SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 20OCT24
Take your places.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Beat is there to make you move, sound is there to help you groove.
WORDS
Above is a 9x12 watercolor study of the 11th century Indian sandstone statue of an Apsara at the Nelson-Atkins Museum I made earlier this week. Something about the color palette I used for this came together in a real way.
There’s this thing with me making art where I’m constantly chasing the feeling I got from looking at the art that originally inspired me to be an artist, in my own work. The first time it actually happened for me was in late 2019, a few months after starting therapy. Not a coincidence there. Anyway. I got that with this painting. Some intangible factor about it. This rarely happens so I like to take a moment to appreciate it when it does.
Last night I finished up this 12x16 study of two Bodhisattva pieces in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins, a Yuan Dynastywooden statue of a Guanyin bodhisattva and a Guangshun reign period mural of two bodhisattvas. I thought they played nicely off of each other visually and gave me a healthy challenge to portray the textures, surfaces and lighting for each with watercolor.
Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Pac painting. Wet hair smell included.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Pac - SIGNED
Abadon
Sting
Jamie Hayter
Card subject to change.
Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
###
Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
###
Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
###
Instagram
Threads
Cara
YouTube
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
Last night Katy and I watched The First Omen. It’s a powerful tale about the dangers of institutional religion and its relationship to a woman’s right to agency over her own body. Uhm, wait, no, it’s a well-done prequel to the original Omen film. Right. It’s definitely the latter. It also introduced a fascinating new concept to the mythos of the Omen film series that I’d be interested to see further explored.
I’m nearly done with the audiobook for Batman: Resurrection by John Jackson Miller. Set a few months after the 1989 movie, it’s a fascinating continuation of that world, filling in a lot of emotional beats left over from that film that weren’t revisited in Batman Returns, and also setting up a lot of things for Returns. The apparent antagonist is Clayface, given the same sort of sympathetic treatment that Mr Freeze got in Batman: The Animated Series and I don’t say that lightly. This is maybe the BEST Clayface take I’ve come across. I’ve enjoyed all of Miller’s Star Trek books and he continues that quality here. And man, the slow reveal of the real villain is fantastic.
Speaking of the Bat guy…
For no reason in particular I’d never read Batman: The Cult by Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson until a few days ago. I always find it interesting to encounter a big piece of work after having experienced multiple works influenced by it. Like, the concepts for both Knightfall and No Man’s Land (and maybe also the current state of the Republican Party) seem like they were born here. I don’t think anyone would say that this is Wrightson’s best work, but it’s still really strong and clear. And as a nerd for these kinds of things, I wonder if there’s any other writer outside of Frank Miller who had this small of time with Batman who had as big of an impact as Jim Starlin. Between The Cult, Ten Nights of the Beast, the characterization of Jason Todd aka Robin II, and Todd’s brutal killing at the hands of The Joker in A Death in the Family it’s easy to argue that Starlin is one of the single most influential Batman writers of the past 40 years and he did it all in a handful of months.
(And after Starlin left due to the fallout of A Death in the Family he went back to Marvel and wrote a little book called The Infinity Gauntlet that not only reshaped Marvel but also, like, the past 15-ish years of western culture.)
I picked up a copy of Blood Song: A Silent Ballad by Eric Drooker, as I’d missed it when it came out and thoroughly loved his recent Naked City. This is a gorgeous piece of sequential art, telling the entire story of a young woman seeking refuge on the hard streets of New York without any dialogue or captions, all through the progression of Drooker’s beautifully drawn illustrations. A pure masterpiece.
This morning I finished up Gou Tanabe’s adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu. I feel like Tanabe has done an excellent overall job with these Lovecraft adaptations, getting across that sense of under-the-surface dread that was present in the original stories in a way that other adaptations fall short with. I do wish he hadn’t actually illustrated Cthulhu and instead shown it through the reactions of the sailors, but that’s a preference thing. And yes, Lovecraft as a person had some serious problems. You only have to look up the name of his cat to verify that. And his racist views commonly come through in his works and they need to be viewed with that full context, that these are the writings of a man with very serious issues that were not being addressed except through an attempt at self-medication with excessive drinking that eventually led to his early death. Which, when you know that and read something like The Call of Cthulhu again, it gives the reader an even deeper sense of dread around not just the story, but why the man wrote the story to begin with.
And Tanabe’s art is gorgeous. Just want to say that, too.
Under the Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai
HOKUSAI: WAVES OF IMAGINATION
“When I am 90, I will have mastered the essence of art, and at the age of 100, I might reach a level of divine understanding. At 110, each dot and each line will appear alive.”
-Katsushika Hokusai
Last Sunday Katy and I went to see the Hokusai exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum here in Kansas City. If you’re unfamiliar with his name, you’ve most likely seen his above woodblock print, one of the most famous works of art ever made. It was remarkable to see this in person. I’d thought I’d be kind of desensitized to it after the Florence trip, but no, there was a palpable electricity standing there in front of this. Everyone, who had been talking at normal volume, lowered their voices when standing before it.
On the Sea at Minamata in Higo Province, Temetomo Encounters a Storm, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
There was a massive collection of not just Hokusai’s works, but also of his inspirations, his peers, his students, and those around the world influenced by his art and the ukiyo-e technique as a whole. If you’re familiar with ukiyo-e, you can see its influence on my own art either directly or through those who inspired me who in turn were inspired by the ukiyo-e masters.
Huang Xin, Guardian of Three Mountains by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Seeing the musha-e aka ukiyo-e warrior prints exhibited together truly took my breath away. I was immediately reminded of Frank Miller’s covers for Lone Wolf & Cub, which were heavily influenced by musha-e. They’re the least-prominent of ukiyo-e but are seeing a resurgence, likely aided by how well they speak to current western art. I took A LOT of pictures and notes and you’ll see more of this creep into my work as I continue to study it.
If retirement is ever an option for me, it would look like this: I’d work the omelette station a few mornings a week at a beachfront resort, just to be around people. I’d fill my days with making little paintings that interest only me, and then on the weekends I’d offer guided tours at an art museum.
Writing it out, that actually sounds busier than my life as it currently is. I’m kind of already doing a third of that. Not bad!
Important Tikka Update
YOU GOOD?
Did you know that Tikka actually writes my newsletters with his tail? He’s a talented guy.
Up top I mentioned how going to therapy has impacted my relationship with my art. That’s something my therapist and I got into again on Monday quite a bit, actually. I originally defined my art career and how I viewed my art through a need to fill some things I was lacking from my childhood. I won’t get into that, it’s personal, but I’ve addressed a lot of those issues and it’s left me adrift a bit. Like, if I’m not chasing those unobtainable goals anymore, why AM I still so passionate about my work? Being an artist ain’t an easy way to make a living, like, why am I not hanging up my brushes and getting a 9 to 5?
I’m circling around on not defining my pursuit of making art through any sort of lofty goal, but in simply letting it be enough to make enough to cover my expenses and letting the joy of that fulfill me. Sounds obvious, but friend: This has NOT been obvious in my life up to now.
TL;DR: Therapy’s helpful.
Love you more,
Rob