University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

What I learned from 28 years of drawing (from) whatever

(USC Thesis Other)

What I learned from 28 years of drawing (from) whatever

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content What I Learned From 28 Years of Drawing (From) Whatever
by
Jordan Cash-Cooper
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
FINE ARTS
May 2024
Copyright 2024 Jordan Cash-Cooper

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………......……..………iii
Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………………......……...……1
Chapter Two: What the Sprinkles Showed me…………………………………............….........3
Chapter Three: Thank Thangka…..……………………………………………...…......…………5
Chapter Four: The Power Cosmological…………………........……………………........…....…7
Chapter Five: Moving in the Stopped Time……………………………………………....…....…9
Chapter Six: The Grid: The Full Void……………….……………………………...……........…11
Chapter Seven: What I Learned from Stephen King and Various Gaudy Manga.…............13
Chapter Eight: Inkin’ Thinkin’.……………………….………………………………......….…....15
Chapter Nine: Seeing Through People Seeing Themselves………………………..…......…17
Chapter Ten: Choose Your Fighter: A Mini-Essay about Videogames…………...........……18
Chapter Eleven:Vampire Panic………………………………………………………..…...…….21
Chapter Twelve: A Date with Density………………………..…………………………….....…23
Chapter Thirteen: What I Learned from 28 Years of Drawing (from) Whatever……......…..25
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….....….27
ii

Abstract
My thesis paper is a series of disparate thoughts, events, and musings on
interesting subjects. The connective thread is what these different things revealed to me
about the creative process. Most of these vignettes involve some type of revelation that
was productive to my artwork.
iii

Chapter One: Introduction
Hello, reader! My name is Jordan Cash-Cooper. My pen name is “Cash-Cooper”.
I tend to make paintings of crazy cultists and the gods that they summon, destroy, and
honor. However, this thesis isn’t about my paintings, nor is it about any one particular
thing.
This paper is a series of vignettes and musings on different styles of creativity,
ranging from Russian literature, to manga, to ice cream sprinkles, to role-playing
games. These episodes are significant because they revealed to me a blessed
substance that would nourish not only my artistic development but my very life. In each
section I’ll illustrate how these varied things helped me.
I chose this format for a thesis because it’s what's most interesting to me to write.
I’m happy to take advantage of being an art student. So, I don't have to write a
thoroughly researched argument or even something about the art world. I’ll use this
freedom to remark on things that are directly interesting to me.
Also, it’s fun for me to write “around” my paintings instead of “about” them. My
pieces, the odd pocket dimensions that they are, are mysterious to me. However, I think
that at least once in life, an artist should look inward and perform a kind of mental audit.
But this can be hard! For me, trying to peer into my artistic intent is like trying to look at
1

the sun. But I can comfortably observe what it sheds light upon. The landscape
revealed to me is the content of this thesis paper.
2

Chapter Two: What the Sprinkles Showed Me
I was probably 7 or 8 when I went to my friend Henry’s apartment for a sleepover.
We played video games and watched primetime tv shows into the night. Henry’s mom
brought us a sugary snack which was cool considering how late it was.
The selection was Dannon yogurt in a prepackaged dish. Fixed to the top of the
dish, was a container of rainbow sprinkles. The gimmick is that you dump the sprinkles
into the yogurt. Henry emptied his “sprinkle pack” into his yogurt, mixed them in, and fell
to devouring the thing. After I poured my sprinkles in, however, I just stood and stared at
them as they lay over the off-white field of vanilla yogurt.
I stared at it for quite a while, excited by it in a way I couldn’t describe then.
Thinking back on things now, I was transfixed by the vivid multicolored arrangement
over the single-color background. But additionally, I was stimulated by the separateness
and togetherness of the scene. Each sprinkle was its own individual unit, yet they all
together created a beautiful pattern that could only be described as an edible work of
art.
Eventually, the feeling of exhilaration passed, and I ate the yogurt, but I would
find that sensation elsewhere as my life progressed. As I look down at a crowd of
people from a skyscraper window, the sprinkle feeling! Viewing a city from a plane, the
sprinkle feeling! Watching ants work over a cast-off apple core, the sprinkles!
3

This feeling is a determining factor in my creation of large compositions with
many tiny details. I’ve heard many artists say they make what they want to see in the
world. Personally, I want to see vividly colored constellations of figures, each one alive
with its own individuality.
4

Chapter Three: Thank Thangka
The further I got into high school, the more I would skip class. However, I couldn't
resist the pull of education so I would usually end up going to museums. I grew up in
New York City where there is an embarrassment of art institutions. My favorite place to
go was the Rubin Museum, which hosts a collection of Tibetan Buddhist artwork.
The Rubin is nestled in a particularly busy part of lower Manhattan off Broadway.
The atmosphere on the inside, though, is quiet and serene. The lighting throughout the
building is low and the walls are dark, with soft spotlights on the work. The subdued
mood of the place is a perfect setting for the visitor, who goes to check out paintings
created as spiritual aids.
The bulk of the work includes Thangka paintings, which was what I was going to
the Rubin to see. Thangka is a painting style that emerged from Tibetan Buddhism.
They are characterized by their bright colors and spiritual scenes, which are painted
opaquely and mounted to silk scrolls.
After a couple of years of simply looking at the paintings, it eventually occurred to
me to crack open a book and learn about the philosophy behind Thangka and Tibetan
Buddhist art. In short, a Thangka painting is based on one’s spiritual revelation and
depicts the saints, buddhas, and bodhisattvas particular to that individual's vision.
5

The idea is that once it’s made, the painting goes out into the world to aid others in their
meditations and ultimately get closer to enlightenment1
.
The revelation of Thangka paintings expanded the capabilities of art that I'd been
taught in school or church. I’d understood art to be a vehicle for personal expression,
storytelling, or a medium to aggrandize temporal or spiritual authority. This art could all
be sold but also art could be used to sell other stuff. Thangka showed me a new
objective which would make a strong impression on me, psychic liberation.
At the time I’d learned this, my style of painting hadn’t revealed itself to me.
However, a couple years down the line, I was starting to think about what all I’d like to
achieve with my work. I’d noticed that the detailed nature of my art was engaging for
folks and that they would explore them for a while. This excited me and the conclusion I
came to was that I want people to be mentally stimulated by my art. As a painter, I don’t
have an argument for the viewer so much as a proposition. That is “does this painting
interest you? If so, come and live inside it for a while!” So, although I’m not aiming for
anything as lofty as enlightenment, I’d be happy if my viewers felt better after seeing my
work than they did before. More so than any stylistic influence Thangka gave me, the
idea of a painting as an act of service was my takeaway from playing all that hooky at
the Rubin Museum.
1 Rhie, “Worlds”, 17.
6

Chapter Four: The Power Cosmological
It may have been looking at these Tibetan art pieces that incepted me with the
idea of a cosmology disclosed through a formal painting style. Fast forward to the “me”
of 2015. A life of geekery had equipped me with a style of drawing. Studying art history
had hipped me to ways to compose large paintings. The magical third was in the
spiritual underpinning that disclosed itself to me while living in China. At the time, I was
engrossed by these old lectures I found on Spotify by Manly P. Hall on Babylonian and
Egyptian creation myths. These lectures were as dry as a sheet of fabric softener, but
super vivid in their content.
Unconsciously, I started drawing a line between these tales and the
comparatively recent works of monumental art that I had visited in Angkor Wat and the
Shwedagon pagoda. These temple complexes are Hindu2 and Buddhist3
respectively
and are mind-boggling assemblages of sculpture and relief. So, after meditating on the
literature and art of the devout folks of antiquity, I found that I really, really wanted to
know what their parties were like. If I had a time machine, I would want to see a fertility
ritual in the Persian Gulf 5000 years ago, or a devotional to the Sun on the Nile, or to a
human sacrifice in Chichen Itza.
However, instead of becoming a historical painter who captures the look of the
ancestral environment, I wanted to capture the vibe of it. Since I didn’t want to be bound
3 Unesco, “Shwedagon.”
2 Chandler, “Legacy.”
7

to any one narrative, I created contemporary avatars of ancient concepts. I began to
assemble a lexicon of archetypes. Warriors, musicians, wizards, priestesses, cultists,
godheads, dragons, and many other freaky characters began to reveal themselves to
me. At times, I consider my painting project to be a work of psychic anthropology. The
reason is because I am painting real people doing things that happened that happen to
be fictional events that sprung out of my mind. The brain is a dark, undiscovered
country.
8

Chapter Five: Moving in the Stopped Time
Of the googleplex things I love about comics is that it’s happening all at once!
There! On the page! To have time and space harnessed in such a way and splayed out
on the page is the power of comics. At first, this was overwhelming for me as a viewer .
I would muck up the sequence of events by reading panels out of order. Or try to read in
sequence but couldn’t control my eyes as they flit over to the prettiest pictures on the
panel. Once I became an intermediate comic-reader I would take in the entire gestalt of
the page in the same way you would gaze at a dish in a restaurant that's being walked
over to you. Now my reading method has tunneled into a narrow beam of focus. But
where did that distracted giddiness go? I wandered the earth in the years between
middle school and college, bereft of that feeling.
In 2012, I visited the National Museum of Singapore and saw Brueghel the
Younger’s “The Triumph of Death” in person. This 46 by 65 inch, 500-year-old painting
is made up of dozens of distinct moments that all illustrate the predominance of
mortality over both the vainglorious and humble aspects of life. I dug the message and
really enjoyed the colossal number of skeletons in the painting. But, more than anything,
I was re-acquainted with that exuberant feeling I’d get when I’d see a page full of
beautiful art in a comic book. The difference, though, with these types of paintings by
Brueghel and Bosch, is that there isn't a strictly linear way you should read them. Yet
they were stories, stories where all the most important actions were happening all at
once. This creates an interesting game for the painter who’s challenged to arrange
9

these moments in their composition. In turn, the viewer gets to play a game where they
occupy the painting and can wander at will within, enjoying each story and even finding
secret moments. It’s fitting that this style begat the northern-European tradition
“Wimmelbilderbuch”(hidden picture book)4
.
A common question I get is “Would you ever make comic books?” Perhaps in
another life, but with my painting I cultivated the feeling I get from the heightened state
of action seen on a comic page. Paintings where all the action is depicted but unmoored
from linearity. For me, these crystalized moments are incredibly satisfying.
4 Kümmerling-Meibauer, “Emergent”.
10

Chapter Six: The Grid: The Full Void
I love comics so much; I even love the gutter; the gridded panels that frame each
drawing. Even though I don't make comic books I had to get that grid into my work! I
took it off the page and placed it on the “ground”. Before I create the pencil outline of a
piece, I use a protractor to lay down crisscrossing lines. At first, I thought this was just a
rudimentary depiction of perspective, but it turned out to be an important initial step in
the ceremony of composition. Having a grid laid out on the paper not only helps me
orient the characters in my painting spatially, but also enables me to envision them
vividly. In the context of my visual style, the grid also serves as an abstract, rigid plane
of polygons that are juxtaposed against the irregular, flowing figures.
Time and space are established through the grid, it's then just a matter of
arrangement. Similarly to how a parachuter would never jump out of a plane without a
place to land, the crazy cast cannot emerge from my mind without a grid to place them
on. Looking at the grid, before I begin drawing in the characters, I see an empty
expanse full of possibilities.
This space laden with potential reminds me of the grid-based videogames that I
love. Some of my favorite games are tactical games that are derived from dungeons
and dragons. Traditionally,
11

My last thought about the grid is that I never thoroughly thought about what it
could literally represent. I guess it would just be pavement. In which case, it will be a lot
of fun to start painting swards of grass and fields of foliage in some new paintings of the
garden variety.
12

Chapter Seven: What I Learned from Stephen King and Various Gaudy
Manga.
I’m a big fan of Stephen King, although I haven't even read 1% of his work. I
enjoy the premises of his stories, but I also admire the quick, straightforward way in
which he writes. Word is that King works within a highly compressed timeframe to
create his drafts5
.This accounts for his prolific output, but also for the excitement I feel in
his storytelling. For me, this reflects the everyday feeling I get from living life where
nothing is predetermined.
I also find this suspenseful sensation in weekly manga and daily comic strips.
Though, unlike King, these comic artists are under extreme pressure from their editors
to produce. To get to print, the creators couldn’t spend too long crafting the plot or even
drawing the thing. Even if the creators have a long-view of the plot, reader polls gauge
their popularity week-to-week6
. This may necessitate quick adjustments to the story. The
commonality between King and these serialized comics artists is that the quality of the
output can vary, but the consistency can yield brilliant results.
So, when I sit down to draw a piece, I try to do it in one or two sittings. The
drawing is the most important part of my work since it reveals the story, designs, and
compositions of the painting, but I execute it in a semi-improvisational manner. I’ll have
an idea of what I want the premise of the painting to be and sometimes a thumbnail
6 Jajanken, “Weekly.”
5 King, “Writing”, 63.
13

sketch of the major focus of the competition, but every character, moment, and incident
is made in from the stream of consciousness. The advantage of this method is that the
moments in my paintings feel spontaneous, even though the works themselves take
hundreds of hours to complete.
I attributed this mode of making to automatic drawing, but as I’m writing this I find
myself identifying with serial cartoonists more so than surrealists. I was a diehard fan of
Garfield and the Far Side long before I knew about Dali.
14

Chapter Eight: Inkin’ Thinkin’
When I Iook at my work in totality, my style and voice are well-developed. But my
inking still has a long, long way to go. Although I improvise my paintings, the most
surprises occur during the inking process. Inking is the discipline that reminds me the
most of how long the road of an artist is. I look forward to being an old man, looking
back on a long life of long and wide paintings. I can't wait to relish all the beautiful
scenes I will have made by the time I’m 90. Yet, I’m sure I’ll die unsatisfied with my
inking skills.
I was introduced to the discipline of inking in 2006 and that was the year my full
artistic practice began. I became a complete artist then. This was due to the aspect of
“finish” inking gave the work. The composition and story are told through the initial
pencilwork, the color is laid in to establish the mood, and the ink lines accentuate the
contours and dimension of the forms.
However, despite any notion of “completeness” and “finish", there is the volatility
of inking. This is due to the vulnerability of inked linework. When I create the under
drawing of a piece, I can erase any mistakes. When I block in color, I rarely make any
mistakes that totally skunk a painting. But the ink line is the most honest component.
You can hide a foul-up but so much in linework. So, every line is a candid account of the
moment it was made. Between hard pen and brush, there’s so many nuanced physical
movements that distinguish good inking from poor.
15

I feel the ink is giving me a gift in those moments when I try to trace my pencil
work but am rewarded with a new line that retains the structure of the pencil work but
instills it with a new character. An analogy that comes to mind is that actors will
improvise lines and actions not found in the script. Some of cinemas’ greatest moments
are emergent and spontaneous. I can never anticipate an inked line and those lines are
often the favorite aspect of my paintings.
16

Chapter Nine: Seeing Through People Seeing Themselves
In the way we can never know ourselves the way the world knows us, I’ll never
see my paintings the way the public sees them. Many times, viewers of my work will say
things like ”This is how I see myself in my dreams!” or “I know someone like that!”.
Sometimes, I’m covetous of the thrill folks get from rooting around in my paintings after
I’ve gone through the trouble of painting them. Like a parent who spent 250 hours
cooking a meal only to watch their kids polish it off in 3 minutes, I wish sometimes I
could simply go somewhere, sit down and devour a painting of mine. But even from my
3rd party perspective, I can see the beautiful process of identification taking place.
When I’m in my sentimental phases, I like to think about how humankind is really
one superorganism experiencing itself subjectively. The things we love about others are
things harmonious with our spirit. Identification, psychic connections, and seeing
ourselves in others is a wonderful thing to me. Evoking this sensation is the closest I get
to evoking nature in my work.
17

Chapter Ten: Choose your Fighter!: A mini essay about Video Games
The crazy thing is that this power of identification can extend to inanimate objects
like art! My favorite art form happens to be video games, even though I’m a painter. At
the root of this love is the thrill I get from identifying with pixels and polygons. To me,
playing a videogame is like astral projection into another dimension.
One of my first experiences with this phenomenon was playing Street Fighter 2
on my cousin Richards’ Super Nintendo. The colors, sound, and characters were
sublime to me. The sensation of identification was in full force just based on the visuals.
Before I even started to play the thing, I was already seeing idealized versions of myself
in the diverse cast of fantastical combatants.
But, the piece de resistance was the aspect of control via the gamepad. I was
gobsmacked by the ability to pilot the fighters on the screen. Each button controlled the
limbs of the fighters. The objective was to defeat your opponent in one-on-one combat.
It was heightened, animated, gave me agency, and laid the groundwork for my taste in
art.
Specifically, the power of character design to entice the audience into
identification with the art. Personally, I’ll pass over games that could be brilliant if I don't
like the character design. This was true for me even as a child playing Pokémon.
Speaking of this game in particular, my first paid gig as a 6-year old artist was drawing
18

copies of the creatures from a magazine and selling large (50 cents) and small (25 cent)
pieces.
After my Pokémon run, I would spend years creating original characters. In my
imagination, I wove grand narratives in which they were the stars. Sometimes, I would
hold pretensions of creating a comic book, but I could never get past the immediate joy
of creating characters.
So, my artistic sensibility was cinched to character design. To me, this confluence
of figure drawing and costume design was worldbuilding in its simplest form.
Throughout my childhood, I designed thousands of characters in fantasy, sci fi, and
period roles. Whenever I found a book, movie, or even a painting I loved, I would
inevitably bring some aspects of them into my personal character designs. But my
eternal spring was videogames. Each game in my collection would spawn a
corresponding collection of drawings inspired by it in my sketchbook.
Looking at things in retrospect, my paintings are all character centered. The
pieces, bereft of landscapes and structures, have only the characters as a means of
telling the story. The figures and their relationship with each other are everything.
Creating a character comes naturally to me and I attribute this facility primarily to
videogames. The joy of occupying an avatar in a game is an electrifying thing. Before I
was even consciously aware of it, I was creating characters that serve as avatars for the
viewer to occupy. A fine art painting is an inanimate object, and the only interaction
19

takes place in the mind of the viewer. However, I’m happy that folks can inhabit the
crazy work I make via the characters.
I’m 33 now, still playing videogames. My artmaking and game loving run perfectly
parallel to each other. I doubt I'll ever actually make a game, but I owe a lot to the
artform regarding my painting.
20

Chapter Eleven: Vampire Panic!
Maybe Panic is an overstatement. Although, I had a simmering anxiety for a hot
half dozen years. “Will I be able to create anything original?” “Can I hold a place of
distinction in the realm of art I occupy?”
We’re all drawing from the same reality. I think the thing that makes you unique
as an artist is how that reality is filtered through your individuality. Nowadays, I’m proud
to be counted among that class of painters labeled “World Builders”7
. But how is my
wacky world of flamboyant folk distinct from Trenton Doyle Hancock’s or Umar
Rashid’s? Individual whim is the main difference. And since my individuality is indivisible
from myself, I don't have to panic trying to find it.
Which leads me to the first half of the chapter title. After spending the better part
of 10 years developing the fundamentals of a visual language, I’ve finally got something
to say(paint) about vampires. After enjoying the lovelorn vampires of Rice, Araki’s
glam-rock demigods, and Oldman’s baroque shapeshifter Dracula. I’m ready to throw
my own vamps into the public domain.
The impetus for their introduction to my paintings was my desire to introduce new
concepts based on my reading. I’ve been engaged in this worldbuilding painting project
for about 8 years now. Up until 2022, all the pieces I made were about worship. The
7 art21, “World Building.”
21

scenes were strange but beatific, communal, and harmonious. I was engrossed with
capturing the vibe of a culture of folks who lived in a magical reality and who got
together to collectively venerate their gods.
Then Discordia entered my mind. I became obsessed by a biography of
Ghenghis Kahn. By “obsessed”, I mean I listened to this 24-hour audiobook 60 or 70
times. At about the 47th time going through the book, I started to imagine that Genghis
Kahn was a vampire. This explained his historical bloodlust and was compelling to me.
Then, the concept of a nation of folks who desired blood found me. I ended up creating
a painting called “Plunder” in which a warlord sacks another group of people and
murders their patron god. So, I had found a new theme, antagonism! However, I needed
a new guise for my characters to follow-through with the idea. I wanted the antagonism
to be fueled by bloodlust. So, during my time at USC, I developed these black-clad
freaks that I dub BloodSuckers.
Almost all the paintings in my thesis show feature my BloodSuckers and all the
pieces save one cover the concept of antagonism. I’m a character-oriented artist, so I
needed to use vampiric characters as a vehicle to explore conflict.
It was only after moving though my panic over individuality that I could explore
the well-trodden territory of vampires. I was able to do this with the assurance that my
BloodSuckers aren't derivative. But I’m still not sure if most folks will even read them as
Vampires. I’m sure I’ll get it eventually though if I keep painting.
22

Chapter Twelve: A Date with Density
For me, there's an immense pleasure in playing artistic Tetris by arranging an
overwhelming multitude of different components into a unified whole. I recently learned
that in painting terms, that would make me a maximalist. But this predilection extends
beyond painting. My favorite writers are the musician Nas and the Russian
Dostoyevsky. An average 4-minute Nas song averages over 300 words8
, which is a lot
even for a rap song. These pieces can be multi-act stories or works of free association
around a theme. At 50, Nas is still considered one of the most vivid artists in the genre.
In my opinion, his power lies in fitting imagery within a single bar. By bar, I mean a
4-count, the standard measurement of time in western music. A typical song has
hundreds of bars so that’s a lot of poetic imagery generated by Nas. His songs achieve
the very thing I try to achieve with my paintings, which is to impart something new to the
viewer every time they experience the piece.
And as far as Dostoyevsky is concerned, it’s the character interaction for me. I
think one of the reasons his books are so damn long is that every thought a character
has is put on the page in obsessive omniscience. Then, he makes sure to step us
through how those internal motivations manifest in words and actions. Then, he
spotlights with aggravating clarity what the next character thinks about those actions,
and repeats. And since most scenes take place in a parlor of 4-10 people, you get these
ornate matrixes of character interaction that are the better part of 1000 pages. I hope
8 Method Matters, “Nas.”
23

one day to depict interplay between humans as faithfully as him, but for the sheer effect
of volume and granularity, I’m impressed and inspired.
I yearn for art that you can step inside of. I think that the longer you spend inside a
movie, the more of its world you become. As long as it’s good.
I also love long movies. Next to Coppola’s Dracula, my favorite movie is Once
Upon a Time in America by Sergio Leone which clocks in at 4 hours long. I love it! It’s
like being in a book. If I were ever to see it, my favorite movie would be Akira
Kurosawa's 6-hour cut of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. But, it was lost and no one knows
where it is9…
9 Alex, “Idiot.”
24

Chapter Thirteen: What I Learned from 28 Years of Drawing (from)
Whatever
In my childhood, in my composition book, in class I would sketch original
characters based on my favorite videogames and Japanimations. In adolescence I
would create cards for my friends that resembled the underground comics I was in love
with at the time. Ultimately, it was only after hacking my way through my 20’s, extensive
travel, and a lifetime of obsessive sketching that my style revealed itself to me. I was a
geek for drawing before but creating new episodes in this style ignites a purpose and
passion within me.
I believe that passion keeps you young and youth is characterized by intensely
strong curiosity. I’m fascinated by the world and the potential discovery of things that
can end up in my artwork. Painting has become a vehicle through which I can explore
the world's many curiosities. So, even though this paper is full of stuff I’ve learned, the
lesson I'll select for this conclusion is that if you can master the process in just one
thing, you can see the beauty in all things. I wouldn’t refer to myself as a master, but a
burning curiosity propelled me through 20,000+ hours of painting. Repeating the
creative process over and over again has imparted unto me a sensitivity to see the
sublime nature in things outside of painting.
25

For this paper, I stuck mostly to other forms of art, but I also have some great
material that I’m saving up. My thesis sequel will cover things such as industrial waste,
my time spent working at a pet shop, and the crud found between train tracks
26

Bibliography
Rhie, Marilyn M. “Worlds of Transformation.”edited by Harry N. Abrams, 27-29. New York: Harry
N. Abrams, 1999.
Chandler, David, “The Legacy of Angkor,” Asia Society, Last modified 2024.
https://asiasociety.org/education/legacy-angkor
Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, “Shwedagon Pagoda on Singuttara Hill,”Unesco, Last
modified June 12, 2018, https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6367/
Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina. “Early-concept books.” In Emergent Literacy: Children’s Books
from 0 to 3, edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, 93-94. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing Company, 2011.
Jajanken.net, “Weekly Shonen Jump 2024 Issue 16.” Last modified April 1, 2024.
https://www.jajanken.net/en/issues/2024-04-01
King, Stephen. “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.” 63. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
art 21, “World Building.” Last modified June 23, 2023. https://art21.org/theme/world-building/#/3
Method Matters Blog, “Nas vs. DOOM: A Model-Based Text Analysis with Python.” LAst
modified April 22, 2018. https://methodmatters.github.io/nas-vs-doom-model-based-textanalysis/
Cox, Alex. “The Idiot.” Masters of Cinema DVD. Eureka Entertainment, 2005.
27

Abstract (if available)

Abstract My thesis paper is a series of disparate thoughts, events, and musings on interesting subjects. The connective thread is what these different things revealed to me about the creative process. Most of these vignettes involve some type of revelation that was productive to my artwork.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Alternative remembrance strategies: artists and archives

PDF

The converb -j in Alashan Mongolian

PDF

Present myth, future fantasy revisiting Los Angeles with new ecologies

PDF

botched aesthetics: Indian identity and respresentation

PDF

crab explores its wound

PDF

Through a violet lens: looking at holes, cuts and fragments in material, poetry, and performance

PDF

Limit/Less: the migrant body in context

PDF

(Mis)representations of Chinese culture and filmic influences

PDF

Life after life

PDF

The poetics of home

PDF

Molecular modulation to fine-tune optoelectronic properties of OLED materials

PDF

Looking to the past: closeted feelings of queer longing and desire

PDF

ID × beauty: the intersection of design, beauty, and our performative identities

PDF

Visions in verse: dialogues across cultural realms

PDF

Ghostly becoming

PDF

Isn't Pickle so cute?

PDF

Robust causal inference with machine learning on observational data

PDF

Investiture of Chinese culture in character design

PDF

The influence of Chinese internet slang

PDF

SpaceTime travelers: on riding a bike in the city

Asset Metadata

Creator Cash-Cooper, Jordan (author)

Core Title What I learned from 28 years of drawing (from) whatever

School Roski School of Art and Design

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Fine Arts

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 06/13/2024

Defense Date 06/12/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag art,cash-cooper,cosmological,drawing,grid,inking,manga,maximalism,OAI-PMH Harvest,Painting,seeing,thangka,Time,vampire,videogames

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Mayerson, Keith (committee chair), Guirguis, Sherin (committee member), Kelly, Mary (committee member)

Creator Email cashcoop@usc.edu,jcash524@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC1139963QX

Unique identifier UC1139963QX

Identifier etd-CashCooper-13102.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-CashCooper-13102

Document Type Thesis

Format theses (aat)

Rights Cash-Cooper, Jordan

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20240614-usctheses-batch-1169 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu