Angels Of Protection

              - Inspiring Angelic Art -

                                       by Rob Jacobs

"When I began creating the angel images, other than an intuitive feeling that I had to make them, I was not personally aware of the the major meaning behind this series. I did, however, feel that any series with angels would be conducive in helping me heal some of my own personal issues. When I said to my father "this angel will protect you," I was still not aware of the big picture behind the images. Only after the emotional and powerful experience with him was the meaning behind the series made known and clear to me, resonating with my consciousness. Since that time some of the most joyous moments of my life have been in sharing these images with others.."

Rob Jacobs -

Angel 5

Angel 7

Angel 9

The Art:

The Story Of The Angels Of Protection:

Toward the end of 1999, I asked my father if he would like one of my angel art pieces to hang above his bed, in his retirement home.  He enthusiastically said "Yes," and chose Angel 5.  Then the following words came out of my mouth:  "This angel will protect you."

I believe this was a spiritually-invoked statement because about six months later, this angelic premonition came to pass, which literally saved my father's life.

When I visited my father, who resided at a retirement hotel in Westwood, California, the ritual was to call him first, which I did every time, without exception. Heading home from my studio one day, the thought "see your father" flashed in my head. It was so strongly pronounced that I immediately turned around and headed for Westwood. I had not called him, but "see your father" kept pounding in my head.

My heart was racing by the time I got to his room on the seventh floor. I banged on the door, but all I could hear was the TV blaring. I ran down to the office, got the staff to open the door, and found him lying on the floor unconscious. It took the paramedics only a few minutes to reach us, and they were able to revive him from insulin shock. Without the paramedics help, he would have been gone. I knew then, without a doubt, that the angel hanging over his bed had protected him by acting as a messenger to me. He had been plucked from his body's eternal rest. However, a year later he passed on peacefully during the night. He was ninety-three years old, and had lived in every decade of the Twentieth Century.

My artwork is an organic outgrowth of the remnants of my work as a photo retoucher to the advertising and entertainment industries.  Having been a commercial artist for many years, my dream was to do my own images, which I call "fine art."  This dream was ignited around 1990 by the great graphic designer, Larry Vigon.  Having come over to my studio to view some work I was doing for him, he glanced down at one of the palettes (mixed colors) that I create doing art work.  He noticed a unique blending of colors and shapes emerging from the palette left over from mixed paints, and the cleaning of brushes and airbrushes.  This inspired me to start saving the palettes (9"x12" pieces of tracing paper), which was a mixture of paints, dyes, bleaches, glues, and masking fluid, all used in my process of photo retouching.  These palettes eventually became a cache of raw materials, helping me to create new techniques for what was to become my own art.

The spontaneity of the pieces that followed brought about a freedom of design, fluidity of technique, and a subconscious quality. They seem to evoke the universal processes of memory, imagination and the dream state, raw experience pieced together into metaphors of innerlife, expanded and transformed by the mysterious logic of the hidden, unconscious self.

When I began creating the angel images, other than an intuitive feeling that I had to make them, I was not personally aware of the the major meaning behind this series. I did, however, feel that any series with angels would be conducive in helping me heal some of my own personal issues. When I said to my father "this angel will protect you," I was still not aware of the big picture behind the images. Only after the emotional and powerful experience with him was the meaning behind the series made known and clear to me, resonating with my consciousness. Since that time some of the most joyous moments of my life have been in sharing these images with others.  - Rob Jacobs

The Artist: 

In 1990, the nationally known graphic designer, Larry Vigon of Vigon/Ellis Design, glanced at one of the palettes created by Rob Jacobs, one of Los Angeles' leading photo retouchers for over 20 years.  He noticed a blending of unique colors and shapes emerging from the palettes left over from cleaning airbrushes and brushes.  This in turn inspired Jacobs to save these palettes:  9" x 12" pieces of tracing paper upon which was a mixture of paint, dyes, ink, glue and masking fluid utilized in the process of photo retouching.  These palettes eventually became a cache of wonderfully strange and raw materials creating a totally new and unique creative technique.

In 1992, Jacobs began serious work on exploring this new technique. Using the palettes, he created his first collage, a surreal and primitive landscape entitled Of Sleeping Warriors, Of Spirit Buffalo, Of Phantom Highways. Now completely submerged in this new form, he could see images literally jumping out of the hundreds of palettes, and continued assembling and creating collages from these images.

Jacobs' vision created abstract paintings in miniature form populated with impressionistic figures of animals, faces, bodies, imagined creatures, suns, moons, planets and ghostly figures. The assembled full color miniature "paintings" were then reproduced to large format b&w prints, and colored by hand back to their original miniature full color status, or a different color scheme entirely, depending on the creative instinct.

"This process is much closer to sculpture than to painting, actually building the images rather than painting them. It involves a three-dimensional process that ends up two-dimensional," Jacobs explains. "The viewer discovers new images emerging from the work every time it's looked at, as I am always discovering hidden images when I begin the process of assembling the work." .

Of course, Rob works in many other disciplines and techniques. The one common theme is the use of palettes to create the art, no matter what the technique happens to be: acrylic on canvas, collage on board, assemblies on paper; it all comes out of the mind, and realizes itself as truly unique art.

 Purchase: 

Angel 12

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