Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 17, 1990 TAG: 9005180245
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY WALKER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Drawings of rural scenes as well as posters for various groups have brought acclaim to Jason, a ninth-grader at Northside Junior High School.
Jason recently took first place in poster contests sponsored by the American Automobile Association and the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Roanoke Valley. The Child Abuse Prevention Council liked his design so much they made a note card out of it.
He also won a contest sponsored by the state Department of Air Pollution Control. His poster for Earth Day 1990 will be displayed at the Virginia State Fair this fall, and he will receive a certificate signed by Gov. Douglas Wilder.
Heady stuff for a quiet 14-year-old who once struggled just to keep his grades above failing.
"We felt he was slow in reading," said his mother, Libby, recalling Jason's first few years of school. That's part of the reason she and Jason's father, Bill, began encouraging Jason's art. "We felt it would be something that would make him feel good about himself," Libby Fizer said.
Today, Jason's art gives him much to feel good about. In addition to the recent awards for his posters, he won a ribbon for a colored drawing in the recent American Association of University Women art show at Valley View Mall.
Called "The Lonely Swing," the piece took three weeks to complete. It was typical of the lanky redhead's self-discipline. Much of his after-school time is spent in his basement studio, creating works that are delicately textured and finely detailed.
"My best medium is colored pencil," he said. "I use colored pencils because you can get a lot of detail."
"The Lonely Swing," like most of his rural and animal pictures, has a childlike quality. In fact, "a lot of people have said I'd be good at children's book illustration," he said.
Jason's other area of artistic interest is the poster. For the Department of Air Pollution Control, he depicted the Earth divided into clean and polluted halves. The caption says "The Choice Is Yours." His poster designs are drawn from his imagination: "I like to do stuff with my mind," he said.
Although Jason doesn't have much to say about his talent, others do. "He just has an eye for design which is uncanny," said Pam Conner, his art teacher at Northside. "Jason has a natural artistic ability, something many of us would envy."
Creativity seems to run in the family. Seemingly every wall of the Fizer home off Plantation Road in Roanoke County is hung with drawings by Jason, photographs by his father, or framed poems by his sister, Michele, 15.
A kindergarten drawing of a bird alerted his parents that Jason might have artistic talent. While he was in elementary school, they began framing his drawings and financing private lessons.
His artistic skills were developing nicely, but he struggled academically. What helped him turn his grades around, he said, was his participation in track and cross-country.
As an eighth-grader, he became the district champ in the mile with a time of 4:58. "Running gave me the confidence to stay with things, to just keep at it," he said. "It does pay off in the long run."
He had to abandon running because of knee trouble - a result, he says, of overdoing it. But he retained the discipline he learned and applied it to his art.
Certificates and ribbons haven't been the only reward. He sold five pictures at last year's Festival in the Park for a total of about $300. It was a foretaste of what he hopes will be a career as an illustrator or commercial artist.
In the meantime, he's coping with life as a teen-ager. His mother describes him as "pretty shy, not that outgoing with kids his own age. He doesn't talk much on the phone for a teen-ager."
To Conner, his art teacher, he's a "very soft-spoken, nice person. He gets along with the other students very well. It sounds corny but he's just a nice all-around person."
It just so happens that he has an exceptional quality.
"He's an artist in all senses of the word," Conner says. "He doesn't do things just to get through them. He gets into it body and soul."
by CNB