Tag: magicko

New Jersey Roots

I recently joined the parish of St. Casimir in the Ironbound district of Newark, New Jersey. My grandfather and namesake was a Polish immigrant who raised his family in this area of North Jersey. He died before I was born and only left me his name. My whole life I have felt a longing to get closer to him.

St. Casimir has services in Polish and English. My artist name, Magiczyn, means magic in Polish – it only makes sense to try to learn more Polish. The building is a beautiful cathedral with several impressive paintings and sculptures. When Mass begins, one of the paintings behind the altar lowers with an electrical roller to reveal a painting of a golden Madonna.

I have not talked to my father, Tim Szal, for several years. He was raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, and living here is another way I can connect with him without any communication. I still practice Transcendental Meditation, which was instilled in me from a young age as the most important thing to receive support from nature and an edge over other non-meditators.

Tags art, artist, artwork, cartoon, cathedral, catholic, church, design, magic, magicko, matt szal, New Jersey, newark, NFL, NJ, NYC, painting, polish, pope, roman, texas, texas artist, The Flying Dutchess

blog old gems pencil/colored-pencil Studio

“Learning & Marbles”

colored pencil on bristol paper – 2009

This drawing, “Learning and Marbles” was in my portfolio, which blessed me with the scholarship to Pratt in 2010. The piece was an assignment from my Drawing 2 class at Carroll. I placed three marbles on a bookshelf with some large, glossy textbooks.

The reflection in the wooden bookshelf and the glossy reflection all intermix with reflections of each other. Thinking conceptually about the subject matter, I wanted to play on the idea of marbles representing knowledge along with books.

Have you lost your marbles?
-Anonymous

I was still developing my eye for depth perception and the nested marbles could have been pushed farther into the recessed textbook’s horizontally rolling plane. This diagonal isn’t balanced with another axial movement and thus, I tried to soften it with a very subtle curve.