BIOGRAPHY - s.c.jones

Fate would have it that I entered this mad world the summer of 1967, the year of The Beatles' Sgt. Peppers album.
The air was filled with Lucy in the Sky and Mr. Kite. The exact date was March 6th, the birth date of Michelangelo;
an omen of unattainable expectations and my future strange obsession with ceilings.

I was the second son of L.T. Jones, an attorney, and Betty Ann, a wonderful educator.

My grandfathers presented perfect bookends to a life in the Sin City of Las Vegas.
My paternal Grandfather, Jonesy, was a gambler from Kansas City who ran several casinos at the dawn of this town's growth.
My maternal Grandfather, Ben Hoffman, was a musician who once fired Liberace from his band and helped begin the great tradition of Vegas Lounge Acts.
My childhood was mostly unusual and inspiring; spending a vast quantity of time at the Hoffman's ranch house, which is now the location of the McCarren Airport parking garage. I spent many nights there watching unusual characters with mixed drinks and smokes stay up all hours singing the standards of our greatest generation.

With my little sister and older brother, we watched our town grow from hospitable gangsters to hostile corporate monsters.
I suffered the heat and lack of childhood outlets as the town spread. A sense of history was lost as familiar sites were blown to bits and my heritage was lost to incoming "locals" who declared citizenship after 2 years.

I turned to the arts in high school, sadly shooting down the Ivy League hopes of my father.

At band camp in the cold canyons of Mount Charleston,
I met the daughter of a French woman and a US Marine, a kind product of WWII. Becky and I began dating at a very early age, and have been together ever since.
We were married shortly after high school.

Hating the oppressive nature of modern education, I began working at a bookstore with dreams of starting a band that could fuel my creativity. As a lark, I took a drawing class at UNLV, and found myself a new home. Where I had always believed that music would be my future, art took hold and would not let go. Becky and spent a hot summer month taking classes in London. We returned to find out we had an extra passenger on the return trip.

Dylan was born in 1991. I failed the class of a visiting professor, Mr. David Hickey, as I was overwhelmed with the concept of fatherhood. Mr. Hickey was gracious, but I insisted on repeating his class to receive the credit.
It was during this time that my mother, an educator, presented the option of a career in teaching to me. I angered my fine art professors in pursuing a safe path to consistent pay and benefits.

I have now taught for the Clark County School District for over10 years.
I enjoy mentoring the young and the fresh ideas they bring to me.

In a midlife crisis, I briefly grabbed at my hopes of a musical career. I joined the band Mudslide, which offered a modest local following. I left after the long hours of practice and bar benefits took away from my parental duties.

On a lark, I joined forces with Brian, a guitar player from another modestly popular local band, as we backed a funny poet, Dayvid, who was often mistaken as my twin.

With the addition of Ginger and Joe, Tippy Elvis became a sort of cultish fascination. The band didn't last very long, but it left a mark on Las Vegas that is hard to remove - even with the best spot removers.

My wife and I soon added Andrew and Kathryn to our family.

We set up residence in North Las Vegas, something that would have been inconceivable during the heavily segregated times of our upbringing. I became a content domestic.

My energy for the past decade has been consumed with the raising of children, both my own and my students.

I rarely have had time to pursue my own creative efforts. While I have done some side design work, painting sets and designing the backdrops for the Comedy Stops in Las Vegas, Laughlin and Atlantic City, I could not find time to promote my own work.

As my children have grown older, I find myself with more time to concentrate on my artistic career.
My obsessions, kindly labeled hobbies by some, include a joy of cinematic education and my personal escape from reality,
Disneyland, which replaced other questionable methods of escaping reality. In July of 2006, I was named Obsessive Fan of the Week by Entertainment Weekly magazine in regards to my love of Disneyland.
And so it goes on . . .
-s.c. jones, 2008