These are my giants. On the left is Corny Cole and on the right is Mike Mitchell. They were so instrumental in my education as an artist, these two guys.
These were inspired by portraits of the Zen masters, paintings by Zen Buddhist monks of really awesome and wise dudes. Corny encouraged me to apply to CalArts when I was terribly insecure and afraid. Corny's thing was that I should learn to be a complete filmmaker and not just focus on one area. Besides that, he was just effing hilarious. Mike would keep telling me weird random things that made no sense, but which I then assimilated... by osmosis? And when he saw it in my drawing he would go, "That's the stuff!" Which is what I wrote on top of Mike's portrait. That's like Mike's Zen koan.
Mike passed away at the beginning of the school year and soon after Corny had to leave for health reasons. I would like for Corny at least to see his portrait, the crazy life drawings I did this year and my film. I hope I can show him stuff and hang out with him, however briefly, at some point.
We all miss them, and because they are giants they left giant voids in our hearts.
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