SYNERGY #3
Painted with Jordan John

The very same day that we worked with Prakash John we also did a project with his son Jordan John. I find it funny but I’m sure a few of you might find it confusing that quite a few times in this book I’ve used said the word “we” when you would normally expect me to be saying “I”. Let me explain, real quick right now before we move on. When folks first get the chance to meet me, usually within a very short period of time, I will make sure that they understand that there are two parts to me that I intentionally keep in check. I make certain they understand that when they speak to me firsthand about my art, my personal life and my talent, etc they actually talking to the person Ronnie or Ron. But as the artist when I work on behalf of my brand and company Suchiu Art they are basically involving themselves with different people.

The first person is, yes me directly as Ron and the second person being the artist and the persona and the Machine for the company is my boss Suchiu. No, I never meant for it to become a habit but when I am working on my art I find I must keep these two characters separate and for very good reason. The main brand character Suchiu has a lot more confidence than the guy who sits and chats around with his friends, customers, and family. For example, one time Dr. Jane Goodall candidly introduced me on stage at her event to an audience of about 5000 people, and the second I realized I had to go on stage I instantly transformed myself into Suchiu. That seems to be my only protection against my shyness and believe it or not my intense stage fright.

Boy, did I Veer off of the subject here, let’s get back to it. By now you realize that the first step of a Synergy art piece is to have my Synergy partner choose his or her favorite color. Jordan had chosen a deep, rich blue for his project. I have a bit of a habit when I do blue and I seem to have a bit of mental block and usually end up with a repeating feeling and I general paint what appears to be very calm water. In this painting I wanted this to look like the light of early evening over a serene body of water about half an hour or so after sunset. These are just the feelings that I pop up at me when sitting in front of the blank canvas at this point. But adding to this is that I would have by then listened to some of Jordan’s music and watched a few of his videos. I found his particular influence on me was that he seemed very intelligent and although he was very energetic on stage there was a sense that calmness and confidence surround him allowing a sense of peace to be projected by him in his performance stage.

You must check that out online… he is good … real good! So my background started out as an entirely blue canvas, as you can see in the small image. Remember in Synergy art it’s not up to me to make the subject come forth by projecting my own feelings too far into it. So next step, came Jordan’s act of igniting the spark of inspiration that would send the painting and its subject on the way to its fruition. I only ask Jordan what color he wanted to paint with and what brush he wished to use and then let him loose to do whatever he wished with the canvas. Jordan immediately asked if it was okay for him to write on the canvas, of course, the answer was yes. He then proceeded to write what seemed to be a few song titles of which I came to realize were songs that he had written.

Although while watching him paint, I must admit, in the back of my mind I actually felt is that what he was doing was, for lack of a better word, graffiti on the painted background. May I mention that in this art form the main rule is “there are no rules!” and so for the next two weeks, as I was completing Prakash John’s painting, I had a chance to glance over at Jordan’s piece from time to time and ponder what spirit was begging to be painted. It wasn’t until I repeated one word in my own a few times that I could not push away the fact that what he had painted on my background was indeed graffiti. The Synergy answer came true and fast at that point and struck me.

Each of my paintings has its own story and this is it for Jordan’s piece. The easiest thing for me to do would be to turn this painting into a portrait of the wall of an old building. It has been painted over by Jordan and I have shown him actually climbing up a ladder. Here you see him in the painting in the process of adding the graffiti to the wall. Although the painting started off as a fairly dark looking art piece I had the opportunity, because of Jordan and his kindling of the story I was able to naturally brighten it up. It turned out, looking like a beautiful summer day with strong sunlight shining down a wall.

The hearts that were drawn on the wall gave me the opportunity to add a real nice bright splash of crimson. I like the idea that parts of the graffiti art on the wall is left unfinished. This creates an unplanned look, which gives us a real honest feel of someone who is in this painting to simply enjoy the act of doing so. Also, having Jordan in the painting itself changed the direction of the artwork from what I would have thought to be in the beginning, a surreal piece, yet this way it ended up to be a realist piece. Nice curve ball! The more I use this new process of producing art with a partner the more I realize how much I really love the fact that it does not matter at all who my synergy partner is. It matters not if she or he is an artist.

Even age, gender, profession, religious or cultural preference has no bearing on the outcome of these art pieces. What a feeling of professional freedom, two words that are seldom seen together! In fact, I look forward to some wild future “Synergy Partnerings” that will most certainly produce art pieces beyond my present comprehension. I know I will get involved in a myriad of people with a huge diversity of personal characteristics which will allow me to introduce new and exciting things to the World. It may sound silly but as I look back to the earlier paintings, one being almost five years ago and it almost makes me feel giddy. I look at these pieces and realize that they were produced by me in coordination with such a myriad of different personalities and without that magical recipe, they could not have existed… wow. I now look forward to traveling worldwide and having the chance to paint with many unique individuals from amazing new countries, different cultures with un-foretold smells, tastes, and attitudes that will be whirling around influencing my canvases. Now, this is fun. It is what I’ve looked forward to for my entire life as an artist. So the next painting will be the first one in which I will be partnering with an actual visual artist, but we’ll leave that to the next chapter.