JACK FOSTER
An Interview with Lon Levin
When did you first think about art as something you wanted to do? Were you encouraged or discouraged by family, friends, teachers, mentors?
To this day, I’m not sure if the motivation to succeed as an artist came from trying to prove my mom right, or trying to prove my dad wrong.
When I was in first grade, the teacher, Sister Rose, asked the class to draw a self-portrait. I drew myself walking home from school. At a parent teacher conference, Sr. Rose showed the picture to my mom and told her that she thought I had artistic talent because in the picture, I was leaning forward as I walked against the wind and my tie (yes, we wore ties to school back then), was blowing over my shoulder. Sr. Rose told my mom that knowing how to draw was just a small part of art. Perception was the rest. So my mom hung my self-portrait on the fridge and told me what Sr. Rose said. I knew that I liked to draw, but the encouragement I received from my mom and Sr. Rose ignited a passion in me that has never died down. My dad on the other hand was a hard working sheet metal worker and tried to discourage my art and pushed me to focus on a trade where I could make money.
What kind of kid were you? Where did you grow up? What were your influences? I was a very quiet kid, the eldest of seven. We were raised just northwest of Chicago. I loved baseball. Every day during the summer, we would walk around the neighborhood with our bats, balls and mitts, gathering the “regulars” together for a game. In grammar school, I was a bit above average, but excelled in art and would volunteer to do posters for library events. In the evenings, my family would gather around the TV. I would take the Sunday paper comics, which I guarded with my life all week, lay them out across the kitchen table and trace them or draw them freehand. Drawing a daily comic strip for the newspapers was my dream. So naturally
