Putting the Aloha in Art

Like the overlapping layers of his paintings, Mark Swanson’s philosophies on life, art, and the future run deep. “It’s not about the medium. It’s not about the material; it’s about how [art] it makes you feel. For me the thing that is interesting is finding a way to catch that, capturing something of a spirit.”

Swanson is a very mellow person who loves the peace and tranquility of nature. So it was no surprise that, in 2004, he gave up his Hollywood job as a computer animator for a workshop in the solitude and beauty of O’ahu’s North Shore.

After a chance meeting with Walt Disney in 1964, Swanson became very intrigued and inspired to draw. “I’ve been drawing since I was five-years old and I haven’t stopped. I picked up different mediums as I went along. It’s sort of a lifetime obsession,” he recalled. Eventually, he became an animator, working with Hollywood filmmakers such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Swanson’s skills and hard work appeared in a number of animated films, including The Land Before Time. “In general, I was in the Hollywood scene and it simply got to the point where it was no more fun, except for a paycheck and that is not enough,” he said, reflecting on the face value of his work in Los Angeles.

His true passion in life was beckoning him elsewhere and he started tuning in to where that was. “The stuff that was being made was not beautiful anymore. The films didn’t have innocence in them anymore. They were bad live-action films. I just got to the point where I simply didn’t want to be associated,” he said, explaining the lowering standards in the animation film industry, although he said that he “holds Pixar in high regard.”

After all the glamour had worn off, Swanson began to see an end. “So you come around and think; well I’m not doing what I want to do in life. I’m not making anybody else happy. I’m just making money and that is not enough.” It was then that Swanson began to break free of the surface rewards and dig down deeper into his roots, creating joyful art.

Growing up in the early 1960s in Huntington Beach, California, Swanson was exposed to a happier time, a time of optimism, of cubism, or what he referred to as, “The Jetsons” era, where he spent his days drawing, riding his bicycle all over the place and wearing out the Beach Boys album, Pet Sounds on his record player. “If I were to look at people who really inspire me I would look at Brian Wilson. It’s almost impossible to listen to his music and not be happy. For me, what Brian was able to bring was a child likeness of hope.” And, that is exactly what Swanson wants to achieve through the art he creates. (continued below)

“What I can do is give something that places a little bit of hope in someone’s life. If you believe that other people can have joy you may see the world as not such a bad place, my art is a service of that ideal.” Painting and drawing cheerful, bright, and uplifting pictures in his studio, Aloha Workshop, Swanson reaches into the depths of his imagination and his surroundings for inspiration. “Living on the North Shore and just being in the peace of it really makes you want to do productive things,” and that is just what he did. While making some artwork on handbags for his daughter and wife, Swanson realized it was a good outlet for his work. He had already been working on prints, some which can be seen at The Grass Skirt Grill in Haleiwa, so he just made the transition to handbags.Now people come from the Mainland, Japan, and elsewhere to purchase his work; and not just teenagers either. “Older women are into our products and the kids at the local schools are getting into it. A lot of locals have been collecting our stuff for about two years.”

Mark Swanson’s art screams optimism in ever color and echoes an image of romantic exotica that one finds on the cover of a Martin Denny record. He has hope for the future believing that, “the opportunities for people to do what they want to do are growing exponentially, and I’m talking about today, not tomorrow.” He believes that his artwork will inevitably appear in space the same way he believes mankind will casually travel in space. His passion and optimism about art and the progression of Hawai’i have taken him this far and will take him further. “I believe Hawai’i has something to say to the rest of the world. I can put it in one word: Aloha.”