Wake Me Up Before You Gogh Gogh

Alright, my artist might not be Vincent van Gogh, but he is a very unique artist. His name is Jason A. Cummings and he does abstractions.

 As I was wandering around the city to find an artist that truly captured my eye, I came across this artwork in Jackson Square. When you first glance at his artwork, it looks like there are bubbles trapped in the artwork. After I went up to his work and looked closely, I noticed that the "bubbles" were actually glass balls. It was very cool! Personally, I have never seen artwork like this, so I had to go and see how he did it.

As I said earlier, the artist is Jason A. Cummings. Before he took up artwork full time, he worked as an antiques dealer, art director and designer. As far as his academics, he went to South Choctaw Academy in Toxey, Alabama. Cummings was born in Needham, Alabama and moved around quite a bit for various reasons before settling here in New Orleans.

As I was talking to Cummings, he said that he kind of moved to wherever he felt like it. When he came to New Orleans, he loved it. For a while he was working as an employee somewhere in New Orleans and he did not enjoy it. In fact he said, "I don't think I'll ever work for someone again. I hated having a boss." During our conversations, he mentioned how he didn't go to work for a few days to ensure he would be fired. Shortly after his stunt, he got his wish and was fired. After he was let go, he talked about how he began messing around with his art. He started small and through trial and error, he began to see progress. Since he doesn't live far from Jackson Square, he decided to bring his work out to see if people would actually buy it, and they sure did!

As I stood and talked with Cummings, I could really tell he was a friendly guy. What I mean by that is that he loves to talk. We actually had a genuine conversation that lasted about 45 minutes. He talked briefly about his private life and then we spoke about his artwork and the process it took for him to get where he is now.

When we were talking, I asked him how long a piece of his artwork approximately takes. He kind of laughed at that and said "honestly, no one has asked me that before and when I think of it, I don't really know. I have a row of my artwork set up at my apartment and whenever I have some time, I go through and do touch-ups on each of them. I just go down the line and keep up the process until I'm happy with them." As we continued our conversation, I really enjoyed listening to him because I could see the passion for his work in his eyes. I feel like an artist should never feel like their work is a burden. Instead, the artwork should be a fun hobby and that's truly how it is for Cummings. He gets to do his work on his own time without having anyone tell him what to do.

The reason I chose Cummings' artwork is because it's rare. As I said earlier, I have never seen this type of work before. In his biography on Facebook, it states that "his varied experience in career, residence, and natural creativity that allows him to create such unique works of art today." There are so many artists in the world and the work they do ranges. There are musicians, dancers, painters, jewelers, and chefs (to name a few). Each of these people have their own individual style and history behind why they are doing it. I think that's why Cummings is so interesting. He wanted to be fired from his job, so he missed work. He started messing around with some paint and chemicals to see what would happen. This is how he began it all. I mean think about it, would you ever just quit your job because you were sick of it? You have no back up plan or savings. I mean think about how scary that would be. Then one day, you just come across art. You decide to put some work together and see what happens...

Personally, I would be terrified. I don't think I could ever just quit my job because I didn't want a boss anymore. Let alone, quit a job without a backup plan. This man's life is very roller coaster like. Shortly before I spoke with him, he had just sold an $875 painting. As we were talking, he's like "yeah, I didn't know if I was going to eat this week before I just sold that painting." That's terrifying to me. An artist's life is so up and down. One week they could easily make $2,000 and the next only $200. It all depends on chance. Cummings has shown me that he doesn't really fear for what's to come. He lets life take him where it wants to. Even throughout all his hardships, he smiles without fear. As we were talking, you would never have guessed that he was worried about eating this week. It's amazing to me though; these artists are selling their work on the streets in hope that someone will buy them and sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

I really enjoyed Cummings story and his work. He does this artwork because he enjoys it. He likes to talk about what he does and talks about his past and laughs. When he told the story about him quitting his job, he had the biggest smile on his face. He was unhappy, so he did something about it and now he solely does what his heart desires. Isn't that what we all want though? To be genuinely happy doing what we do? The story of the artist Jason A. Cummings is my favorite because he doesn't just talk about what makes him happy, he's out there doing it.