Mishmash

All the Perks from my Patreon Page

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As many of you know, I was an adjunct teacher (former lecturer, visiting professor, etc) for many (20+) years, and I’ve decided to go back to grad school to pick up more skills for commercial illustration. It’s a practical application of something I love anyway, but it allows me to illustrate my own works and the works of others.

While I’m in grad school, I have taken out some more loans to live on (and pay tuition and fees)—which add to my debt. It’s a gamble I’m taking on myself. I’m excited about winning this bet on me! I believe this is the right choice for me right now.

But I have no false ideas about how the next two years will go financially–they may be bumpy, but probably no worse than they’ve been. I have secured at least one teaching gig for the fall, and hopefully more will come if they like what I do. But money will probably still be tight, and after the two years is over, I lose all that funding.

I’ve decided to start up a Patreon page for those who want to get special perks and help out an artist/writer while they retrain/ expand their skills and as they make a transition into their industry.

On that page, I will be offering not only news and excerpts from writing and art, but at different levels you will be able to:

  • see all my art I produce at CCAD
  • read a serialized, illustrated space opera created just for Patrons.
  • watch writing videos that answer questions you have about writing
  • purchase critiques of your writing, up to 20 pages a month from me
  • get reading lists and recommendations of people to read and follow
  • signed copies of my books
  • have portraits painted of people you love (up to 4 a year)
  • I give 10% of what I earn back into the Patreon pages of other queer artists/writers. As I rise, they rise. And I will post blog posts here about those I support on Patreon.

If you are interested in joining my adventure, please click on the picture below and it will take you to my Patreon page where you can sign up!

You do NOT have to support my Patreon to be my friend. Following me on Facebook you’ll still be able to follow my life and work, but Patreon offers many specific, special perks for those who do want to help out. I will not be upset at all if you can’t afford to help, or don’t want to participate in a Patreon. No worries. I’m so happy to have supportive friends who give me cheer, love, companionship, and a good ear when I need them! That’s what’s most important to me.

If you would like the perks from this Patreon account, consider clicking on the image above and becoming part of this journey in Columbus with me!

Back to School–Art School that is.

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The Columbus College of Art and Design have accepted me into their MFA program, and my curriculum is all about Illustration (digital and traditional). I start in the fall. They have also offered me a chance to teach the History of Comic Narrative as an adjunct course while I’m in grad school and I said yes! So I’m very happy to be moving to Columbus for a couple of years, exploring my painting, my drawing and illustration. I’m hoping to acquire more skills to use for jobs—in illustration or portraiture–but also to illustrate my own works.

The program is two years long, is project based: you propose three projects, one a semester, and then one that covers a whole year. They have strong ties to industries that support artists: Disney, Wizards of the Coast, Hallmark, etc. I’m very excited about the chance to improve my art skills over the next two years.

The hard part is that it will go SO FAST. I plan on learning all I can. I have five or six projects in mind–most of them connected to a writing project. I have to narrow them down! LOL.

I won’t stop writing and, hopefully, publishing, but instead of full time teaching, this allows me to survive for a couple more years, learning skills as I go, and allowing me to get more writing done. My goal is still to emerge in two years with more skills, more publications, ready to take on any jobs that I can get.

Illustrating Our Lives Together

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As part of my show Communion, with its portraits of different church members drinking coffee, I included several illustrated scenes of life together–multiple figures doing stuff together.

Usually I took photographs and drew from them, but sometimes I cobbled photos together to get everyone in that may not have been there. So they can sometimes be composites. I thought that drawings might evoke something more than the photos they are taken from… a sense of community, of living together. I used pen and ink and then watercolor pencils (brushed with water) to create these.

Think about the things we do together that give us a sense of community, of communion with each other. I should take some pictures of the Post Office on April 15th to show how we as a community turn in our taxes! I used to love being there with everyone else before midnight! Now we mostly do them online. But I bet there are many who do them through the US Post. Theatre events, restaurants, sports events, concerts—all these things that bring us together and let us experience life together.

I’m hoping to do more with this style. CultureWorks asked me to do a live drawing inside of Premier Health’s cafeteria area, and so I stood there for four or five hours doing the one below, showing the different patrons who come to eat there (and I threw in a bear for fun).

Premier Health’s cafeteria when everyone’s eating and talking and being together

I hope CultureWorks asks me to do more of these because I had a great time and I would like to do more of them, celebrating life and work in Dayton, OH. If you know of a business in Dayton that would like to have their very own portrait of their customers, clients, employees, or just the life of the business—please contact CultureWorks by clicking on their logo below and they’ll be happy to set something up with you!

Communion, my art show, up at FBC Dayton, coming to Christopher’s Restaurant in June

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UPDATE: These paintings and more are going to be hanging up at Christopher’s Restaurant in Kettering, OH in June! So happy! You can see them in person if you come by Christopher’s in June!

_____________________

March 26, 2019

Ever feel like one of the best times at church was actually AFTER church at the coffee fellowship? Where you all caught up with everyone’s lives? Where you shared the good news about your new job? Your new apartment? Or shared the loss of a relationship? Things that you may not be able to do in a service—and you receive things here that you may not be able to get in a service either. You get to share something with family, receive praise, encouragement, sympathy—become a community together.

So, I made a set of paintings picturing our church members having coffee together, as part of our regular coffee fellowship that happens after formal church services. I wanted to talk about how the informal coffee we have together is very much like Communion, in that it fosters community. While Communion is a very theological concept of remembering the life and death of Jesus, communion is also a way that a group commits to a larger mission together–to care about each other. My church members went along with my idea by sitting for photographs that I then turned into paintings.

I’ll probably add a few more to this set. I am going to try and shop around this show to area cafes and restaurants to see if anyone would like to show it. (Yeah, like Christopher’s! See Update!)

I also painted our church as a welcoming and affirming Baptist church, so the Pride flag is there…

Prints are available if you would like to have me make them. Just DM me here in the comments or contact me through my email on the About Me page and I can make a print. Email me: jeromestueart@gmail.com

Putting them together for First Fridays! They will be separated again when they are up at Christopher’s Restaurant in June, but I wanted to see them all together here.

“Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun” published in F&SF + Some featured Jazz

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My story has been published in F&SF for the March/April 2019 issue. I’m so happy about that.

An old jazz-playing faun has the chance to get back everything that was taken from him a hundred years ago, if he can take it from his only student. The story has Jazz, Mentoring and Hope as themes. It also asks the question: how do you change your own life?

My two characters, a young college football player who wants to become a jazz musician, and an old faun who just wants to be a part of the world again, struggle and fail and attempt again this massive turn in their lives, together. At one point, one of the characters says, “I feel like I’m this tiny tugboat trying to turn this massive life around.” And that’s one of the questions I wanted to pose–how do you do that? I hope you find these characters as inspiring as I did.

Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program

I mention an organization I used to work for in my twenties when I was at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program under the Missouri Folk Arts Program. An example of their work is here–pairing two musicians together, a master and an apprentice, much like Mr. Dance and Eric in the story.

Continue reading →

“Art and Beauty in Weird Fiction”: SE Lindberg’s Review of The Angels of Our Better Beasts + Interview

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From February, author and artist SE Lindberg reviewed my collection on Booklikes and did an interview with me about “Art and Beauty in Weird Fiction”.

About The Angels of Our Better Beasts, he says, “The variety is great, but Stueart’s keen sense of humanity, and the role art plays in our relationships, is the key strength. Few times have weird fiction actually evoked real emotions.”– SE Lindberg.  Read more of his review here.

Seth also interviewed me for his blogsite–a fun interview about the role of the artist in writing, as well as art in fiction.  I get asked if I’m more a changeling or a chimera!  Also some insightful questions for me as an illustrator.

Assorted Beasts

Check out the interview here.

Thank you, Seth, and to everyone who reviews a book publicly.  It’s about the best gift you can give a writer you enjoy!  Your reviews turn are not just kind words, but they help lead others to our books, and this reassures publishers that we are worth publishing.  That people are reading us and liking our work.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

“Easily one of the best collections by a single author I have ever read”:Black Gate Magazine reviews The Angels of Our Better Beasts

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“Not a single story in this collection disappointed me – which is rare, as I’m sure you know if you read short fiction.” –Brandon Crilly for Black Gate Magazine.

12715744_10153895453277095_8059101292263897684_n2016 World Fantasy Award-winning Black Gate Magazine just reviewed The Angels of Our Better Beasts, and it just made my week!  Wow!

So glad you all enjoyed the book!

Read the FULL REVIEW here.