Barf bags. Styrofoam cups. Skateboard decks. Joseph R Tomlinson has drawn on many unconventional surfaces. Drink coasters, outlet covers, the undersides of drawers in countless hotels at which he's stayed while traveling for his Department of Defense job. Tomlinson, who goes by Joe, considers all of them viable drawing supports — what artists call any surface upon which they draw.
But Tomlinson, who's been honing his graphic style of drawing for more than five decades, doesn't consider himself an artist.
"I'm an illustrator," says Tomlinson, whose solo exhibition at Entropy Gallery in downtown Spokane opened on May 2 and continues through June 2.
He titled the show with the three-dot symbol for an ellipsis, the blank space deliberately inserted into a sentence to indicate information has been left out and might be open to interpretation.
"This show captures my current mood as I cringe after what I hear or read from various forms of media," he writes in his statement accompanying the exhibition.
"So there'll be a lot of skulls, a lot of bombs, and a little bit of political stuff," he says.
There will also be a lot of pop surreal images, a whole bestiary — from naked mole rats to monkeys; from sheep to Sasquatch to a snail whose shell bears a flush of mushrooms. His graphic, mixed-media drawings feature two-legged creatures, too: fearsome figures amid hellish-looking landscapes and everyday humans, which might be the scariest of all Tomlinson's character renderings.
Tomlinson says his work "has been influenced by comic books, graphic novels, album cover art, and posters, and things like that. Graffiti, whatever. That's the stuff I like."
As a youngster growing up in rural north central Pennsylvania, Tomlinson was rarely without a sketchbook in hand. When he wasn't doing farmhand chores like baling hay, he was in the woods exploring but mainly sketching.
He remembers a fondness for unconventional drawing surfaces even then. He'd find the pieces of decaying tree bark where the white mycelium or fungus had spread like blank canvas.
"And you scratch into it, and the deeper you go the darker it gets," says Tomlinson, who did wildlife scenes on the bark and sold them at a local sporting goods store. "That's how I made extra cash in high school."
Another high school story reveals Tomlinson's quietly rebellious side.
He was tasked with doing pen-and-ink illustrations for the yearbook, yet when another student was credited with the artwork, Tomlinson clapped back, but furtively.
"I put curse words in the bonfire [illustrations I did in the yearbook]," he says, and "half-naked women on the sports field." When he finally attended a high school reunion 35 years later, he and his former classmates had a good laugh about the contraband artwork.
Although he didn't take art classes in high school, he did in middle school, where his art teacher noticed Tomlinson had both an interest and ability in art. Unfortunately, when his teacher relocated him into the supply closet — ostensibly so Tomlinson could work without distraction of his peers — that sparked something in him.
"It was the oddest thing," he recalls.
Rather than continue the drawing the way his teacher wanted, Tomlinson purposely turned it into a different drawing. And every time thereafter when the teacher suggested one direction, he did the opposite.
"So I guess I was a little bit of a rebel at that age, too," he recalls, noting that he also nurtured ideas about becoming a cartoonist. He was especially fond of the work by famous Marvel illustrator Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four and many other enduring characters.
Instead, at age 17, Tomlinson did what many a young adult does when the world at large beckons: He joined the military. He asked if the government might utilize his art skills — didn't the Air Force need images painted on its planes? — but was rebuffed. He did a tour in Korea, returned stateside, met his wife and started a family.
In 1989, Tomlinson relocated to Spokane with his family, becoming a survival instructor, which would inadvertently send his drawing regimen into a new direction as well.
His new job meant traveling, which meant airplanes and hotels. On a return flight from Las Vegas, Tomlinson, realizing he'd forgotten his sketchbook, cast around for something on which to draw. After considering the aircraft safety card, he pulled out the airsick bag, better known as a barf bag. Perfect!
Tomlinson grabbed the pens he always carried with him, popped in his earphones and drew his version of the comedian known as Carrot Top, whose performance he'd recently seen while in Las Vegas. He also included a message: "Do I make you sick?" he recalls, adding that he forgot the word "you."
"So I was like, 'Do I make sick?'"
For some reason, that made more sense than the correct version, he says, and the serendipity of the airsick bag seemed to fit also. From then on, Tomlinson sought out the narrow white paper bags to draw on.
"So I'm borrowing barf bags from the other people, which of course is a conversation starter," he says. "It's an introvert's way of communing with the world."
Sometimes while he was drawing, he'd feel eyes upon him, mostly friendly stares and polite inquiries from the flight crew, fellow passengers and especially little kids. And more often than not, he'd give his drawing away, happily.
"I find joy in doing that kind of thing," says Tomlinson, who also admits that not having to make a living from his drawings has been part of what continues to make it fun for him. ♦
Joseph R Tomlinson: "..." • Open daily from 11 am-6 pm through June 2 • Entropy • 101 N. Stevens St. • Instagram: @EntropyGallerySpokane • 509-414-3226
