I had the opportunity to meet someone that I had looked up to as a young man, being from a desert town and fascinated with dirt bikes, racing and motocross. That someone was Chuck Sun, Motocross legend and winner of the 1980 500cc National Motocross Championship, 1981 MotoCross Des Nations, and we have a mutual friend.
We ran into each other a few more times around my studio and I told him that I had been asked to contribute a painting to the Year of the Dragon Show at the Fifth Street School in downtown Las Vegas in spring of 2012. I asked Chuck would he have any icons, symbols thoughts about the assignment, being that he is of Chinese descent.
One of our meetings he told me of a concept he had called “Loose the Dragon..and Prosper.” We sketched and I had the idea of 3 vignettes over a dragon’s body. His concept involved a harness that was being broken from the dragon, and a medallion on it that carried a symbol of “Luck” which he gave me an image, though the twist on the symbol was that it would be upside down. Depicting it upside down was the action of ‘bringing’ the luck and making it happen.
I sketched, we built a canvas, we started painting. Chuck is not an artist per se, and I am not a motocrosser per se, but we actually painted together and chuck took up the brush and layed down much of the base coat colors. After that was done, I started in on the details and shading and all of the little background images.
Chuck has a great sense of visual elements, and is actually a good artistic director. He’s seen a lot more of this world than i have and he brought a lot to the table, so to speak. We sat and talked and enjoyed a few bottles of wine over about half a dozen sessions of painting. I enjoyed working with him on this project, and hope to do more in the future.