Holidays are our favorite time of the year. A time of magic when the air is crisp, homes are gussied up with strings of twinkling lights, families come together by the tree, eggnog and cookies await Santa coming down the chimney, and the joys of giving and togetherness makes us kids again. For our first Christmas in Laguna Beach, 210 AR4T Space and The JLA Project have commandeered the help of artist and legendary snowboarder Jamie Lynn to transform the gallery into a wonderland of art created especially for children. Together with Jackson, WY big mountain rider Bryan Iguchi, Newport Beach hometown hero Ben Brough, and Seattle based painter and sculptor of skateboards Brennan Coyle, 210 AR4T Space will be home to a living children’s book full of letters, numbers, characters, color, and poetry. The gallery will open on Saturday November 20th with art from the four artists, and will transform over the weeks toward Christmas with children’s art mornings and the addition of their art to the gallery. For dates and times, please visit AR4T.com. November 20th – December 24th, 2010 KIDS OPENING: Saturday, November 20th, 2010 / 9 am – noon ARTISTS RECEPTION: Saturday, November 20th, 2010 / 6pm – 9pm LAGUNA BEACH 1ST THURSDAY ART WALK: December 2, 2010 / 6pm – 9pm ABOUT JAMIE LYNN: As a skate grom growing up in Auburn, a suburb of Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro in Washington state, Jamie Lynn was drawn to skateboards designed by pros like Mark Gonzales, Neil Blender and Chris Miller – guys who used their pro models not only as vehicles for self-expression with how they rode them, but also with the artwork they put on them. So when Jamie had the opportunity in 1994 to have his first pro model through his longtime sponsor Lib Tech, he saw no better way to carry on the same kind of tradition in snowboarding than to do his own graphics. Through the process of designing board graphics, as well as contributing to the creative energy wheel at Volcom, Lynn developed a certain style of artwork he describes as “kind of a strong outline, simplistic fill-in colors, easy to digest and absorb.” The Volcom Artist Series launched featuring one of Jamie’s paintings as one of the first for the special clothing line, and over the years while spending time in Costa Mesa, California, he’s been seen lurking in Volcom cubicles, helping with ads, window displays and indoor mural design. Art undoubtedly remains an important part of Jamie’s life even with an active schedule that includes international travel and playing music with Kandi Coded, a Seattle-roots-influenced, grungy punk band that Jamie joined as vocalist/guitarist in 2004. He continues to set aside time to focus on blank canvases and come up with two or three pieces a year to add to his own personal collection or to a small number of friends’ collections. At 37, snowboarding remains a top passion in Lynn’s life as he rides as much as possible in his backyard mountains – Baker, Snoqualmie, Stevens and Crystal – where, if he can still do drawn-out, style-y methods and nice frontside 360s, boned-out, he’d be a “happy man for the rest of my life,” he states simply. Even though the unassuming Lynn, a ripper across multiple media – canvas, snow, ocean, stage, skateparks – would say he’s never considered himself an accomplished artist (“I mean, I used art electives in high school just to kind of get through it”), his influence has spread deeper than he may realize, and his desire to share that creativity with younger generations and spread the stoke remains evident in his latest works. INTERVIEW WITH JAMIE LYNN BY AR4T JOURNALIST CHRISTINE RASMUSSEN Jamie Lynn Q&A November, 2010 Those who experience the “ABCs and 123s” show at 210 AR4T as it debuts on November 20 and exhibits through December 24 at 210 AR4T Space in Laguna Beach, California will likely see a side of shred legend Jamie Lynn they haven’t seen before. Oh, the kids will be stoked, as they learn at the same time – without even realizing they’re learning. But us little kids trapped in big bodies will be super stoked, as we see the world through a child’s eyes again and remember how fun it is to create, no matter what our medium. This is Jamie’s goal, and as the artistic icon he’s become and as an influence to so many – younger and older than him – he’s the exact person who can pull it off. As Jamie rarely completes pieces for a commission – most of his work has been for products he’s endorsed, or a select few have been for friends’ collections – the question is relevant: Why now? How did the idea for the ABCs and 123s show come about? Billy Anderson and his wife Sarah came to me with the idea to put together an art show based around ABC’s: 26 canvases for each letter of the alphabet. My art style is kind of a strong outline, simplistic fill-in colors, easy to absorb and can relate a lot to children’s art, so they came up with the idea for me to do the ABC stuff and Bryan Iguchi is doing the 1 through 10. Ben Brough is going to do some work, and there is another artist from Seattle, Brennan Coyle. What a wonderful opportunity and a wonderful art space to do something like this, especially be involved with good friends such as Bryan and Ben. Bryan and I have done shows together in the past, internationally and over in Japan that have been successful and we had a great time doing it, so now I have this chance to do it again. It’s something I’m really looking forward to. Can you tell me about the book that may happen with these pieces once they’re complete? I wanted the art show to read as if you were reading a book, so with each canvas I did the letter, the imagery and I tagged on a little one- or two-line stanza of rhymes, like “A is for aeroplane, way up in the sky; B is for big bright balloons, hold onto them tight; C is for crispy cat, mine is colored blue; D is for that darn dog, best friend to me and you.” I’ve been focusing on the show, primarily, but if anything more can come out of that…to inspire kids or open up their eyes to artwork, colors, imagery, or inspire questions or learning – what an opportunity. What about publishing as flashcards for kids – is that a possibility? Instead of getting too far ahead of myself, I would like to get the 26 panels done first. If we could get flashcards and have them available at the opening, that would be awesome. Or, it may be something that we take some of the proceeds from the show and invest it back into perpetuating this, so more kids have the opportunity to check it out. It’s definitely something I’d be interested in; it’s just a matter of figuring out who can do the printing, what it would take. I think that would be really cool. Why is the idea of turning children onto art important to you? It was instrumental for me to be watching my mom – she’s not really an accomplished artist but there was a time when I was at a certain age I watched her go through the process of taking art classes and doing some pieces that I remember distinctly, which I still have in my possession. To support creativity, to allow kids the chance to see something inside of them or want to express through art is a positive thing. Where did the idea for the rhymes come from? You know, I don’t have any kids myself but I am a kick-ass uncle. When I’d hang out with my nieces and nephews, the books I’d read to them I’d always turn into like a singsong story – just for me to have fun with them and make it more fun for them. So I wanted to do it in that fashion. That’s the way I approached it in my head: walking through it with a kid, or if a parent was reading it to them, would it be interactive and fun for both of them? Can you talk more about how are the pieces similar or different to your other works? With this I tried to simplify it into more primaries and make it easy to just see what’s going on. A lot of the simple colors I used show a strong contrast between one and the other. The compositions are the same way – nothing complicated but easy to digest. Maybe there are similarities with some of the graphic work I’ve done in the past for snowboards or T-shirt art that I’ve enjoyed. I’ve tried to keep the same formula throughout all 26 panels, and it’s been fun walking myself into that mindset, trying to think, if I was four, five or six years old, would this make sense to me? Would I, without reading anything, pick up on what this is? And that’s been a challenge. It’s not dumbing-down but just simplifying your way of thinking to get into the heads of that age, while making it fun for me in the process. Hopefully they can share in how fun that was when they look at it. The interview continues… Please visit AR4T.com/blog for Part II.