LIVE Magazine, Vol 7, Issue #165

18
Max Lightbender
New Kid on the El Paseo Block
While a 53-year-old may not be a “kid”, Max Lightbender looks at the
world with the awe of any 7 year old. max works in the digital world
at his eponymous studio, Lightbender Art studios, located at 73-255
el Paseo drive, Palm desert.
angela romeo is the producer /host of coLLiDinG WorLDs tV
and coLLiDinG WorLDs raDio. for more information visit
www.collidingworldstvandart.com
colliding Worlds tV is available on Youtube at
www.youtube.com/user/AngelaValenteromeo
or at colliding Worlds Vimeo:
www.vimeo.com/collidingworldstv
Max Lightbender, born Mark William Blackford, is
self-taught. He admits to knowing “nothing about art”
but has a sense of how art can be if conventions
are tossed aside. His work can be oddly mystic and
serene, or jarringly disturbing.
With a faint tinge of his Memphis boyhood lingering
in his speech, Max grew up in the world of the Gray
flannel suit. His father, an ivy League graduate
worked as a metals broker for alcoa aluminum
company. His mother was the perfect spouse to
a midlevel executive. Max seemed on the same
suburban trajectory. He dreamed of being a
commercial airline pilot but a serious motorcycle
accident left Max with a retinal vascular inclusion in
his left eye and color blindness in both eyes. With
flying no longer an option, Max enrolled in a hotel
management program. While working for the ritz
carlton hotels, Max was stricken by illness.
Unable to continue his employ with ritz carlton, Max
embarked on a five year quest to find meaning to his
life. Learning he was attention Deficit Disorder (aDD)
seemed to pull it all together for Max. He began to
see that his urge to explore and create was a part of the
aDD diagnosis that was the driving artistic force within him.
Max began exploring the alchemy of photography and digital software to create pixilated
distortions of nature, fantasy and Hollywood. “ i purchased a printer. i downloaded digital
software and from the moment i started experimenting with photo-manipulation as art. i was
smitten,” says Max. “i had no idea what i was doing, yet it felt so good and gave me such a
high, sometimes i would work straight for days and nights almost non-stop, forgetting to eat
or sleep. i couldn’t slow down. it was compulsive. My hunger to create art—even though i
was hesitant to call it that—was insatiable. others first had to identify me as an artist before i
believed it myself.”
Max’s entrée may seem incongruous to the el paseo art scene but art, like Max, is meant to
shake the established.
TUbE_VIEWING
PHOTO bY DImITRI HALkIDIS
By angela romeo
colliding Worlds tV broadcasts on Kpse (MY 13 palm springs california)
saturdays at noon and Thursdays at 6:30 am
colliding Worlds radio, broadcasts and live streams weekly,
saturday from 11 am to 12 pm on Kpsf 1200 aM (Money radio 1200)
cW radio podcasts are available at
www.collidingworldstvandart.com
photos: Daniel Ryan
Sonny and Cher at the kaufmans’ maser
Viewing
When it Pours, It Pours.