Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2008 > September > 26 > Entry
Stan Watts, Illustrator of Anxiety, Part 4
Continued from posts below…
“Living in Los Angeles, we kept moving one step ahead of the violence,” he says. “We made it out to Thousand Oaks, and right away there was a murder right across the street. Great area. But it just kept coming. We lived through our share of earthquakes and race riots. It just got hairy.”
So he loaded his family up for the move to Texas and a superior Leander school district for his daughters. Chris Rhea’s yearning song “Texas” played a role. (Watts’ story brought the lyrics to my mind. He instantly begins to sing them.)
As soon as he arrived, a massive storm cell hit Jarrell and the surrounding area. “‘I thought you said we were going someplace safe,’ my daughters said.” Memories of big storms during his Oklahoma childhood also may influence his art of jeopardy.
“I remember waking up all the time in the night to those World War II sirens going, my mom and dad with flashlights, taking us down into the cellar. How can that not scar you?” He also shares with his fellow Baby Boomer a lingering Cold War nuclear anxiety.
“I had a recurring where I’m in a theater and they announce we need to go home because we are under attack. I’m running through my neighborhood and there’s a ditch. I jump in. A flash with no sound comes running through the neighborhood.”
That anxiety manifests in more than nightmares. During Desert Storm, Watts was convinced that the big one had come, and so searched out culverts and drains to hide his family.
A 30-minute coffee session at the Green Muse on West Oltorf Street does not fully excavate the motivations behind Watts’ images of anxiety, but the surface is now permanently scratched.
“When I go to the place where I want to create, that’s the stuff that’s there.”
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