Meet Jason Rogalski

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Rogalski.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’ve always since I was a boy, identified as an artist and loved science and shared my work in a way that educates. Eventually, I fell in love with and married an amazing artist, Brandie Maddalena. Together, we attended the San Francisco Art Institute where we discovered New Genres and changed our majors. New Genres is basically art modes that don’t yet have a name. We scraped by, during the dotcom housing crisis, at times living in trucks and boats, riding bikes across the Golden Gate each morning to get to school.

SFAI became like an atheist monastery for me. I went from painting to using objects as paint and later people and situations as paint (social sculpture). I became interested in functional art and eventually worked with Maddalena to create Dot-to-Dot. I’d arrange a series of venues between SF & Bahia de Los Angeles where our group could do art with kids, orphanages, schools and community centers. Our group of artists would road trip collaborating along the way, connecting the dots of the map. Details here: http://www.rogalskiart.com/Circuits/circuits.htm.

Maddalena & I graduated with our BFA’s in 2001 and moved to where we saw the greatest need, the border zone of Baja Norte. We established Dot-to-Dot headquarters and worked for free with communities on both sides of the border for four amazing years. As we directed Dot-to-Dot, we continued prolifically creating art. I explored positive negative illusions that brought me to create my first Walk-in-Painting. Details here (Dot-to-Dot): http://www.rogalskiart.com/Dot-to-DotNew/index.htm.

During these years, I also learned the local Baja mosaic method. I ran a side business called Bread & Butter Mosaics. http://www.rogalskiart.com/mosaic.html.

In 2004, the economy collapsed and Baja was plunged into something close to a depression, just as my son was born. Brandie was no longer able to work. We’d been working weekends in SD to fund Dot-to-Dot. Now, I had to work 2 full-time jobs in SD and was rarely seeing my family. We began to save money to return to San Diego. I found a job with a master mosaic and tile guy from Italy. I worked with him during the day, perfecting my mosaic art through high-end work training, and worked nights at group homes for adults with developmental disabilities.

Eventually, we raised enough to get a small cottage in University Heights. We donated all our art supplies and networking information to an NGO in Rosarito and moved back to the states. We immediately met Judy Riffle as she was starting the University Heights Arts Association and got deeply involved. The next year was unbelievably difficult as I worked two full-time jobs while working with Brandie to raise a newborn baby. I began mixing mosaic into my paintings. The tile guy turned out to be very good at tile, but very horrible at being human. His constant negativity brought me to the brink of madness and I had to find something else.

At a job fair, I found Terminix. They said they could pay me the wages I needed to support my family in a single job. I quit my two jobs and joined up with them. They handed me a three-inch thick pile of papers and told me my job was to study these and do a government test on the material. I did, and became a certified expert of entomology, and received licenses to not only diagnose what was eating a house but also a construction related license that allowed me to say what part of their structure needed to be replaced by our construction workers. I proceeded to make large amounts of money. Teriminix taught me how to be a good salesman, and I was pretty good at it, however, I always felt kind of like I was ripping people off even though I wasn’t. My inspections were honest, and Terminix provides a top-notch service.

While I am pretty good at sales, I don’t like to do it. That’s why I need a good art dealer/agent. I have a bad tendency to give my art away if someone likes it, but I do need to make money to live. I became increasingly aware that I didn’t want to waste my life doing a job that didn’t feel fulfilling, so I started asking myself what did feel right. I kept coming back to my experiences teaching in Mexico. I loved that. It felt right, so I decided to get my teaching credential. Rather than just focus on art, I wanted to be sure I got a good paying job. The schools need math, science and special education teachers, and I love science but was ready for a break from special education (after 10 years).

We moved to Redding of Northern California, for a cheaper living and some babysitting support from Brandie’s mom. In Redding, we hooked up with the Shasta Arts Council. We found the art community and had multiple exhibitions. I worked during the day and attended night school through National University to finish my teaching credential in both art and science. I was now equipped to teach fine art and science up to high school. During a lightning storm, we home-birthed our second son and soon returned to San Diego to seek a job.

In San Diego, I scored a job with the Julian Charter School. They hired me to teach both art and science. I started the position with an interest in combining the two. Through teaching experiments, I became better at it. I continued night school and achieved my Masters in Education, writing my master thesis of teaching science using art. I developed my Science Infused with Art teaching style. In a mode similar to Tim Rollins, who I worked with in San Francisco, I work with students as my art. We do project-based art that plays with our studies of science. This happens throughout the school year but hits a peak as we do our yearly Walk-in-Painting that is exhibited at the Festival of Science and Engineering at Petco Park. Details here: http://www.rogalskiart.com/walk-in-paintings.html

I also continue exploring my other lines of work which tend to be science related.
Details here: http://www.rogalskiart.com/gallery.html

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the I’m a freelance artist story. Tell us more about the business.
I’m proud to have inspired people to the amazing perspective of science. By sharing my perspective, people are exposed to the mystical and sublime. I work with children and the child within. I hope to speak to young on a level as well as the art educated intellectuals. If a piece doesn’t reach all levels from child to intellectual, it is not complete.

I explore negative space and negative time, both illustrated and real. You’ll see it in my paintings. You’ll see that I create sculptures for organisms to interact with or even live in. We are part of the art. You’ll see the work being made, the process is sometimes the work itself. The inside is the outside, The past is the future.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I am nearly done with my Animals of Absence series, and hope to market them to a zoo where they might shed light on the impact people are having on the world, and as posters, t-shirts or whatnot, provide my family with enough money to pursue our deeper goals.

While I am currently obsessed with luck and logic, I have become increasingly interested in the nature of time. I find myself developing multiple conceptual artworks that play with this direction. I expect my future work to branch in this direction. In the next years, I may also return to college to get my doctorate in education. I’d further my study of using art to teach science by collecting data from different classes where I’d guide educational experiments.

And you know, I haven’t talked much about Life Art in this writing. My energy applied with love often becomes art. I may not frame it and present it as art objectively, but it still is subjectively. Walk through the amazing gardens that we’ve made at my house, the spiral corn garden, the mandala garden brimming with veggies, and a crawdad farm in the center with a solar-powered water pump, butterflies, and strange chickens… a beehive that I’ve sculpted with clay. It’s like you’re walking through a painting because you are.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rogalskiart.com
• Email: rogalskijason@gmail.com

Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.