Portrait of a Digital Artist
Joel Carlson ’00 draws on classics for contemporary constructs.
When playwright, Bertolt Brecht, uttered his famous dictum, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality. It is a hammer with which to shape it,” he was likely speaking in political terms. But Joel Carlson ’00, substituting a digital stylus for a hammer, echoes the spirit of Brecht’s mantra by using his animation to redeem burgeoning art forms.
When Joel looks at the media of cartoons and video games, he sees potential to reinvent them for future generations while paying tribute to principles passed down through the rich tradition of visual art. This vision has taken Joel from Trinity Western to Universal Pictures, Disney, Microsoft, and more.
To appreciate the value of Joel’s perspective in the industry of digital art, one must first understand Joel himself. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve been drawn to cartoons,” says Joel with his perpetual grin. “And that’s a pun.” After high school, Joel arrived on the TWU campus and enrolled in as many art classes as his schedule could handle. “It was a blessing to come to TWU, because I took more traditional art courses and learned about art history.” Through these courses, Joel developed a deep appreciation for the master painters like Rembrandt and Da Vinci who revolutionized the art world in eras past.
After his time at TWU, Joel completed a BA in Classical Animation with a focus in storyboarding at Vancouver’s Capilano University.
Within two months of graduating, Joel was hired as a professional storyboard artist at Universal Pictures. At 21, he was the youngest storyboard artist to work on a feature animated production at Universal. Once his project concluded, Joel spent the next several years working for a plethora of high profile employers. He worked on a pilot at Disney, video games for Electronic Arts and Vivendi Games, a pilot cartoon for MTV, and a children’s program for PBS, all the while moving back and forth between central California and Metro Vancouver.
Currently, Joel is co-developing a video game entitled, Steam Brigade, an innovative side-scrolling strategy that he and two friends produced for PCs and are revamping for X-Box Live. Joel’s approach to Steam Brigade and video game art in general is truly unique. He decries the fact that video games commonly take their inspiration from worn out 1980s graphics instead of from the artistic tradition refined over thousands of years by the luminaries he studied at TWU. “This medium has infinite possibilities,” Joel insists, “but they’ve been building on the wrong stuff.”
To Joel, his journey has been a simple one. “All through life I seem to stumble into these great situations,” says Joel, modestly. But seeing Joel’s creative brilliance in action, one realizes that the success of his young and illustrious career is attributed to more than mere luck. He relies on a higher power to guide his meticulous hammer to shape the world of digital art. “Faith is easy,” says Joel. “God doesn’t make mistakes; He doesn’t put passions in you so that you can fail.”
Check out Joel Carlson’s website: mindofmotion.com
by Jay Jameson '08
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