Wayne White

So, yesterday as I was checking my facebook, I happened to see that the NW Film Center here in downtown Portland was going to be hosting a screening of “Beauty is Embarrassing,” a documentary that centers on the life and career of Wayne White. If you’re wondering who Wayne White is, he is the brilliant, insanely creative mind behind the the set design and puppets of that classic 80s children’s show “Pee Wee’s Playhouse“.  So of course, I had to go check this out! Let me just say that the film was excellent and I learned there was a lot more to Wayne than I originally knew. I learned that Wayne is actually an artist in his own right– in fact, he is the guy behind those humorous and risque word paintings I’ve seen around online (pictured below).  Wayne buys kitschy framed landscape paintings from thrift stores and paints tongue-in-cheek phrases on top of them, blending the words seemlessly into the already existing painting.  Pretty cool stuff.

After the film, Wayne walked out with a big, scruffy beard, a flannel shirt and jeans, playing the banjo. He did a Q  and A with the audience and gave a lot of great advice about art. He talked about how when you’re trying to make it as an artist, you have to get used to rejection and accept it as part of reality because it is guaranteed to happen again and again and again. I know this sounds cliche, but man, it really hit home for me. Wayne was saying that getting rejected, not once, but multiple times, doesn’t mean you’re a failure or that you’re doing things wrong- not in the least bit. It’s just a normal part of the process and you have to keep slugging through it no matter how unpleasant it is–that is the key, to just keep on doing it, keep on putting yourself out there, regardless of how many times you get rejected.   He actually said that his career had been 80% rejection–how through all his projects and endeavors, it was like, rejection, rejection, rejection, score, rejection, rejection, rejection, score and so on. To hear such a successful guy say this really put things in perspective for me and made me feel a lot better about myself.  It was like, wow, this guy is living proof of this. So yeah, go see this film. I guarantee you will leave feeling inspired and wanting to go home, stay up all night and make art. (All photos except the last one, courtesy of waynewhiteart.com; photo of Wayne courtesy of www.sfexaminer.com)