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Artist: John Rolling Thunder
Born in Orange County Southern California in 1958, my father was of native descent from the indigenous nation of Kumeyaay, tribes of Ipai and Tipai of Southern California. I’m also mixed with, Portuguese, French, Norwegian and Irish. The significance of the culture I was born into is of great pride.
I have nearly 30 years of experience as an artist who has enjoyed success in many mediums and creative endeavors. I’ve gained recognition for my contributions as an artist, musician, fashion and jewelry designer, playwriter and contributor to various cannabis publications. I devoted myself to the education of non-native peoples to examine our ways of life traditions, values and history which is often tarnished and misguided by the distorted ethnocentric perspectives of non-native cultural perspectives. I have produced cultural events throughout Southern California which featured the cultures of Native peoples throughout the United States.
I've lived most of this life somewhere between worlds of successful creativity and exhaustive insanity. I was disappointed to be told by teachers this is the way art is produced and the only way. I decided to not take classes to study the arts and struggled to fit into that seemingly impossible slot.
I gave art up until after a visit from an angel at a hospital years later while I was in a coma. The angel was a woman whom I’d never met before. After she left I found a black leather briefcase filled with paints, brushes, oil pastels, colored pencils, drawing paper and a plethora of other art supplies. It also included a book of fairy tales from the Caribbean. After I left the hospital and during recovery, I began to draw and paint again. I realized art depicts the soul beneath the surface. Provocative, engaging art is food for the soul and often uniquely sweet to the eye. Art, captivating and extraordinary, in a most simplistic sense, always takes one deeper into unique visual realms.