The Art of Russell Pierce

I picked Hunter S. Thompson as my main subject for this installation but I love all kinds of authors. I got the love of reading from my mother. She was a voracious reader, coming back from the library with a pile of books that she would devour over the course of a week. Whenever we’d go on vacation, she’d partake in the festivities but as soon as there was personal time, she’d grab a book. It seemed like she was interested in everything, fiction, non-fiction, biographies, etc. She started to recommend books to me when I was around 10 or 11 but they weren’t the traditional books I was reading in school designed for my age bracket. They were ahead of that curve. I think I was about 13 when she handed me a book and said “I think you’ll like this one.” It was The Godfather written by Mario Puzo. Boy was she right! 

 

It went on from there, I liked Kerouac and The Beats, Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe. Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain made me a life-long fan of his works as well as opening the science fiction genre which I still love to this day. Authors like Verne, Wells, Bradbury, Asimov, Herbert to name just a few. I’m not into the horror genre too much but I love Stephen King’s books, The Shawshank Redemption, The Body which was the turned into the movie Stand By Me are just a few. She also got me into certain magazines like New York and Rolling Stone where I was first exposed to Thompson. Unfortunately I don’t have as much time to curl up with a good book these days, I spend most of my free time exploring my art but someday I hope to crank it up again.