SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 15DEC24
I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
WORDS
NEEDS: PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Watercolor on 12” x 16” watercolor paper
NEEDS: WATER
Watercolor on 12” x 16” watercolor paper
NEEDS: REST
Watercolor on 12” x 16” watercolor paper
These are my latest paintings for the Human Needs Collection I’m making, exploring the concept of the different things that we require to survive and thrive. By working on these, I’m learning about them and how they fit into my own life. If they aid anyone else viewing them to ask those questions for themselves, that’s beautiful.
Beyond my Classical studies this year, another big influence for this series of paintings was how fog, smoke and lighting were used in John Boorman’s Excalibur to completely alter a scene or to portray Merlin’s magic. No fancy effects were needed here, just the viewer’s imagination. The scene above is a great example of this, if you’re unfamiliar with this 43 year old movie.
That’s something that’s been stuck in the back of my head since I watched the film again a few months ago and in a way it inspired how I’m using fabric as a main compositional element with the figure in each painting. How can I drape it, or have it flow, or change its color to speak to each of the basic human needs I’m trying to explore? I’m finding it to be a fascinating way in to each of these and it’s far more versatile than I’d expected.
Here’s the sketches I originally made for each of these paintings, in case you’re interested in the process side of things.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Adam Cole
Jay White
Jon Moxley
The Outrunners
Ricochet
Private Party
Card subject to change.
(I’m not exactly sure what’s coming out on Thursday yet. Stay tuned. It’ll be one of these.)
Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
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Instagram
Threads
Bluesky
Cara
YouTube
WHAT I LIKED THIS YEAR IN MOVIES
This is far from a complete list of everything I saw in 2024, and I’m sure there’s a couple I’ve forgotten to include, but it’s still a solid year of flicks. Katy and I made a conscious effort to go see more movies this year in the theater, which has been a lovely addition back into our lives. I think Anatomy of a Fall, The First Omen and Woman of the Hour were the only ones we watched at home. Alien: Romulus I saw on my own and the, what would you call it, VCR Noir? aspect of it all has stayed with me. Conclave we went to see on election night to get away from it all and…that didn’t quite work out. Late Night With the Devil and Civil War were two that were equally entertaining and thought-provoking and haunting in completely different ways.
Probably the best in-theater experiences we had were with Speak No Evil and The Fall Guy. The audiences for both were yelling at the screen and with Fall Guy even dancing in the aisles. For real. The marketing department completely failed with Fall Guy in my opinion, it should have been about how damn fun it is to watch in a crowd. I don’t know if that translates to home viewing.
We’re planning to see Nosferatu later this month and we still haven’t seen Heretic so there could be a couple more to add to this list, but I think it’s been a very solid year.
WHAT I MADE THIS YEAR: THE EMOTION SERIES
I didn’t just SEE art this year, I also made some!
Here’s the paintings I made for The Emotion Series over the course of this year, each exploring how I experience the different core emotions as someone with PTSD and childhood attachment injuries. The process of doing these has helped me to visualize what I’m experiencing, to the point when something is hitting me hard I actually see the painting for it in my mind.
Clockwise from the top left: Overwhelmed, Afraid, Confident, Dislike, Interested, Sad, and Excited
Something I found as I worked on these is that I often was experiencing those emotions while making them. Like, that tree in ‘Dislike’ was a beast to paint, and ‘Sad’ was almost too much to get through. Interestingly enough, my Italy trip happened during the time I was working on ‘Interested’ and I made my trip to Chicago to meet with ShopAEW to make that career move while I was working on ‘Overwhelmed’.
I have one more painting to make for this collection, which I should have done in the next month or so. Then I’ll start looking into the best ways to exhibit them with the intent towards their potential for helping others who struggle in similar ways to myself.
(I think I actually made ‘Excited’ in 2023. Not sure how that got into the collage here. Hey, I’m an imperfect person.)
World’s Finest!
YOU GOOD?
We actually came in fifth place at trivia night on Thursday! The trick to that appears to be a light crowd so that we de facto do better ranking-wise. Our goal is normally to be sixth-from-last and hey, there were only ten teams that night. Double-win.
Thursday also marked my sixth week in a row selling out a new release at ShopAEW. Again, every time I call out a streak like this it ends but I felt good about it and it’s so rare I feel good about most anything that I thought it worth shouting out. Shouteth outeth it hath been.
Okay. Back to it.
Love you more,
Rob