at home with Nathan Jensen; From young apprentice to master of art and technology For Austinite Nathan Jensen, coupling art with home technology is child's play. It always has been. Computers have served as an avocation -- and, later, a vocation -- for the artist, Web page designer and e-gallery owner, starting as far back as 1981. That year, his father, University of Texas mechanical engineering professor Paul Jensen, bought a clunky, but then-astonishing Apple II. The Jensens caught the home technology wave during its earliest spirals, as evidenced by a March 7, 1981, American-Statesman article. "The Jensens aren't playing the Jetsons," former staff reporter Kim Tyson wrote. "Industry watchers think microcomputers will be in 90 out of 100 homes by the end of the decade." Not quite. By 1999, closer to 49 percent of American homes had PCs, according Forrester Research. The Jensens were well ahead of the curve. At 14 , Nathan was more interested in word-based adventure games than making art on the new computer, but he never lost his fascination. Now Jensen uses a Macintosh G3, Microtek scanner, Time Warner digital cable, Wacom lap tablet (which replaces a mouse) and QuickCam (to send video images instantly). "You don't need to invest in a lot of overhead," he said. "Just a work station and a connection to the Internet." Jensen, who studied art and architecture at the University of Texas, paints on conventional canvases, as well as on 3-D surfaces. For years, he exhibited his art in independent spaces and on restaurant walls, until he began to devote his computer skills to putting images of his art on the Web. His e-gallery at www.natespace.com has attracted interest from around the world and earned Jensen sales (an average of $1,500 per painting) and royalties for reproductions of his art. Why not take his prodigious skills to one of Austin's fast-paced software companies? He did, but didn't like it. "I was an accident reconstruction illustrator for an insurance company," he said. "I was drawing people with burned-out eyes and with their heads lobbed off. It was pretty gruesome." Also, as you could guess from his paintings -- mostly distorted self-portraits -- he's not cool with bosses and normal work schedules. At his rented house near Koenig Lane, he maintains a "clean" studio with his techware inside, and a more wild "artist's lair" out in a reconstructed shed behind the home. He also consults on technology for artists. And he's helping his father -- and repaying a technological debt -- by helping the professor with a project that combines a textbook, CD and Web site. "I appreciate my father's Apple purchase so many years ago," he said. "I just got off the net, where I purchased a new Epson printer that prints faster and produces better color prints. I'm hooked, I'm wired. I'm living and participating in the computer age -- as an artist." |
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