how to say it in French, but figure studies anyway. Amazing book, amazing construction, a lot of great content. Interestingly enough, though, and some of you know that I live in Utah and I used to be Mormon, uh, Lavelle and a few other American illustrators, uh, did some artwork for the Mormon Church, which is interesting to look back on because you know, a lot of the times we look at certain religious artwork as artifacts. You know you visit. I visited a lot of places in Italy and, you know, because I’m not Catholic. I think I look at them. As art and as artifacts but growing up, you know, there was a lot of Mormon art and a lot of it is not by Mormon artists, But I must admit there is a lot of amazing and impressive and interesting Mormon art that now you know, kind of like how I can look back at a lot of the literature as sort of mythos and I can look at the artwork as artwork and artifacts, Lavelle did do some works for the LDS church, and I think, um, he did one of, uh, Moroni, uh, which is kind of one of the last prophets or heroes within the Book of Mormon, and that’s one of my favorite pieces of Mormon art. When he’s, you know, he’s the last of his kind, and he’s going to try and bury their history and their record, and that’s part of the lore of the Mormon Church and I was looking into a lot of pages on level and, uh, some people had ran into them. They’re a little interested, and they said I was aware of a lot of the stuff he did, but I was kind of perplexed about the the story behind these works, and so yeah, he did a series for the LDS Church, which is not included here. I’m not sure if the publisher didn’t want to include it or if the church didn’t share those rights. But, uh, interesting works that you can also check out if you want to see more of lavell, but yeah, great book. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you check out this publisher. The Illustrated Press. They’ve got a lot of great works, and I hope you like subscribe and I’ll see you again. [music] you!