My story really starts in East L.A. My bedroom was in our small living room and I was awakened one evening to shouts below our house. As I looked out I saw two men fighting with chains. I was shocked and repelled by my environment. Our backyard was dusty dirt with a tree that bore no fruit. My most vivid escape was when I saw a vine flower and I remember bees swarming around the petals getting drunk on pollen. It was then that I too wanted to feast on something beautiful and nourishing. If I was to sit on a shrinks couch I would say that Art probably saved my Life and gave me a traditional healthy escape from the ugliness that I saw. I remember someone giving me a set of casein paints when I was 10 because they saw me drawing all the time with cheap pencils. I painted my mother looking into a mirror while touching her face as she noticed her wrinkles. People made a fuss about it when I entered the painting in a local show. If not for the encouragement of so many people like my parents who believed in me I would probably be a machinist like my father. Painting is really the only passion that ever made me want to get out of bed and do something significant and meaningful. I studied with a portrait master during my teens and one day I met an old salty California Plein Air painter named Sam Hyde Harris.When I stepped into his darkened living room he was seated on a worn sunken couch with a stick of tobacco in his mouth . Behind him hung a Saturday Evening Post original oil painting by Norman Rockwell. It was signed to my good friend Sam. It filled me with a sense of calling and purpose and I was hooked and I was all in as an artist.
ON BEING FRANK
The Artist's Life .... thus far
Artist Spotlight - Frank Ordaz
Date: 1/11/2017
When did you first realize that you wanted to become an artist?
Norman Rockwell famously said don't be so enamored with the truth that the story is boring. So in that spirit, here goes.
I grew up in East LA and it's a pretty poor section of that metropolis. I lived in an environment that was the polar opposite of a Thomas Kinkcaid painting. I remember looking out my window late one evening to see two men fighting with each other in the middle of the street with chains as weapons. I've told this story before and it sounds like it's not true, but it is. But a burst of Light occurred with a bougainvillea bush in our property. It's a plant with colorful leaf-like petals and they thrive is southern California. We had one in our side yard and I remember looking at that, it's a very vivid memory, and all these bees were buzzing around this bush. It was a picture of Life in a sea of concrete , dirt and violence. Our backyard was essentially brown dirt and a dead fruit tree. My idea of being rich, we're talking the mind of a seven year old, was having green grass in your yard. We moved to another part of LA County that was a wee bit nicer, but we still didn't have a green lawn. My idea of rich was someone that had green grass in their front and back yard. So, I was really taken with the beauty of this bougainvillea in the midst of all the ugliness. I wanted to pursue a life that highlighted that swirling energy of Life.
When you're a poor kid your ticket out of poverty is usually Sports, Education or the Arts.. My dad was a semi pro boxer, but I wasn't a strong kid and so I started getting into drawing and thought that if I could keep drawing I could make it in the world. I was fortunate enough to have a father who appreciated art and valued the arts. My mom did too, and it was a real gift from God. My parents have always supported me. I've heard other artists complain that their family argued against a career in Art but I never heard this from my parents. I was also told by them that I had a gift from God and that I should pursue and hone my talent. By the time I was 7, 8 or 9, I had already decided in my head that I was going to pursue art. I've been persevering and abiding ever since.
My dad in many ways was like the Beach Boys' father. He tried to help me whenever he could, taking me and my drawings to local art shows and promoting me. Soon enough people started noticing my work because my dad kept entering it for me. I was very shy. When I was 11 or 12, the local news station ran a feature story about a little 12 year old Mexican boy trying to make it as an artist. Then I got a little write up in the local newspaper, and that encouraged me to pursue my art career. I've had this single focused mindset since I was 10 years old.
Here's something my dad recently told me. I did a project for the White House for First Lady Laura Bush back in 2006. I went to the White House as a guest of the president and I remember talking to my dad about it and he said he never would have believed that he would have a son that got to visit the president of the United States. He also told me that when he was a young boy in Guadalajara Mexico , he wanted to become an artist. He recalled that one day his mother sent him out for groceries and instead of getting them he spent the whole time looking at a local artist's work. He felt God had blessed him with an artistic son who had fulfilled that desire. Sometimes as a parent you have a desire that you can't make true and your children can somehow realize those dreams for you. My dad is way out there in terms of loving art. I was just fortunate to have a dad who loved art and when he saw he had a child that had a gift, he went out of his way to help me. What grace. At the age of 12 he found me a teacher in LA. He couldn't afford the lessons so he did handiwork for this teacher for 5 years to pay for my lessons.
Because of that support I could realize and see myself as a successful artist. I am blessed by having their selfless commitment towards my career.
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