You are what you eat.

There's an old saying that you are what you eat. I try to make healthy dietary choices. I am mindful of what's good for me and what's not. I'm not a fan of fast food, but I've been known to enjoy a 10 chicken nugget meal with fries from McDonald's now and then. 

I don't have to eat meat every meal. I actually like vegetables. I'm not perfect. I will indulge in a little chocolate after meals once in a while. I prefer and enjoy cooking my own food.

I can't say that my dietary likes and dislikes are influenced by my upbringing. Some in my family still don't understand why half my meals don't have meat in them. So where did I get my dietary food choices? Mostly from how food makes me feel. In general, my body does not like processed food, so I choose to listen to my body.  Hopefully, my choices will help me live a long life, but a lot of it comes from seeing what other people eat and how the food they eat effects them over long periods of time. 

An old roommate of mine liked to eat bacon sandwiches every morning for breakfast. Not just any plain old bacon sandwich mind you. He liked to cook the bacon in lard. You don't need to cook bacon in lard. Then as a condiment he liked add butter to each slice of bread, fair enough I suppose, but that was not all. Just before he put the sandwich together he would pour the bacon fat and melted lard over the bacon to give it that je nes sai quoi. He smoked and drank a lot too. He's not alive anymore.  

On the sunny side, I knew a 92-year-old Sicilian woman who never ate processed foods. She rarely ate meat. She grew her own food or bought fresh fruit and vegetables, preferably from local farmers all her life. I hope I look and move as good as she did at 92. She passed away last year. She lived a long life.

I think Austin Kleon would agree what you choose to eat will influence who you become, and similarly we are a sum of what we choose to let in to our minds as designers. What we see, hear, touch and taste has had and will have an everlasting influence over the choices we make in the future. 

So far, I've been a son, a brother, a friend, a lover, a husband, a step-father, a cook, a traveler, a starving artist, illustrator, teacher and social worker. Some things I've chosen to let in to my life. Some things life chose for me. 

Over the past 20 years, I identified as a social worker. I started out cleaning dishes in a homeless shelter when I was 25. Eventually, that lead to a life as a mental health community support case manager. That career largely made me who I am today. 

I've advocated on people's behalf to Social Security, the Housing Authority, the Champaign County Courts, jails, parole/probation officers, psychiatric hospitals, homeless shelters, housing voucher programs, churches, food pantries, Jesus is the Way, townships and a lot more. I've helped a lot of people in my life. I've met a lot of different types of people from all walks of life. My life has been threatened multiple times, but I know I've helped to save lives too. 

A long time ago, before I became a social worker, I immersed myself in art and the culture that surrounded the life of an artist. I painted or drew almost every day. I hustled my art whenever and where ever I could. I dreamed of becoming the next big thing. I wanted to be able to live solely on my artistic abilities. That's not an easy thing to do.  

When I became a social worker, that all slowly died. I found a new passion. Life wasn't about me anymore. Life was about helping others. That kind of life can be satisfying. I wasn't flipping burgers or simply pushing papers. I felt I was making a difference in my community. I won a lot of battles for people that always lost. That feels good. It's not easy. People are not always appreciative. 

I've also been influenced by my coworkers. There are some incredible human beings in the social work field. Unsung heroes. I remember feeling saddened when a celebrity received praised and awarded for some superficial act of kindness. When I knew the real heroes go anonymous day after day, risking their lives sometimes, to help others. 

At the end of the day, we would go home, underpaid, bruised, hurt, emotionally drained and underappreciated just to get up the next morning and do it all over again, because the work needed to be done. We can only sow seeds. We hope that one of them will grow.  

Am I satisfied with the sum of my influences? Yes. Yes, I am. How will I broaden my influences? I am going to consume as much time and information I can about people who make art and design. I'm going to study my mentor and who influenced him. I'm going to study the people that influenced his mentors and so on until I feel there is nothing more than I can learn from them. 

My chosen mentor is Art Chantry. I chose a self-centered, rude and obnoxious free-lancer commercial artist. Sounds a lot like some clients I've worked with. How ironic. Nevertheless, I like his work. I don't know if I like him as a person so far, but that's not the point of this blog is it? He is influenced by pop culture from the 1950's, comic books, psychedelia, monster trading cards and Mad Magazines to name a few. He has called himself a "cultural propagandists" and a "mind fucker". So, as you can see he likes to antagonize people. He wouldn't have made a very good social worker. Below are just three designers Chantry said he has influenced his work and I can see why. Chantry was a big fan of Harry Chester. He said he tried to copy Chester's lettering style but was never quite able to master the style as good.

Well that's all for now. Join me next week on this same bat channel and the same bat time. Have a good week. 

Source:

1.   ART OF THE DEAD. SOFT SKULL PRESS, 2016.

2.   Bell, Blake, and Steve Ditko. Strange and Stranger: the World of Steve Ditko. Fantagraphics Books, 2008.

3.   Lasky, Julie, and Art Chantry. Some People Can’t Surf: Art Chantry. Chronicle, 2001.

Design: Harry Chester

Design: Steve Ditko

Design: Victor Mosoco