Artist Jason White has managed to develop his lifelong love of drawing and painting into a fulfilling career.
His mural works now appear in dozens of cities across Arkansas as well as Florida, Tennessee and Texas. His two latest creations grace a pair of downtown walls at Fordyce.
A native of Searcy, White explained his artistic journey.
"I've been doing this now seven years full time. I started out painting school logos on picture windows for First Security Bank in Searcy," he said.
White has had a passion for drawing since the age of 5.
"I had supportive parents and teachers, but my fear of failure held me back for a long time. Out of high school I visited Memphis School of Art, but it didn't feel like I fit there. I ended up at Kent School of Art in Dallas. I followed the money instead of my passion so I studied web design and graphics. I graduated in 2002 right when the web was just beginning to take off and got a job in Dallas as senior designer for an online dating service. It was a good job but I wasn't loving it," White said.
White's father started a small pallet business in White County while the White was elsewhere. Business soon became more than his father could handle himself, so White came back home to assist with the company.
"After the housing market bubble burst and things slowed down at the pallet plant, I took a job with a marketing company in 2014. I wasn't using my creative talents but at least I was around my kind of creative folks."
"About that time, First Security Bank approached me about painting local school logos on their White County bank windows. I did four banks for them the first year and 28 the second year. After that, I got a window job in Fayetteville where the bank president was going to have me do nine different school logos. In the meantime, the head of the bank changed and the new guy couldn't decide what he really wanted. In the end we settled on a Razorback. I did a time lapse video of the window painting in progress and posted it online," he said.
He decided it was time to step up and pursue his art full time.
"I had prayed a lot about it and was looking for some kind of reassurance from God that it was the right path for me to follow. A friend called me the next morning and asked if I'd seen what was happening with the video. When I checked, it had 9,000 views by 7 a.m. I thought, 'what in the world, I've been hacked.' By lunch it was up to 12,000 views. Come to find out, Razorback Nation had picked it up and was spreading it around," White said.
"At that point, I decided it was time to give my marketing company boss two weeks' notice. I believe it's difficult for fear and faith to co-exist. If I hadn't stepped out in faith, I'm not sure the opportunities that followed would have come," he said.
By the holidays, he started painting Christmas scenes on Crain Auto Group store windows and ended up doing all their dealerships' windows across the region.
"I also began working with Main Street Arkansas about that same time going to different towns creating murals. My philosophy is when I come into a community to paint a wall, I try to get the conversation going about local art in order to help encourage people to support their community artists. At the end of the day, my goal is to teach and train others how to do what I do," White said.
Although not consistent at keeping a journal, sometimes he'll go a few days in a row making notes of his thoughts.
"I found an old journal where at age 35 I wrote that I wanted to sell $50,000 of art by the time I reached 40. Well, I met my goal. Only difference is I had intended to do it with brush and canvas, not spray paint and brick walls," White said.
He also pondered about creativity.
"There is this one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately. The Bible tells us we are all created in God's image so therefore by definition we are all also creators. Everyone has some form of creative insight but I believe sometimes it gets taught out of us through life. When you think about it, all good things in society, be they financial or otherwise, derive from some form of creative entrepreneurialism."
In reference to the newly created Fordyce mural, White explained it was his most detailed to date.
"So much so that it is a milestone in my career. I now truly believe I can train others to do this because if I can, anyone can," he said.
His repertoire currently includes 100 pieces of art between windows and wall murals. In addition to elaborate murals containing every kind of scene imaginable, he has also painted enormous American flags for five cities so far.
"Most of my mural work is done with aerosol spray paint. When I do indoor work, I use rollers and brush, but aerosol is my medium of choice," he said.
He explained the process.
"Old school artists have always used a grid to scale out the characters in their work. I do a doodle grid just drawing random shapes over the entire surface. It's a lot quicker and more fun than laying out an actual grid. Then I take a photo of the grid and overlay my concept drawing on it in my iPad. With that in hand, I can use the space between those characters and shapes on the wall to keep forms to scale," he said.
The Fordyce Mural contains images of Pine Bluff-built steam locomotive Cotton Belt 819 which once pulled trains through town, famous native son, Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, the Fordyce On the Cotton Belt Fest logo, the stuffed Alaskan polar bear found in the Dallas County Museum, a fully loaded log truck, a whitetail buck along with a pair of wild turkeys and a rendering of the original 1910 Main Street Fordyce Bank and Trust building in honor of the mural's financial sponsor.
Details: Jason White at whitesartworks@gmail.com.
Working on his latest creation in downtown Fordyce, artist Jason White uses a doodle grid to lay out the scale of larger than life characters in his murals. (Special to The Commercial/Richard Ledbetter)