BIO – CORT ARMSTRONG

In 1980 I attended an Art Education conference with my mother who was an art teacher. I met some professors from Ohio State University who were teaching graduate courses in 3D modeling and animation. I was very impressed. I was already attending a tech college taking Commercial Art classes. I hustled and got into a 4 year Bachelor program at Madison Wisconsin. I was intending on going to grad school at Ohio State. During the time that I was working on my undergrad, the world of computergraphics was changing at a rapid pace. The first little Macintosh computer came out, and we used it at the Campus Union's graphic department to set type. The Union purchased a laser printer for $10k, and we were so impressed. These printers and the little Mac revolutionized the typesetting world. Now you can buy a laser printer for a few hundred bucks.

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In my Senior year I attended a computer graphics conference in Los Angeles and met Darnell Williams who was working for Symbolics. This computer system was doing some great 3D modeling and animation. I realized that if I could get up to speed on this system, I could start to work right away and sure enough I did. Darnell helped get me a job in Modena Italy working on a Symbolics system. I was hired to train the staff of a post production company on how to use the 3D and Animation modules of the Symbolics system and produce demo pieces to advertise to companies like Barilla Pasta and Lancetti Perfume. I didn't speak Italian, but got up to speed pretty quick. I worked near the Ferrari headquarters and we used to go over there at lunch and watch them tear around the test track. Pretty wicked!

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I returned to Chicago after 6 months and started freelancing with my Mac Skills, as Symbolics gigs were few and far between. In the early 90's being a skilled Mac artist, using Photoshop, Illustrator and the now defunct Quark Express, was a very lucrative set of skills to have. I liken it to shooting fish in a barrel. Every ad agency, marketing dept, book publisher, you name it, was converting to using primarily Mac computers to set type and design ads etc. I was getting up to speed and becoming expert level and had practically every major advertising agency in Chicago calling me. I rode this wave of being a freelance Mac Artist for about 5 years until returning to 3D animation and the Symbolics system. Symbolics was sold to a Japanese company called Nichimen. They were going after the interactive entertainment, AKA Video Gaming market. They hired me as an international demo artist. I flew to Europe often over the course of one year between the summer of 1996 and summer of 1997. Along with a sales person, I demonstrated the suite of tools that Nichimen was offering. 3D modeling, animation, texture mapping etc. We attended E3 in LA, demoed @ MTV in Manhattan, Bourbon Street in New Orleans for a conference, Siggraph, you name it. I globe trotted for one solid year, and after that whirlwind, wanted to hop off and work for a company. MGM Interactive had just purchased a few licenses of Nichimen and asked me to work on their new game "Cyber Thug" the savior of the internet. I did that for a few months in Redding, CA of all places, and then moved to San Francisco, to start yet another chapter in my glorious career as a web designer.

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In 1997 the web was booming and I wanted to work in that medium, so I got up to speed on Flash and how to make gif banners. Actually my introduction to the web was in 1995 when I co-founded a very successful internet production company called NeoGlyphics. We became the premier web developer in Chicago and after 3 years the company was sold for 60m. I didn't get a nickel, but that's a long story, one that took me awhile to get over. That's when I ditched the web world and went to work for Nichimen Graphics as an international demo artist selling 3D software to the gaming industry, something I always wanted to do. After 1 year flying back and forth to Europe, I landed in San Francisco, where I hopped back on the web wagon in 1997, and made a killing producing web sites and flash animations for the likes of Michael Jordan and Nike.com. Then, the dot.com bomb hit in 2001 and I took my earnings and flipped a few properties with my mother, north of San Francisco, and eventually moved down to the Los Angeles area to start on my teaching credential at Cal State Northridge. After completing the credential, I was immediately hired by Saugus High School to teach Visual Imagery and off-set printing. I transferred to The Antelope Valley after 2 years at Saugus and have been teaching out in the AV since 2007. I love teaching. My mother was an art teacher, teaching k-5 and my father was an art professor on the college level. My wife now is a Mandarin teacher and my daughter Jasmine is a natural artist and tells me she wants to be an art teacher. Apparently teaching is the saving grace and runs in my family. So there you have it! It's been a hell of a ride, and it's not over yet!

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On with the fish fry as my father would say!

In 2019, I visited the Great Wall for the 2nd time. Always stunning, this time a little harder to climb than my 1st visit on my honeymoon in 2001.