christopher treat muniec : artist, cradle to grave

i was born to a family of artists and writers so i just went along. one is judged in my family by keeping up.as a small child i had to work hard to  catch up. the clan clustered around verna priestley, my maternal grandmother and our matriarch. she was eccentric and loads of fun. handsome and fearless, she had studied art in new york and knew the ways of the world. her truest love was costumery and she had put in time designing for the theater. her father, captain henry treat, lived until i was six and carried me around on his shoulder telling me the name of everything. he had retired from the merchant marine and held court in grandpa's workshop where he practiced wood carving and he could make anything  and fix all with his giant hands. the hip adults at home  counted mom, dad, and aunt linda. my parents, victor and judith are professional writers {"get paychecks"!} and had met working at the Bridgeport Post, in Bridgeport, Connecticut where we all lived. my aunt linda was a singer and lived in new york city. clearly the hippest. peripherally, my great uncle robbie {verna's brother} held local note as a painter and sculptor. every one of these people holds great wit, skill, and ability. i am the first born of five children and in this crowd, at this age, i had to keep up or lose center stage. my parents are of the cocktail party generation and all  the literati and professionals came to or house for food, drink and conversation. and it was glittering, and intoxicating to grow up with doctors, lawyers, politicos,artists and writers sipping gallo, pabst and hiram walker in the sixties. so here is the joke.... when i was little my parents held cocktail parties and everyone came to play. the lawyers and politicians drank and discussed law and government, the  doctors came to drink and discuss medicine, professors from the university where my father also worked came to imbibe and examine the great masters of education, and the artists and writers got drunk and pinched the bottoms of the other mens' wives. and i said "that's the job for me!" truth is everyone got tipsy and friendly. it was the sixties and everyone suffered being erudite. this means each thought themselves clever and had a mutual admiration thing going. and i needed to belong. i was five. i figured  how to steal attention by doing impressions {ACTING!}and garnered praise for early attempts at art work. i knew how to be slick and work a crowd early on. then came the school years. class clown? there were better. class artist? oh yeah. i specialized in action heroes and monsters. my drawing skills grew and i fit a niche. i won't go into details but  my first art dollar came from drawing an incredible hulk on a fruit of the loom cotton tee somewhere around sixth grade. and in a student exhibition one of my peers bargained for  a must have oil painting of the batman i had labored over. the figure. i do the human figure. my hero is michelangelo. it started with marvel comics and trips to the new york metropolitan museum of art. the figure spoke to me and to everyone around. nudes caused sensations. superheros caused excitement, at least among my age group...still do. my fascination is with the human form. forget all the religious rationalizations and the creeping metaphysics of humanism, i like it .and color! yeah, baby. it is all about the psychedelic sixties, and the pure primal primary hip to shock and jolt the viewer into an altered state of consciousness. now THAT is the religion talking. it has been a merging of my thoughts that provide the finished piece. the form of the human figure and the siren wail of the great goddess COLOR! the two components make for me something greater than the sum of parts. the resulting pieces are interest holding. when i do a piece, i draw and then i paint and then i draw and then i paint...i paint for color and then i paint for subject. i draw for form and then i draw for flow. when i do a clay piece, i sculpt for flow and i form for delight. it is a weaving of life's many paths and disciplines that i pour, pound, and push into place for an interesting art work. if i do a good job {here's a scooby snack} a piece takes a power and life of its own. like a child it can grow independent of my hands and reveal new meanings day by day, year by year....and now a joke... martin mull, the comedian and actor, studied art in new york as a young man.  and he showed his brilliance early. he threw himself a one man show in the world's tiniest public restrooms, in the powder room of the Guggenheim museum. he sent invitations  to all, catered the affair, and had a huge turn out, until the security guards closed it down. martin had drawn on toilet paper and hung the sheets on the stall walls, titled "i'll be art in a minute". screamingly funny. erudite plus. eruditer than thou. and
my segue to say i don't want to commit art in a minute.i want to create a piece that is art in a lifetime. if someone hangs my work on a wall,i wish it to  change and grow with the viewer day by day, year by year; like some parallel portrait of dorian grey. look at the piece, for a long time. there is stuff going on in there.

christopher treat muniec artist:cradle to grave
born:bridgeport,connecticut;1959
primary schooling, saint ann's catholic school, bpt.ct.
secondary schooling, kolbe cathedral catholic
highschool, bpt.ct.
further,university of bridgeport,bpt.ct.{the moonies later bought this school but after the catholics,i didn't stick around}

i have won some awards and i am in some private collections, none of which you are likely to have heard
of. i am deeply moved by them and have mad pride in all of them. the best was when that kid bought my batman so long ago. i paint for myself now, and if you like it, i'll paint for you too.
i currently reside in wanchese, north carolina. God's country,the outer banks.