CANO BIO

Born in the Los Angeles area and here to stay. Received my formal art education at Rio Hondo College in Whittier , CA and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena , CA. Graduated from ACCD in August, 1992 with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree. Have been here in my studio painting and drawing ever since, and will continue to do so.

CANO INFLUENCES

Many have called me a Mexican Expressionist. My primary influences are indeed the Mexican Muralists, particularly David Alfaro Siquerios and Jose Clemente Orozco. The German Expressionists also made a deep and lasting impression on me, most notably Kathe Kollwitz and Oskar Kokoshka. Also superhero comic book art of the 60’s and 70’s have made their way into my particular muse. Other favorite painters of mine include Henri Matisse, Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, Wilfredo Lam, Jean Dubuffet, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Amadeo Modigliani, Jean Michel Basquiat and many others.

                  
                   Eric  Dolphy, woodblock, by Michael Cano
 

JAZZ, MAN, JAZZ

Back in 1981, I was working at this place called the Magnum One Lounge and Disco in Altadena as a bartender. I was only 20 years old, but the owners didn't bother asking me for ID when I applied for the job. The place was filled with very colorful characters on a nightly basis, sort of the cast of extras for a Quentin Tarantino film before QT ever made a film, you know?

One of the regulars was this guy whose name I cannot recall at this time, but one day he came up to me and told me that he wanted to reward me for all of the excellent service I had provided for his friends and him over the months they had been coming into the Magnum.  

The way he wished to express his appreciation was this: He owned a little record store on the south side of town and he told me that I could come in on my day off and pick any one album of my choice, take it home with me as my own.

Cool, says me, I'll be there on Tuesday. And on Tuesday that is exactly where I was, at that little record store on the south side of town. I greeted my homeboy and he said pick anything, any single LP you want, my brother, happy hunting.  

I walked around, looked at this and that, picked up a few records until one in particular caught my eye. This one was called First Meditations for Quartet and it was by a man named John Coltrane. I had read about this man and I knew that my favorite musician at the time, Mr. Carlos Santana, thought very highly of him.  

I held the record in my hand and was fascinated by the cover. This man looked so intense, so focused, so damn interesting. I knew I had my choice, even though I had never heard him play before, something told me that I needed to.  

I told my boy that I had found my choice, we shook hands, and I thanked him and headed home so I could hear my new record.  

                  
                   John Coltrane, woodblock



When I got home, I went right into my room and unwrapped that LP in a big hurry, because I had been staring at that cover all the way home and was becoming more convinced that there was magic waiting for me to discover it.  

I put the platter on the turntable and lowered the needle to the groove. The first sounds that came out of those speakers were so powerful, so striking, so amazing, so original that I knew not only had I made the right choice for my free record, but I had made a choice that was going to change my life in a very deeply meaningful and profound way.  

This, my friend, was jazz and I was in love with it completely and fully at first listen. 

I essentially wore out the grooves on that, my first Coltrane record, while I was actively out seeking new jazz records to do the same thing to. I read up and researched these men, these geniuses, these giants and I found out about men named Monk, Mingus, Davis, Ellington, Sanders, Evans, Mr. Eric Dolphy and many others. This world that was opening itself up to me was a world that was bigger and more powerful than anything I had yet known of and I stood in awe of it all. 

What a beautiful, wonderful, incredible thing was this music called jazz! 

Yeah, man, I was digging it all. Punk rock had made its beautiful way into my head and life by that point and if you've never listened to Charles Mingus and Black Flag back to back, then by all means, do. 

                  
                   Charles Mingus, woodblock



Fast forward to say, 12 or so years later.

I am in college, I am a student enrolled and embroiled in the Illustration Department at Art Center College of Design and I have just been handed an assignment that I am about to throw myself completely into, head first. 

My teacher, Mr. Ray Turner, had just given us the task for his final to create something that we were enormously passionate about and to perform this task using a medium that we were equally passionate about. No small feat is what was just given to us there in the classroom, and the thoughts were racing.

My first idea turned out to be my best idea.  

What I wanted to do, what I was going to do, no matter what, was this: I wanted to pay tribute to my favorite and most revered jazz musicians and I wanted to depict them in a medium that I was in love with, but also fairly inexperienced in practice. That is to say, my desire to express my passion for these men and their music simply HAD to be done in woodcuts. I had borne witness to and been completely knocked out by the woodcuts of the German Expressionists prior to my attendance at Art Center and if there was ever a time for me to step into these waters, that time was now. 

As I said, I had very little experience in these woodcuts I was so adamant about exploring, but that wasn't going to stop me. After all, what did I need but some wood, some cutting instruments and the desire to do so?  

              
               John Coltrane 2, woodblock



The desire I had in spades, but I had to go to the lumber yard for the wood, which was conveniently located about a mile from my apartment. So, I went to that lumber yard and I asked the lumber guy for a piece of shelf wood cut into foot long increments.  

Lumber guy cut the wood for me, I paid up and packed my purchase into the car and drove back to the apartment.

I already had the drawings ready to go, ready to be transferred to that wood and I had dug out my wood burning knife to dig out the necessary pine in order to create my images. Excitedly, I took the drawings out and spent a few hours transferring them to those blank wooden squares.  

I was ready; this was going to get done and I was the one that was going to do it. 

I sat on the couch there in that little apartment of mine in Eagle Rock and I placed the first piece of wood between my knees, wood burning knife in hand, ready to start this assignment that was going to punch everyone who saw it between the eyes and knock them out cold, yeah! 

                  
                   Thelonious Monk, woodblock



That knife that I had plugged in to the wall socket was hot as hell and raring to go, the wood had a penciled image of Thelonious Monk on it, looking bad-ass and I was going to be on top of this game. 

I knew that this was going to be work, with a capital W, but I was not prepared for the level of struggle that I was now finding myself wrapped up in. That knife, which I think was mostly designed for carving initials into headboards and decorating plywood craft thingies, now had to be turned into what was essentially a paintbrush.  
 

I had to burn (BURN!) a portrait of this man whom I admired beyond reason into a plank of wood that was meant to hold coffee cups and/or dictionaries.  

When the hot little pointed, slanted tip of that knife hit the wood for the first time, it seemed to have a mind of its own. I had not taken into account the knots and grains of the wood that was now nestled between my knees, so trying to achieve a likeness of Mr. Monk was going to be a task indeed.

I burrowed down into that wood and there was smoke rising and the smell of a badly lit campfire permeated the room. 

No matter, this was going to be done and it was going to be done well, damn it. I sweated, I worked, I could feel my forearm muscles twitching as I fought for control over that silly little hot knife in my hand. 

On more than one occasion the knife slipped while I was working it and went right into the side of my bare leg with its very hot metal tip.  

Ouch! No matter, this was going to be done and it was going to be done well, damn it. 

The struggle was epic.
The battle was hard fought.
The results were what I wanted. 

It was time to move on to the next. 

Now then, I would really love to say that the next five blocks of wood to be carved gave me their complete cooperation and subjugated themselves to my will, and that it was oh so much easier as the project went on. But then I would be telling a lie. 

                    
                     Miles Davis, woodblock                



It took me the better part of a week or two to get them all done, and all the while I was attending classes and receiving a large amount of homework from each. Although I was enormously passionate about these woodcuts, still did I have to do the best job that I was capable of on these other assignments, which I did, I am happy to report. 

I finished the cuts. 

Mr. Thelonious Monk was there.
Mr. Miles Davis was there.
Mr. Charles Mingus was there.
Mr. John Coltrane was there. Twice.
Mr. Eric Dolphy was there and he was beautiful. 

They were all beautiful.

I had these twelve-inch square blocks of pine wood with the visages of some of the finest men ever to stride upon this planet we call home burned proudly into them  and they were burned there because of me, by me. 

I took my blocks of wood into the kitchen of that tiny apartment there in Eagle Rock, California and I set about to the printing of them. 

When I had a sufficient number of prints of each block from which to choose, I set them here and there about the apartment so they could dry. In the morning, I bundled them all up and set off for school, armed to the teeth with good things. What would be said concerning my efforts, I wondered.  

And yeah, I worried a little bit. 

As it turned out, I need not have.  

The woodcut prints of incredible jazzmen were more than well-received, they were praised both by my fellow students and the teacher, Mr. Ray Turner. I was proud of me right then and only wished the men themselves could have been there, I do believe they would have approved.  

After the class was over and all of the projects reviewed and discussed, we all sort of made our way out towards the cafeteria and the surrounding grassy area there, to sit and discuss, maybe a bit of back-slapping was in order on a whole bunch of jobs well done. 

My buddy Shan, he asked me about the process performed by me during the execution of these woodcuts that had made such a splash there in that shared classroom of ours.  

When I detailed for him just what I had put myself through there in that little apartment of mine in the miserable summer heat and smog, my buddy Shan, incredulous is what he was. 

"Dude, you're joking. You're not joking. Oh, man, don't you know that woodcuts are supposed to be done with very soft wood, like balsa wood, and carved out with very specific tools designed to make the carving out of wood chunks and strips almost easy. If not easy, at least not injury causing and sweat-inducing. And dude, look at your forearm! It's twice the size it was a month ago. Man, you really worked for those bad boys, didn't you?" 

"Yeah, brother, apparently harder than necessary. Damn."  

"Know something? That makes perfect sense after all. Think about who you were depicting, who they were, what they accomplished, what they went through to create what they did and when they were doing it. Man, that makes perfect sense after all. Good job, my friend."






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