Local Artist Returns To His Roots

By Laura Stennerson

I first met Vince Yanez last March at Adobe Ranch Spa, where he was working as a massage therapist, I was looking for readers for an art show opening. Vince’s mother had given me his travel book, ‘It Doesn’t Matter Which Road You Take: A European Travel Story,’ to read during my own trip to China the previous October. I was hoping he would read a segment during the opening. His laugh out loud book about the unexpected  had been the perfect companion to my own misadventures while traveling. Since that time a year ago, a lot has happened to Vince. He has had an art show at Vida E Caffe , a new book on Kindle and, a his own massage therapy practice, Knots Be Gone. I caught up with Vince at Vida E in Globe.

LS: How has your experience been as an artist in Globe?

V: At first, I was a bit nervous that the only artists I would find in this area would be painting either cowboys or javelinas hanging out at a waterhole. I was pleasantly surprised to find so many artists in the area working on their various crafts, not only painting, but people doing watercolor, sculpture, singing, poetry and writing as well. I’d run into people at the coffee shop and never would have guessed he writes screenplays and she does metal-art. It’s been a pleasant surprise to find out how wrong I was and how many diverse artists there are here.

LS:When did you become interested in art?

V: Not until High School. I took Mr. Brown’s art class at Miami. He had such an open forum of allowing us to venture in any direction that interested us, I begin doing video work, airbrushing, painting and cartooning. The first contest I entered was a design for the billboards for the Arizona State Fair. We won first place and our artwork was all over the state, that inspired me to continue doing art in college. One of my majors, when I graduated from  U of A was painting. When I moved to Oregon I had a series of art shows and became a cartoonist for a local paper. I’ve been dabbling ever since.

LS: Where does you inspiration come from?

V: The inspiration to continue is usually from seeing something that blows me away, and to want to create something that amazing myself. I went to the Mesa Art Center last month and they had a painting of a typewriter sitting in front of a landscape. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to step back from something like that and think, ‘I did this.’ That keeps me going. I also find inspiration from some art that you look at and say…he’s famous for ‘that!’ I think most artists seem to expect too much from themselves in terms of creating ‘amazing pieces of art’, then you see someone that did something simple and unique and you wonder…why am I killing myself when beauty can be created so easily? As far as inspiration for the actual pieces themselves, usually anything that makes me chuckle I will consider expanding into a piece of art. Lack of sleep and too much caffeine also play big parts.

LS: What is your creative process?

V: Procrastination. It’s the same with writing as it is with painting. I will write 3/4 of a book and stop, until days before its due to the publisher, then suddenly finish it in a grand flourish. Paintings are the same, I will work at it halfheartedly until a week before the show, then work 15 hour days trying to finish in time. I have found that my best work is usually done when I have less time to edit and second-guess myself and just get it out on the paper or the canvas. It’s been in my head so long, I know what it needs to be…but I can’t give myself the extra time to keep wondering if maybe this or maybe that or I start tweaking and making changes that never turn out right. My first book I ‘thought about’ for four years and wrote in three weeks. Most of my big shows I have half the paintings sitting in front of heaters the night before, hoping the paint will be dry before it’s time to hang. Just the way I work.

LS: Do you think the Internet has a positive or negative influence on art.

V: Yes! Haha. The book I’m working on now, I’m not even sure how I would have written it, or how far I would be on it, if I had to use encyclopedias and do research in a library instead of the internet. The time it saves is immeasurable. On the other hand, all the nights I spend saying ‘it’s time to sit and write’…and instead play on the internet (like right now), is horribly too often. Of course, I figure the time I save with it and the time I waste on it probably even each other out somehow. Right now I’m working on a set of paintings that have a Picasso-esque feel to them. To be able to just Google ‘Picasso’ and have the entire library of his work before me is something beyond belief, getting myself to then put down the computer and go to the canvas…that’s a whole other story.

LS:  What is art to you?

V: Everything. Art is the way a chef cooks and arranges his food, the way a gardener gardens, the way someone will tell a story about a walk through nature, from the way you raise your kids to the way you arrange the furniture in your house. Anything you do that provides you with a ‘feeling’, or provides others with a ‘feeling’, is art. There are so many people who do and make things that we never know exist in this world. There was a guy in Manhattan that used to write poetry on the sidewalk every week with chalk. I never saw him do it, but for five years I read his work, even looked forward to finding the next one. Also, when I lived in New York there was a story about a woman who died, and in her house, they found one of the most amazing art pieces. She had taken plastic pipe, about 10 inches round and begin painting a history of America on it. It was a mural of the nations time line. As it grew, she added pieces of pipe. She started this in the 50′s. This tubing worked its way around her entire house, sixty or so feet of connected tubing, like a snake, around her entire place. The mural had all the great moments in history, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Presidential Elections and the moon landing. They moved it into a museum. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard of, and yet, no one knew it existed for over 50 years. Around the same time, a famous artist filled an entire gallery with 14 inches of dirt and called it his masterpiece. You had to look into the gallery, from the street, to see it. It was hailed as genius. It looked like a huge mess to me, but it brought in people by the thousands. It’s all art…whether or not you want it anywhere near your home….well, that’s another story.

LS:I have noticed your art has a humorous bent.  What motivates you to use humor in your work?

L.S:I also know you are a published author. Please tell our me about your books.  Did I hear you were working on a new book?  Can you tell me about it?

During my painting ‘heyday’, when I lived in Portland, I was also a cartoonist for a local paper. My art slowly started to blend the two. I started painting things that made me chuckle or just outright laugh, but I wasn’t yet sure how to blend the two. That’s when I discovered the German Painter Michael Sowa. He is a classically trained painter, with amazing talent in realistic work, who incorporates humor into his paintings. I loved the various reviews of people who didn’t like his work, they thought he was ‘ruining’ his ‘gift’ by adding humor to his work. Another side of it were fans who loved his work, because it finally made art interesting to them. The more I experimented with the idea, the more pieces I started to sell. It soon took over, almost every piece I produced had some joke in it, be it something outright in the painting itself, or in the title. Some of them are just jokes for myself and the public is none the wiser. In this last show, I drew a man, walking through an Italian town in the early morning. Nothing is funny about it but the title, written in Italian, which translates to….’Made the Doughnuts’.  The hardest part is trying to remain just ‘normal’ enough to appeal to people, because ultimately, survival is the name of the game…so selling because almost impossible when it falls too much into the ‘weird’ category. It’s also a fine line between what I find amusing and offending others. Religion is a very touchy subject. I caused quite a controversy in Portland when I did a religion-themed cartoon, the newspaper said they received tons of letters, which apparently they enjoyed because they asked me to do more. I suppose even bad press was good press to them. This last show I did a painting of a Zombie dressed in a habit ‘Zombie Nun Enjoying a Latte’, I wasn’t sure how it would be received, but it was loved. The owner of that painting is actually a real, life NUN! I couldn’t imagine a better seal-of-approval than that. I’m currently working on a piece that makes me pause as well, it’s a picture of early morning and Jesus is sitting on the edge of his bed, stretching. It’s called ‘The Second Rising of Christ’…I still get a bit anxious when I’m not sure how public reaction will be, but in the end, I’ve got to do what I’ve go to do.

The Books

The first book I published was in 2007. It’s a travel memoir of a backpacking trip I did through Europe with a friend, right after college, in the mid-90′s. It’s called It Doesn’t Matter Which Road You Take: A European Travel Story. The book is just an account of our travels through 14 countries during a 3 month walkabout. It’s less an educational tour and more about the fact that he and I are horrible travelers, thus, we consistantly made idiotic mistakes. It’s also about, how being such horrible travelers, the amazing luck we had as we wandered aimlessly, the people we met and the adventures we had. I originally submitted it to a travel website and it became the most popular piece on their site. By the end of six months I was on seven other websites and by the end of the first year I was on 13 different travel sites. In 2007 I went through a publishing company in Maryland who publishes mostly for online stores like Amazon and AbeBooks.

My second book I published in 2009. I didn’t want to go through the previous publisher, so I chose Kindle, (Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform to display e-books and other digetal media. And amazingly Amazon e-book sales exceded print sales for the first time on December 25, 2009).The Kindle has gained much popularity since Oprah featured it on one of her ‘favorite things’ episode, and the book is also available to download to iTouch and iPhone. I was actually in the process of writing two other books when the second one came to be. The two books I was writing had bits and pieces of experiences I had while living in Manhattan during and after 9/11. Eventually I put down the other two books and wrote this one, ‘Einstein’s Shutter,’ and told the story directly about those years. The book actually covers a ten year period, from Portland and the beginning of a relationship and my emergence into Buddhism, to Manhattan, the events of 9/11, a death of a friend and the eventually ending of the relationship. It’s a strange mix of memoir, historical, romance, humor, travel and the story of New Yorks slow rise from that day in September. The reviews have been wonderful and I hope to someday consider publishing it in book form.
Currently I am working on two pieces. The first is a screenplay called, ‘A Thousand Paper Cranes’, the story which is too complex to try and explain here. The other book I’m working on is called ‘iQuit‘, a humorous account of all the jobs I have had (around 35) and the freakishly amusing people who were usually the reasons why I quit those jobs. Both are coming along slowly as I am a huge procrastinator. As for painting, I’m currently starting a series of paintings that are Picasso-esque in their ‘look’…and humorous to boot. We’ll see how that goes.

LS: Vince how does your artistic life blend in with your massage therapy?

V:When I originally starting writing books and painting, one of my intentions was being able to provide people with not only an escape, but perhaps, a feeling of calm, peace, laughter or just contemplation. When I left New York I was driving cross country, looking for a place to live, wondering what was next. I had spent about ten days on the road, driving down the East Coast, visiting Elvis in Memphis, hanging out on the Mississippi and cruising around the heartland. The only place that mildly appealed to me was Albuquerque, but not enough to make a commitment. As I rode into Arizona I developed a kink in my back from the constant sitting and driving. When I reached Flagstaff, I booked a massage, something I’d never had before.

The therapist was amazing and I was blown away at how easy it was for her to change my day around. Not only did I feel better physically, but I’d gotten an amazing boost of positive energy from her. Over the next few weeks I couldn’t think of much else, eventually went back to Flagstaff and met the therapist again. I asked her, why massage, and what she said to me was, “I love knowing how to make people feel good, even if it’s only one person at a time.”

That did it for me, the next day I signed up at the massage school in Flagstaff and never looked back. There is such an amazing exchange of energies on that table and the ability to not only provide stress relief and an escape from the every day life, but to provide healing and be able to take care of problems that people incorrectly thought they had to learn to live with – is priceless.

I have studied many forms of massage and energy healing, am a third level qi gong practitioner, utilize such energy works as Zero Balancing, Qi Gong Healing Hands and a form of intuitive massage called Body Talk that has made all the difference in my work. The ability to throw myself into a massage the same way I do a painting or when I’m writing, makes it just as fun for me…and just as rewarding to view the end results. And on a side note, people always ask me why I named my practice Knots-B-Gone. I found too many practitioners get caught up in the ‘healing aspect’ of massage on a level that turns people off…calling themselves Healing Hands Massage or Inner Peace Massage, blah blah…..I wanted something fun and light and a little less serious…and could appeal to the average person on the street. You’ve got knots, you want them gone….voila’!

LS: Thank you Vince.  How do we get a hold of you?

V:You can reach me at (928) 814-9167, or  vineeya@hotmail.com knots-b-gone@hotmail.com