Artist Information

Blane Bizzaro

Hello! My name is Blane. I am a full-time graphic artist living and working in beautiful Oceanside, CA. I remember vividly the first time I drew a picture. I was five years old. It was a profile view of a goofy-looking cartoon man with a great-big, bulbous nose. I drew it out of my head. It was very spontaneous. I remember the confidence and control that seemed so natural, as if creating pictures was exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. After that self-initiation into the world of drawing, I was hooked. I drew continuously. Kids in school were always asking me to draw stuff for them, mostly cartoons and war scenes - things blowing up or burning or whatever, a fascination among young boys.

I made my first attempt at painting at age nine. I found it incredibly difficult and didn’t try again until I was fifteen. At which point I decided that I was going to learn how to paint or die trying. I just painted all the time. At age sixteen, I got my first paid art job doing a mural in a neighbors’ living room. It was very exciting! I completed the job and got paid. I was now a real artist! I sold my first oil painting at age seventeen. Since then, I've sold lots of paintings, most of which I wish I still had.

I lived in Fresno, California for a while and was one of the featured artists at the 1993 Celebration of the Arts Festival. It was one of their annual street painting events. At the event, I painted an 8’ x 12’ canvas titled “Participacion Mystique”, based on what Le Debleu describes as the mystic participation between mother and infant, and Earth, the Universe, and the mature adult.

I have worked as a house painter and a sign painter. Those experiences were very valuable. I paint all the time and do it for the love of it. I’m forty-two years old now and when I paint I see clearly how every experience in my life has served to bring me to this point without knowing at the time that the experience I was having was helping me to become a better artist - to fulfill my purpose.

All these years, I’ve always wondered, “What is the role of Art? What is arts’ true function?” I guess it’s nice to have a pretty picture of a tree or some fruit hanging up over your sofa, but is that all there is to creating art? Making pretty pictures? I think a more satisfying and meaningful approach is to treat art as a form of communication, a form of sharing ideas, knowledge, and awe. In my humble opinion, a truly successful work of art is one that gives the viewer a moment of pause. It puts the person in the here and now and wakes something up that wasn’t there before. It communicates something that can’t be communicated any other way. It speaks the unspeakable. Just like nature.