The Pixar Soul Film Art and Soul Challenge
Pixar Art + Soul Challenge: Team up with Adobe, Disney and Pixar to celebrate Soul, a new film about a band teacher whose passion for jazz music sends him on an incredible adventure to discover the answers to some of life’s most important questions. Design an album cover using artwork from the film to showcase what makes you…YOU. Post it on Instagram and Twitter.
The Pixar Soul film is an ambitious take on finding what makes life worth living. Over the years, the plots in Pixar movies have carefully tackled very complex human issues that are very difficult to communicate through words and images. Yet, it is in these fantastical worlds created using the science fiction, dystopian and fantasy genres that we sometimes find it easy to focus on these matters. It is a high bar to set but Pixar has been showcasing controversial subjects in its films made for child and adult consumption for the last 20 years. This includes films such as Wall-E (belonging and overconsumption), Up (death and life transitions) and Inside Out (EQ and mental health). The Soul film is no exception.
When I initially saw the movie trailer, I thought the underlying story would be centered around Jazz. So, I started creating my art based on just this assumption. But after I saw the film, I realized the storyline was much deeper than that. So, I started revising my original artwork.
The central element in the film of finding that spark connects with my own life. I grew up in a single parent household in North Philadelphia. I struggled to discover my place in the world in the midst of poverty, the crack epidemic and hopelessness. As a senior in high school, I was briefly homeless but a local church found me a place to stay. Within four years, I graduated from college with a degree in graphic design.
I am grateful for their efforts but I cannot deny that as a result, I bloomed…late.
Even after college, I was still working through many challenges in my personal life that involved African American identity, mental health and self esteem. Early in my career, I became obsessed with seeking validation as a graphic designer to prove that African Americans like myself could be successful. While trying to imitate what I thought was success, my personal challenges began to resurface and get the best of me. I started to lose my way.
My mentors helped by listening to me, refocusing my energies and reminding me that I was made in God’s image. They believed in me. As I slowly began to understand my purpose, God showed me that there were so many other souls, like in the film, trying to discover their spark. But, there were also others who became obsessed and got lost. I began to mentor youth within my sphere of influence and share the wisdom that my mentors passed on to me.
Over the course of my graphic design career, I am glad to say I wore additional hats to reach young people: youth pastor, youthworker, teacher and professor.
Art+Soul
An important part of my artistic journey is that I always loved letters and words. As a kid, I would redraw the words on album covers and copy other handwriting styles. This led me to graffiti and calligraphy as a teen which assisted me while I was studying typography in college. Much of my work expresses a love for typography and image. Oddly enough, I also had nightmares as a child where letters were chasing me. (Read my commentary about it on my website.)
When you look at my album artwork at the top, I hope you can see my love for type and graphics. For this Art + Soul challenge, I spent some time online viewing Jazz album covers from the 50s and 60s. I can see this influence on the graphics Pixar made available for this challenge. On my album cover, the musical instruments spell out the words ‘Art + Soul’. I altered a few of Pixar’s graphics and added some of my own. The drummer represents one of my mentors and should also remind anyone who saw the film of the spiritual counselors. I am playing the bass (left) and my mentor is looking in my direction as a sign of validation. As I play, the sound coming out symbolizes the wisdom I am passing on to other souls to help them move from the Great Before to real life. Since I live in the city, this somewhat abstract backdrop is where all of this happens. The vibrant layered look speaks to the complexities of human life as one attempts to discover what is important.
This quote from the film also inspired my artistic approach: “The music is just an excuse to bring out…the you.”
I continue to use my gifts and talents to tell my story hoping that other young souls find their way to understanding their own purpose.
This is my story and this is my artwork. What do you think?
