E. J. Gold
Eugene Jeffrey (E.J.) Gold (born 1941) is an artist, author and jazz musician whose gigantic JazzArt paintings have served as backdrops for such jazz greats as Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Nancy Wilson, Oscar Peterson, Toots Thielemans and many others. His artwork has appeared in LACMA, the set of Sister, Sister, International Association for Jazz Education, The Jazz Bakery, B.B. King Blues Club, Jazz at Lincoln Center and has graced many jazz and entertainment journals. He makes his living primarily from his art and crafts, and he has also written over 50 books, including several New Age titles. In addition to starting an online science-fiction museum, he is a full voting member of SFFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and his science fiction stories and articles have been published in a number of monthlies including Omni Magazine. He attended Otis Art Institute and is a recognized member of The New York School with a one-man show at the Cedar Tavern in NYC attended by many survivors of the NY School of Art.
Early life and career
Son of Horace Gold, Founding Editor of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine and its editor for over a decade. (E.J. Gold later edited and still edits its online magazine and paperback collections.) He collaborated on several novels with his father during the 1960s, and they worked on television scripts during this same period.
E.J. Gold grew up in New York City and is good friends with many of the writers from science fiction's golden age and has appeared on panels with Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Alfred Bester and many many others at World Science Fiction Conventions and West Coast and NYC conventions as well.
Gold got his first job at the age of 14 by walking into a large New York City department store and telling the manager, "What I want is your permission to hang around for three days and observe how this store operates. Then, when I find a job that needs to be created I will apply for it." As a result, Gold landed a high level managerial post at the store.
His work was shown at the Children's Art Carnival at the Museum of Modern Art in 1944-49. He numbered among his friends many of the artists of the New York School and the Woodstock Art Association, where he spent his summers, and is one of the last survivors of these Modernist Schools of Art.
In 1956 Gold moved to Hollywood, California, where his mother worked as story editor for Ellery Queen and the Alfred Hitchcock TV show. He attended Otis Art Institute and showed at Robert Comara and Joan Ankrum Galleries with friend/mentors Fritz Schwaderer and Peter Jan Hirschfeld.
Happenings
In the 1960s, Gold worked as a jazz musician and composer, and as a photographer for Tiger Beat Magazine. His best friends of that period were Harry Nilsson, Jim Morrison, Cass Elliot, Robert Sheckley, Frank Herbert, Randall Garrett, Robert and Virginia Heinlein, Forrest J Ackerman, Damon Knight, and many others. His photos of Nilsson were used by RCA for album covers. He edited Mod Teen Magazine in the 1960s. For a period, he dealt in art and became an expert in Old Master and Modern prints. Gold appeared four times on the Joe Pyne TV show. He also worked as continuity writer for the Bob Crane radio show on KNX, did photos of Jefferson Airplane, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Monkees, and many others.
Gold is still recognized as one of the original Pop Artists of the 1960s. Gold also staged the "Saints' March" Art Happening, when 40 saints were dropped from the official Vatican calendar, generating news items in Time, Newsweek and other major publications, which led to several television interviews with such notables as Richard Dawson.
By the early seventies, Gold emerged as a sculptor and painter associated with the "California Nine" group.
Current works
Today, at 65, Gold is not only one of the oldest online gamers, but has participated in the production of Quake 2, Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair, Necronomicon, and other online first-person shooters. He was Number Four on the Ladder in Diablo II in 2006.
Gold is a ProFicient game designer and recently created a completely nonviolent-but-fun group of online games. He has worked with Quake's Capture The Flag and with Team Fortress, both online team games, as teaching tools.
He also gives workshops in onstage comedy, dance and theatre, as well as in New Age Concepts and New Jewish Thought. He is responsible for the creation of the "You Can Paint" art instruction series which is now used in universities and art associations around the world.
He is a recognized authority in beadworking and has developed a line of hand-crafted fiber art beads. His painted celebrity gear clothing line has been accepted in many performance venues. His comedic/tragic play "Creation Story Verbatim" has been performed in several colleges across the country.
A complete listing of over 1,000 one-man and group shows and notable art collectors can be found on the internet and in Linda Corriveau's comprehensive photo-biography, "More Color, Less Soul". His major artworks are museum-collected, and in 2005, several of his JazzArt paintings were auctioned at Guernsey’s Jazz Auction in New York City.
Quotes
"What's Life? You start with nothing, end with nothing. In between, it's all jazz."
"The secret of jazz is not making it happen, but letting it happen."
"Art is a controlled accident, a process -- not a product"
Major Publications
Science Fiction
- Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine (current editor of galaxyezine.org)
Fine Art
Consciousness, Death and Dying
(Also appears in script format for play.)