Gary Meyer Interviewer
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ArtCenter Archives Oral History collection Interviewee: Gary Meyer Interviewer: Robert Dirig Interview Date: March 22, 2013 Location: ArtCenter Archives, Pasadena, CA Audio Length: 01:13:59 Transcript Length: 23 pages Interview Number: OH 1 Abstract Gary Meyer discusses his student years at Art Center including his interactions with the Japanese students from JETRO. While looking at a list of teachers from the 1950s, he reminisces about their teaching styles and personalities. He talks about his professional work with Universal Studios and other clients. He discusses his return to Art Center as a teacher. Biographical Statement Gary Meyer was born on May 13, 1934 in Oklahoma. After graduating from high school in Burbank, he joined the Marines (1952-1955). When he returned from Korea, he used the G.I. Bill to attend Art Center as an Illustration major, and graduated with honors in 1959. His professional experience includes work for all aircraft companies, all movie studios, record companies, publishing companies and many others. He joined the Illustration faculty in 1988 and was acting co-Chair of the department from 2003 to 2004. He was the second person to be named Master of the College and has won the Great Teacher Award 17 times. Description of the Interview The interview was conducted in Room 202A at Art Center’s HIllside campus. There is some occasional light noise from the hallway in the background. Interview number OH 1 from the Oral History collection at the ArtCenter Archives, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA. 1 Oral History with Gary Meyer, Faculty, Illustration Department Interviewed by Robert Dirig, College Archivist March 22, 2013 Robert Dirig: This is the oral history with Art Center faculty member and alumnus Gary Meyer on March 22, 2013 with Robert Dirig, the College Archivist at Art Center College of Design. Hi Gary. Gary Meyer: Hello. RD: Thanks for doing this. GM: Yeah. Glad to help. RD: So I wanted to start just briefly before you came to Art Center, just to learn a little bit about your history, and I guess starting with where did you grow up? GM: Well, I was the last of the Okies that came out here in the ‘40s, in 1944 during the War. I grew up split between Commerce, Oklahoma and Burbank, California. I became interested in Art Center from my high school art class in Burbank. A high school teacher got me interested. My class came out and visited this school. I thought it was the best school. RD: Did they have any programs for high school students or any classes for high school students? GM: Yes, they did. But you know, in my day the opportunity was at Chouinard’s. That was another top school here. And I did my Saturday High at Chouinard’s. But, yeah, Art Center had Saturday high because my sisters both took that here. RD: So your high school teacher encouraged you, so you must have had talent early on for art. Was that something that you had even as a child? GM: You know, I thought so. But I look back at it now and what was I thinking? In high school even, I look at that work now, I think, “Oh my God. How did she see anything?” You know, it didn’t look that good to me. Yeah, I, like most young people, drew a lot when I was a kid. But you know, World War II, we were all interested in aviation, Spitfires and P-38s. So every kid, even though if he wasn’t interested in art, would be drawing P-51s shooting down Zeros, or whatever. So what happened was, when I came to Art Center, they asked me what I wanted to do, and I said, “Well I wanted to do aviation art.” And they kind of looked at me like, that’s a little odd, maybe I should try something else. And I did try wanting other things like fashion and advertising and so forth. When I got out of school I went right to work at North American Aviation right at the time they won the Apollo contract. That very week that I got there, they won the contract to make the Apollo, go to the moon, and that was an exciting time. I did a film with Interview number OH 1 from the Oral History collection at the ArtCenter Archives, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA. 2 about 40 illustrations where we showed the entire mission: launch from Earth, and the turnaround in space, and then landing on the moon, and then coming back. The only thing different, looking at that film and look at what really happened, in those days we planned to come down on land instead of the ocean. That was what they planned on doing initially. RD: Yeah, I’ve seen some of those illustrations. So those were done for a film then. GM: Yeah, a lot of those were. RD: So you did some classes at Chouinard. What, I guess at some point you decided am I going to stick with Chouinard or go over to Art Center, how did that decision happen? GM: I was always planning on Art Center. Even then, I loved Chouinard but I loved Art Center a lot more. Because Art Center, think of the ‘50s now, Art Center looked, looking at the work it looked like stuff you’d be hired to do. Where Chouinard seemed more Fine Art and more, maybe in a sense, kind of pure, in that direction. But here, this looked like the real world, real business, real things we could do. I don’t know, I think Adams, I believe, was an advertising man, and I believe he had the Chesterfield account. RD: Hmm, I’m not sure. GM: I’m not sure. I think he did. And so, smoking was prevalent here. We had cigarette machines in the halls. I mean on the Third Street campus. You go in a classroom, there’d be smoke, like one of those political back rooms. Anyway, I don’t know if you want to put all that in here. RD: Did you have any classes with Tink Adams? GM: I had two weeks. I had one week actually. Here’s the deal: when you went to Art Center in those days, and you wanted to do Illustration, if you didn’t say, “I want to be an illustrator” very firmly, they would put you in Advertising because that was his—and Advertising was the biggest major in the school in those days. Which it’s one of the smaller ones now. What happened then was that you—50% of that department was made up of illustrators that didn’t say it firmly enough. It was a major called Advertising Illustration, so we wound up taking Advertising classes every term. And so we’re trying to think up slogans for our ads, it wasn’t my thing. So I got in his class, Mr. Adams’s class, and here was his assignment: I want you to come back next week with 18 little color sketches for an ad, two-page ad, no single-page ad in Saturday Evening Post to advertise the new GE electric fry pan. God, I don’t want to do this! So what I did was I went right up to the counselor’s to change my major back to Illustration. And, of course, who did I get for advisor but his wife, Virginia Legakes. I said, “I’m in Mr. Adam’s class, oooh I better watch what I’m saying here!” So I said to her, “I’d really rather draw and paint than try to think of ad concepts, so I’d like to get back to really straight illustration.” And what was the deal here, it was you couldn’t get a scholarship if you applied here at school until the fourth term, you could Interview number OH 1 from the Oral History collection at the ArtCenter Archives, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA. 3 apply and then you could get it in the fifth term. And when you got the scholarship, it was a full ride. Well, I had applied and I got it. I had this scholarship and then I said to her when I was in there, I was in the fifth term, I said, “I know I’m changing majors too late.” You weren’t allowed to do that after the fourth term. And I said, “I’m willing to take an extra term.” She said, “Okay.” So I just accidentally gave myself an extra term on scholarship. RD: And that allowed you to get the scholarship. GM: No I had it already. RD: Oh, I see. GM: I just gave myself—I didn’t think about the scholarship. But when I left high school, I had applied and I had a full scholarship to Art Center, a full ride from term one, except my dad wanted me to go to work, and I wanted to go to art school and we had a strong disagreement. So instead of doing either one, I went in the Marines for three years. I thought I was teaching HIM a lesson. I went in the Marines anyway. What happened was—I hope this is on track with what you want here— RD: Yeah, no, this is great. GM: Okay, well what happened was I got the G.I. Bill which paid even, in those days it paid enough to cover tuition and living expenses. So I got an even better deal.