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FOUNDERS

 

EMPEROR I. CURTIS: Is a Korean-American musi­cian and edu­ca­tor, and for­mer child prodigy, who has been play­ing piano for the last 36 years. Emperor received her Mas­ters Degree in Col­lab­o­ra­tive Piano from the New Eng­land Con­ser­va­tory (NEC), and her Bach­e­lors Degree in Psy­chol­ogy from U. C. Davis. Although it took her six years to get her under­grad­u­ate degree, this pales in com­par­i­son to her father-in-law, Dr. Clay­ton Cur­tis, who took 11 years to fin­ish his P.H.D., and our dear friend and patron, Jenny Quian, who has yet to return to Colum­bia to defend here the­sis (though she already has TWO Mas­ters Degrees, and three chil­dren, so we don’t say anything!)

 

Emperor has already recorded one fan­tas­tic album of Clas­si­cal and Jazz selec­tions (which you can lis­ten to, stream­ing, by press­ing the play arrow on the upper right cor­ner of this page in the header bar, above the site nav­i­ga­tion), and is cur­rently tak­ing as long as pos­si­ble to fin­ish her sec­ond bril­liant album (most likely because of the exam­ples set by Dr. Cur­tis, and Jenny). She is cur­rently in res­i­dence at the New­ton Music Acad­emy, and teaches select stu­dents at our home, in Brook­line, which dou­bles as the Hum­ble School Of Arts & Music.

 

SHOGUN G CURTIS: Is a very tall Amer­i­can artist, edu­ca­tor, and self-proclaimed “The­o­ret­i­cal Engi­neer” (refer­ring to his to to  abil­ity to effort­lessly orga­nize large amounts of abstract infor­ma­tion, and gen­er­ate strate­gic  plans of action based on the way that human psy­chol­ogy responds to art: brand­ing, art direc­tion, ad cam­paigns, pro­mo­tional mate­ri­als, col­lec­table adver­tis­ing, and recre­at­ing ADVERTISING AS ART!). Shogun is also a learn­ing dis­abled adult, suf­fer­ing from adult Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­ity Dis­or­der (ADHD), Dyslexia, and switch­ing dom­i­nance lazy eye. Though hav­ing three learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties makes rou­tine tasks incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult, and his ‘unique behav­iour’ can be an acquired taste,  he is greatly val­ued for his ‘all see­ing’ crit­i­cal eye, his abil­ity to teach any­thing regard­less of it’s com­plex­ity, and the uncom­pro­mis­ing stan­dards of excel­lence that he brings to his art.

 

Shogun has his B.F.A from the Rhode Island School Of Design, and has taught “Draw­ing 101″ at the Boston Archi­tec­tural Cen­ter on New­bury St., “Illus­tra­tion For Design­ers” at the New Eng­land School of Art & Design at Suf­folk Uni­ver­sity, and “The Mas­ter Class In Col­lec­table Adver­tis­ing” at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity. He was also Shep­ard Fairey’s first assis­tant, and is cur­rently work­ing on por­traits of him and his fam­ily (Shep is the best, by the way. If you hear any­one gripe about him, for any­thing other than how dif­fi­cult it is to get him on the phone, then they do not know him at all; and are most likely unset­tled by his impos­si­ble work ethic, that makes us all look asleep at the wheel).

 

Shogun is cur­rently work­ing on an inspired art show of Por­trai­ture called “The Improper Bosto­ni­ans: Por­traits & Fig­u­ra­tive Art From The New Eng­land Scene,” for his Friends/Patrons: The always won­der­ful Thomas Col­lec­tive, the ever awe­some and ridicu­lously elu­sive Shell Clan, the Saintly Cur­tis par­ents, the MORE Saintly Senecals, the strong-willed Chois’, the faith­ful “Ghost” Anthony Capozzi, and the best kept secret Tony Janello (Mas­ter Artist, and won­der­ful friend, who we hope will par­tic­i­pate in the show).

 

None of this would be pos­si­ble with­out the spec­tac­u­lar sup­port of friend, and patron of the arts Jenny Qian, who has pro­vided Shogun with his first off-site stu­dio space, com­plete with heat, elec­tric­ity, plumb­ing and meals. Ghost has heard about the deli­cious food, named the stu­dio “Heaven”, and is now squat­ting in a plot to inter­cept the food at the door. Shogun is cur­rently divid­ing his time between por­trait & poster work at the ‘STUDIO B’ loca­tion, and doing way too much work restor­ing the school (which, to be fair, is over 100 years old).

 

Shogun is also look­ing to form a part­ner­ship with Bril­liant Mason & Gen­eral Con­trac­tor, Matt Reynolds, in restor­ing the Hum­ble School, as well as pro­duc­ing col­lectible adver­tis­ing for Jenny Qian and the New­ton South Par­ent, Teacher, & Stu­dent Organization.

 

Emperor I. Cur­tis and Shogun G. Cur­tis are a hus­band and wife team that started the Hum­ble School Of Arts and Music in 2004.Emperor is very much the BOSS & rules the school with an Iron Fist, while Shogun has been deemed far too tall to be cute.