Art & Life with Tod George Lychkoff

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tod George Lychkoff.

Tod, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
In 1956, I was born at Good Samaritan Hospital, in downtown Los Angeles. Five years later, we moved, and I was raised three blocks from Disneyland among the orange groves of Orange County. After receiving my Master’s Degree in Art at California State University, Long Beach, I relocated back to downtown Los Angeles and lived there for the next twenty-five years. Here I grew as an artist and met my wife, Catherine Lugo. Over the years, I was part of a collection of artists who revitalized our neighborhood from a deserted and unappreciated historic warehouse district into a vibrant, creative mecca now called “The Arts District”.

Today my studio is located on an eighth-floor rooftop, overlooking the city, in the “OBD”, old bank district. For a few years, I worked and exhibited on the ground floor of a former grand historic bank. This was an opportunity to share my art with the public on a daily basis and proved to be a vital experience for me to gain a better understanding of my art. This is also when I met Laurie Hutton and as a result “Voyage Magazine”. Laurie introduced my wife and I to “HARK”, Healing Arts Reaching Kids, and we have been painting with the children and their families at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles for a number of years now.

For the last twenty years, I have also been teaching Studio Art and Art History, part-time, with Los Angeles Harbor Community College. I do teach on campus, although most times I’m with the “Outreach Program”. This is a program designed for accomplished high school students from economically challenged communities to forge a path to college and learn a bit about art. I have learned a lot about Los Angeles, and it’s people from this program. My development as an artist has been a symbiotic process in harmony with the development of Los Angeles and her people.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
My art is the material remnant of an expressive process from which I search to understand my surroundings and myself. When it’s good, it feels as if I’m a conduit from which something much more than myself flows. My creative journey has evolved from developing my skills and understanding historical art theories into one that allows for spontaneity, welcomes the unintended and relies upon my creative instinct.

My medium is process oriented, incorporating drawing, painting, collage, and the use of by-products from our society, such as microchip patterns, stock market reports, and phone book pages, etc. The final products are usually paintings, some small and some the size of a wall. I also do installations, photography, video and computer graphics. At times, I have incorporated all these mediums into multi-media artworks and exhibits.

My creative process usually begins with an inspiration. This embryo of a feeling goes through a gestation period, which may take decades before activity with a medium begins. Sometimes not, sometimes the inspiration and painting process begins and ends quickly. Once I begin to express the inspiration or paint, it becomes a feeling of maintaining a balance with my intentions and that which the medium and something beyond my comprehension intends. The final product may or may not be anything like what I had originally imagined. Looking back on my art, it feels like when you wake up and remember a dream you just had and ask yourself, “where did that come from?”
“The geese have no intention of casting their reflection, the water has no mind to receive their image.” Zen Poem
I do not aspire to a particular “school of art”. I do strive to free my spirit so as to be or not to be inspired by as many types of art as possible.

My message usually derives from discontent with a particular aspect of my environment and the impact it has on us. I attempt to respond in an aesthetically pleasing way, which will inspire thought and ideally, comfort. Artists have always been natural observers and sensitive creatures who see things differently. As such they are among the first to notice things and react, like ‘canaries in a coal mine’. As an artist, I feel the responsibility to recognize, that which poisons us, and to sing until I no longer can.

The poisons I detect among us are unchecked materialistic values distracting us from our spiritual balance. Ideally, my goal is to create art of such quality; no one would ever discard it, and then give it to a person or place of love.

What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
Loneliness has been described as feeling no one understands you. Making art is an attempt at being understood. Being alone gives you time to make art without distraction.

Try spending long periods in isolation making art, then, share what you’ve created. If that doesn’t work, go to a lot of art openings and drawing workshops, have a few glasses of wine and mingle.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
At this time, my art may be viewed at my studio on a rooftop in Downtown Los Angeles on 4th street and Main.

For an appointment, my contact is; [email protected]

I do exhibit and can be followed on Instagram, Facebook, and Google.