The founder of New Masters Academy, Joshua Jacobo, shares his tale for the first time in the interview. He came to his goal, craft, and vocation in a roundabout manner befitting a hero’s journey.
Joshua learned that his mother and stepfather had been killed in a vehicle accident when he was 20 years old, catapulting his life in unforeseen directions.
“My inner narrative transformed from an almost wholly selfish, coming-of-age story for a creative kid to something of a disaster where survival, emotional anguish, and providing for my younger brother and myself were my new realities,” said Joshua.
Joshua’s story
Joshua began working just weeks after the tragedy to pay his rent and legal fees. He used all of his abilities to obtain money, skills, and experience that would later be important in his future pursuits. To make ends meet, he worked as a designer, copywriter, salesperson, software developer, filmmaker, and photographer, among other things.
“I had fantasies about creating masterpieces that rivaled those of the Old Masters. However, I felt I had aptitude and talent and only needed the right training,” said Joshua.
But his quest to learn how to paint and draw like the best drafters of the Renaissance proved more difficult than he had anticipated. Nevertheless, Joshua’s search was the catalyst for his journey.
He was startled to realize that most of the foundations of the trades of drawing, painting, and sculpting were no longer being taught after spending a year investigating university art programs, specialist schools, and ateliers throughout the world to find the right match.
Journey to mastery
Not finding what he was searching for, Joshua chose self-education instead of enrolling in a poor or misinformed art school. He established a self-imposed training routine of copying masters, anatomical research, and drawing from his imagination, which he still practices daily and believes is essential.
He bought a four-volume collection of magnificent replicas of Michelangelo’s drawings. Then, he began the practice taught to apprentices for hundreds of years, spending three years carefully reproducing hundreds of the master’s masterpieces.
Joshua admits that old skills were still vital in industries such as entertainment arts and restoration, as well as fine artists who fought the trend of modern art, refusing to renounce traditional craft and resolutely passing on their expertise wherever feasible.
There is also a current tendency in ateliers in the United States and Europe to teach literary representational art.
Enlightenment
Glenn Vilppu, one of the few artists Joshua discovered skilled in drawing and painting, stood out above the others. He became his student in exchange for helping in Glenn’s business.
Vilppu, then in his sixties, was a drawing teacher who had trained with some of the generation’s top draftspeople, taught in schools for over 50 years, and subsequently worked in the animation sector.
He travels the world conducting classes and selling a wide range of self-published books and films on his technique: a method of drawing that focuses on gesture, the visual movement that connects nature, design, and innovation.
Within a few months, Joshua enlisted the services of additional well-known artists such as painter Steve Huston, Disney art director Bill Perkins, art book publishing powerhouse Juliette Aristides, and renowned western monument sculptor Ed Fraughton.
Today
As society increasingly automates mechanical and cognitive tasks, Joshua believes we must find new methods to structure our economies and place a more significant emphasis on the creative labor of others.
“I feel that art may uplift us,” Joshua admits, “that our artistic achievements represent the finest of our natures.”
