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Creative Scenes
Artist Steven Emig using artwork to help fund publishing a book
By Jennifer Owensby Eminger/Lifestyles Editor
Despite having struggled as an artist and writer and having lived in homelessness for several years, local artist and writer Steven Emig has seen the world of action sports through working for magazines and TV production. He is using his artwork to help fund publishing a book about how creative scenes turn into an industry.
Emig grew up in Ohio, living in Boise, Idaho and California for many years, before settling in Kernersville in 2008. With aspirations to be a professional BMX rider and writer for a magazine, Emig learned how creative scenes can help build local economy. Along the way, he has struggled to make ends meet, but he continues to do what he enjoys - art and writing.
Emig explained that his father was a design engineer, having started out as a draftsman, so naturally Emig has always been interested in drawing.
"My father taught me how to draw," he said.
Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, Emig got into BMX bikes and enjoyed riding with kids in his neighborhood.
"We always tried to outdo each other." he said. "One day, we found a BMX race track. They were having the last race of the year. We raced and came home with trophies."
The next year, he started getting more into freestyle BMX riding and said it became his life. In 1985, his family moved to San Jose, California where there was a big BMX freestyle scene.
Along with riding BMX bikes and drawing, Emig took an interest in writing and began writing zines (self-published miniature magazines), which he learned about in a freestyle magazine.
"It's pretty much what bloggers did before blogs," he said.
After his zines got noticed, Emig became more popular and eventually landed a position at Wizard Publications. Over the years, Emig moved around to different jobs in the writing and production industry, having written articles and helping produce low budget films in the world of action sports, but never catching a break.
He shared that he has worked behind the scenes on shows such as American Gladiators and Cirque du Soleil.
Emig got out of the TV production world in 1995 to find a more stable job, moving furniture.
"You are always working on other people's ideas and I was getting sick of it," he said.
Eventually, Emig decided to get back into the industry and joined a lighting company, but when he began struggling to make ends meet again, he became a professional taxi driver for about five years. Eventually, Emig said he became homeless and ill.
"I ended up living out of my taxi because I was struggling to make ends meet, working 16-18 hours a day," he said.
Having lost his way in art, Emig said his passion for art began to come back when a friend offered him a place to sleep in an art gallery, where he lived for several months.
"It was an underground indie art gallery called, AAA Electra 99," he said. "I hadn't done anything creative in a while, but it was while I was living there for a month or so that I came up with my scribble style."
Emig explained that he drew some pictures for his niece and nephew in Greensboro and for his mom, who had moved to Kernersville.
Emig said during his downtime working as a taxi driver, he got really into drawing, reflecting on musicians and BMX riding. Having gotten his passion back, Emig said he once again fell into despair when his long days of sitting caught up with him and he got a bacterial infection and was hospitalized.
"Driving a taxi, you sit too much and end up eating a lot of fast food," he said.
After walking out of the hospital with $15 to his name and unable to find a job, Emig said he ended up panhandling for about a year, until his family encouraged him to move to NC.
"I had all this experience writing and working in TV production, but on my resume there was a gap (where I had worked as a taxi driver)," he said.
In 2008, Emig finally moved to NC and has since been engaged in his artwork and blogging about his experiences. He explained that initially he began drawing in black and white with pencil and then pen and ink, but has since moved to the use of Sharpies, which he turned to in 2005, using a scribble design.
Having experienced working in TV production and magazines, Emig is also working on writing a book and has started a GoFundMe page in hopes to getting help with funding.
"I have started a GoFundMe page, and right now, I am trying to write a book about how creative scenes eventually attract big industry. I've been in a lot of these scenes throughout my life and have seen how they attract business," he said.
Emig is selling his art for $100/drawing and is giving his artwork away to people who contribute to helping fund his book. He is also selling zines about his book for $5 to give people an idea about what to expect from the book.
Emig noted that he can also create a drawing for anyone interested in having one made.
"I work from photos. I look at a photo and get a basic outline and then start scribbling ans shading," he said.
While Emig does work from photos, he said he is not great at re-creating faces unless it has heavy shadows," he said.
"I really like making drawings with heavy shadows," he said.
In each color on his drawings, Emig said there are actually four or five colors with different thickness of the Sharpie point.
"I almost always start with out with orange, lime green, or yellow and usually end up with the opposite color," he said. "That's how I am able to do the shading."
Having been homeless and fearing he might die, Emig said the biggest lesson he has learned is, "Figure out what's most important to you and do it as much as you possibly can, because you never know how much time you have left on Earth."
I've put myself on a blog diet, and I'm down to one blog... really.
Steve Emig: The White Bear
You can find my newer stuff there.
Thank you for good content.
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