Legends and Idols

In order to manifest,

you must first have the vision.

You have to then put all your thoughts and energies

and vision into visualizing your thing

and bring it to yourself.

In order to be its highest and best,

you have to be doing it not at the expense of others,

not just to visualize it,

but to modify all of your behavior.

So, all of your purposes, all of your behaviors,

are for the manifestation of that desire.

Hi, I'm Willard Snow.

I'm an artist from Redondo Beach, California.

I paint rock star portraits, I paint musical instruments,

giant guitars, and so much more.

After completing my MFA, Master of Fine Arts degree

in San Francisco, which is like a doctorate...

a Ph.D. in art,

I worked as a graphic artist.

I worked as a faux finisher.

I've been a metalsmith, which was really awesome.

Heck, I even sold ice cream for a while,

while I was dreaming of painting

and starting an art community.

More recently, I was living down by the beach,

splitting things between web design, graphic design,

building a business, trying to have an income, and painting.

And I was managing my web design clients

and had one big client,

and they had a major piece

of engineering that they wanted.

And it was paying the bills,

but it wasn't what I wanted to do.

I wanted to get back into painting.

You know, I was looking to get back into art

instead of doing what was practical.

It reminded me of that ice cream gig.

I was raising kids, we were raising the family,

I really needed the money, and the job was good.

But I really needed to get back to my art.

And my boss was sensing my frustration.

And had a talk with me. And I decided to quit.

And when I got home,

my wife at the time told me she was pregnant.

And I thought that I had just made the biggest mistake.

But working there all day just was not what I wanted.

You know, my heart definitely wasn't there.

I had a friend who knew a gallery chain owner

with high-end clientele. Beverly Hills, Las Vegas.

So, we got excited and tried to get

an appointment to show my art.

- Hey, Douglas. - Hey, Willard, how are you?

- Good to see you. - Come on up.

We met at his office hoping to schedule

an introduction to the gallery owner.

They talked on the phone and all the owner wanted to know

was which galleries I had already been showing in.

It was a familiar catch-22.

The meeting went nowhere.

Undeterred by the catch-22, Willard did what

he always does when confronted by setbacks.

He dove back into a painting he'd been working on.

It was the culmination of many of his ideas and drawings

that he had been doing for quite a while.

Then he got a new idea.

When he started painting these abstract,

black and white paintings, you know, they were amazing,

very brilliant.

And I was looking at him thinking,

"Wow, it's like there's

something trying to come out."

There's like, a face, or an animal, or something.

Like, I could see it in there.

I decided to start painting portraits

of, uh, rock and roll legends.

I was ready to make some changes to my life.

I kept hearing about people finding free places to work,

or these great spaces to work, these live-work spaces.

Artist's lofts, warehouses.

And that's what I needed: More space.

He tapped into his vast network of friends

and let them know that he was looking

for a free place to work.

And within a few months, it popped up.

I called a friend to say hi,

and I was shocked to hear from his wife that he had dementia.

So, we talked, and she offered me her garage.

So, I had a temporary studio. And, uh, she was an artist.

She understood my need. And so, she wanted to help me.

In April of this year, I was introduced to Mike Bradford.

And he asked me if I wanted to show my paintings

at his CD release party.

Um, that was pretty exciting.

And then it was more exciting because the CD release party

was at the Gibson Guitar Showroom,

which is a beautiful venue.

And while I was there with my work, uh, Linda Hayden really

enjoyed my work and asked me if I would like to paint one

of these 10-foot Les Paul guitars.

So, then, you know, the Guitar Town curator called me

and told me he'd get me the... Actually, he didn't call me.

He just sent me an email saying he was going to send me

the application, that I needed to fill the application out.

And, uh, you know, that they would get back to me

and they'd, you know, get me a guitar by July 11th

or something. And I was like, "No, no, no, no, no.

I'll fill out the application and everything,

but you gotta get me a guitar now."

And then I kind of told them why,

'cause we were doing the shows.

Gibson sponsors, uh, the Sunset Music Festival.

As part of the Sunset Music Festival,

they give these guitars for the Guitar Town Museum

to artists to paint.

They asked me to participate, and I wrote a proposal

that I would paint Bob Marley, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia,

and Marc Bolan on these 10-foot Les Paul sculptures.

So, Willard grabbed four of these guitars

when they were offered to him.

And I thought, "God, he's...

I don't know, he's maybe biting off

a little more than he can chew, because there was

a deadline and his work can be very detailed.

He gets really into, uh, the process.

You can see a lot of detail in his work,

and he didn't just paint the fronts.

He also painted the backs.

Again, a lot of them with very intense detail.

It was a lot of work.

And I remember going over there one day

and he had been up all night trying to finish

one of the guitars.

And he was just, like, totally burned out,

couldn't push a paintbrush anymore.

And it still wasn't done.

And the deadline was, like, a couple days away.

It was coming up pretty quick,

and he still had a lot more work to do.

I've always listened to music when I did art

"cause it creates the creative space.

There was a time when I wouldn't even

look at a television program.

It was just music, art, and the television might

be on just as a moving picture,

but we didn't... I never paid attention to it.

It's probably because of music that I'm an artist.

I have a background in, you know, academic art,

but the thing that inspired me was music.

And the thing that inspired me to get into the bands

that I listened to was the album covers.

The sixth grade, my friends are playing Yes' Fragile.

And, uh, you know, I was hooked.

Um, and then all those artists: Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

You got H.R. Giger, and then got Yes with Roger Dean,

and you've got, uh, just so many bands

who had a visual theme

that ran kind of parallel to their music.

And that's turned me on a lot.

And then on top of it, they were great.

My art is an outgrowth of that.

You said it's done?

I keep working on it.

Oh, yeah.

- Too much. - Yeah.

Wow, it's... it's looking like it's almost done.

Just the neck, I gotta finish the neck.

Ah, it's coming out good.

So, I had my free space to work in,

but no income.

And I saw an opportunity, you know,

to go in a new direction, do something profound

that I couldn't do by myself,

but could with a major musical instrument company.

Although Gibson paid for the paint,

the Guitar Town gig was a non-profit for charity.

It was hard spending all night

and day painting towards the deadline.

Luckily, I have good friends and I've helped them,

and they stepped up and helped me.

It was two o'clock last night, four o'clock the night before.

Coming out really nice.

This one I think is your best one so far.

Yeah, I think so too. I gotta paint.

So, we got the hu... beach reporter guy com...

What time is it? He's coming over here noon.

- Eleven. - He's going to be coming

in an hour.

So, we gotta clean this place up a little bit.

"Cause it's total entropy.

I actually did four portraits: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix,

Jerry Gar... no, Bob Marley, and, uh, Marc Bolan.

And then, uh, a friend of mine named AC Alexander,

who's a lead guitar player for, uh, Mike Bradford.

Um, Mike Bradford has produced Madonna,

Dave Stewart, and Deep Purple, and Kid Rock, and...

AC showed him my paintings and suggested that I show

the paintings at the CD release party at Gibson.

And, uh, these are going to sell, um, at auction...

end of the year, beginning of the year.

And they'll probably sell for about $20,000.