Wade Greene- Artist & Painter (Introduction)

Edition Twenty-Nine – Week Twenty-Nine:

Written by: Mercedes Barreto

What is your favorite thing about being an artist/painter?

“If we no longer have modern technology, we will have to revert to the old form of “getting the word out” or getting media out to the public. During the biblical, renaissance, and revolutionary times, raw art such as paintings or even hieroglyphs was the old form of advertising, marketing, and language. But, getting too comfortable with electronic mobile devices is giving us a crutch. We can’t put all of our eggs in one basket. So, sometimes you have to spread the eggs around in a new and old school basket because soon it’s not a matter of if the new school will fail us but when.”

How do you feel your paintings reflect your life and genuine feeling and perception of the world?

“When I was an army brat, my father moved us all over the country, going from one base to another. When the Mayflower moving truck has all your belongings and your only source of entertainment, you are forced to live in your imagination when all you have is an air mattress for a bed and a cardboard box for a nightstand. During the Gulf War in 1989-1992, we lived in Ft Meade, MD (home of the NSA). Before I started to make friends as my new neighbors and myself being the new kid on the block, your imagination goes lightning fast. Your brain is trying to process the reality that the same NSA building used in movies and the news is only a block away from your backyard. My sketch pad was my printing press from my brain. My eyes would see this stuff around me, and I thought, “what is the best way to record this without taking a picture with a camera since photos are a breach of national security? I wanted to be a self-taught illustrator for a few seconds. Most people use a journal to write down things to get them off their chest. So I used a sketch pad as my psychologist. My dad did professional painting while he was AGR army at the same time. Watching him paint looked cool to cure the boredom with no peers my age to hang out with, so I figured it was a groovy activity to pass the time.”

Is there a particular achievement or highlight in art and painting that you would like to share? Why and how so?

“An achievement I have to say is when I’m asked by people to make them some art to get out what’s in my head on paper. I would laugh and not believe people when they want the crazy mess in my head on a canvas, in a frame hanging above their fireplace. It makes me ask the question, “why” and yet feel honored at the same time. I will achieve more if I bring out expression in people or pass along knowledge to others who can learn a craft from me to apply it to their imagination. When that happens, my mission is complete.”

Why did you want to paint and create art? What is the reason?

“Main reason was to keep my brain occupied from the stress, nerves, anxiety, and depression of moving every 2-3 years. I was only a kid, and as a kid at that age, it was hard to understand why I couldn’t have a social life. I would create my own life I wanted in my art. I would make my comic strip and become a character I drew. After I got out of the military from an honorable medical discharge from an injury, I became homeless in CA, living in a pickup truck in N Hollywood while in college. The reserves were my income. After that, I was forced out of student housing, forcing me to sleep in my truck parked on a public street next to a park. No place to go, and parking tickets adding up, the anxiety was getting worse because now the challenge was how to stay focused on my studies, knowing I was homeless and had nothing to look forward to toward the weekend after class when other students going to house parties when I had no desire, or no home to have fun in and no home to invite friends over. No one knew in class that I was living on the streets. I was too embarrassed (Of course, I was young, dumb, and worried about what people thought).
When there was no class on the weekends, the anxiety returned to visit me. I would breathe fast, short breaths, my Lips go numb, my face would go cool, my muscles go stiff, my throat would close up, hard to swallow, and then I get dizzy and feel like I was going to pass out. Then fight or flight kicks in. This happens on a Friday night, sitting in my truck, in the driver seat with a blanket, trying to get warm with only a radio for company. I would start to see things that were not there. My doctor told me it was schizophrenia. My brain was filling in the blanks of no social contact. Then all of a sudden, when I grabbed my sketch pad and started to draw in my fantasy made-up world, I drew on paper a house, family, career, and security in the comic strip my character had. Then my brain did a nervous breakdown overload. The anxiety stopped as my brain rebooted. For a side job, I would dress like Ace Ventura on Hollywood boulevard for tourists who wanted to get a photograph of Ace Ventura. I was basically doing in real life what I was drawing. My art is things I have done in real life or I’m going to do.”

Do you believe there is a particular faction of paint in which you excel further than others? Why and how so?

“I don’t live life as a competition. I’m just trying to live life in peace. I never had the mindset to want to excel further than others in the Art world. Art is art. There is no right or wrong answer. Just like the body of Christ, it takes a team to make up the body. God may give someone the ability to sing when the singer wanted to be a doctor, the pastor wanted to be an astronaut, or the painter wanted to be a blue angel fighter pilot. One skill or ability Is no better than the other. God needs a singer to praise, a pastor to spread his word; God needs a cook to feed members that may be down on their luck. Art is the same thing. All different types serve their purpose to accomplish one mission.”

What would you want someone to take from or perceive from your art?

“I want people to realize that art should not only be treated as a mind escapade but also be treated as the Constitution of one’s history, which they have experienced, and also to take it in someone’s art as a blueprint of things that are predicted to happen in the world’s future. It’s to get us prepared for the good or bad.”