I saw this post at Art Cake where Christi shared her experience going to see Beauty is Embarrassing: The Wayne White Story, and hear him speak afterward as well. I’ve been wanting to see it, but figured it was going to be one of those movies that I would have to wait a year or more before it was finally on DVD. Turns out, even though it is still touring, you can download it for $7.99 and watch it at home! Awesome. I bought it immediately, downloaded it and streamed it to our TV.
If you aren’t familiar, Wayne White is an artist most known for his work on shows like PeeWee’s Playhouse, Beakman’s World (both shows I loved), music videos like Peter Gabriel’s Big time and Smashing Pumpkin’s Tonight, Tonight, and most recently his type-based pieces painted over thrift store artwork, like the ones pictured above.
I’d really recommend you buy the movie. At $7.99 that’s close to a movie theater ticket, and way cheaper than buying a brand new movie on DVD. And unless I missed something I think when you buy it, you are really buying it, it’s not like a $24 hour rental, and we were able to move the file to our server to stream to the nice, big TV.
I watched the movie with my sketchbook on my lap and remote control nearby so that I could pause it and write down quotes to remember later. Yes, it was that good. One of the things I love about Wayne and his artwork is that it is all over the place. He allows the creativity to just come out everyday and in every part of his life. He plays instruments, makes puppets, comics, illustrates and paints, he does it all. He said “I want to try everything” and that sentiment is so familiar to the way I work. I pretty much say a variation of that everyday and that is “I want to do everything“.
FYI, the movie has a lot of language, so you want to make sure that the kiddies are in bed.
Also, for all my teacher friends out there, there is a really touching teacher story in the movie. I got teary.
