Denver Magazine / Denver Magazine Summer 2008 / Don't Drink and Draw

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Don't Drink and Draw

The rock star life of America's number one selling artist Michael Godard

A cartoon olive, complete with arms and legs, has just launched herself into a martini glass full of what appears to be vodka. From the rim above, her male olive companion watches and waits for his turn to dive. Below, an unlit cigar waits for the strike of a match, while a gathering of other less adventuresome olives sit in a bowl to the left. Set against a black canvas, the scene is whimsical and cartoonish, a surreal but strangely lifelike depiction of an afternoon with a lover. Immediately one realizes that "Olive Party" isn't your typical piece of $50,000 contemporary art. But, then again, Michael Godard isn't your typical contemporary artist.

That olive and martini painting was the first in a long line of work by the man who is considered to be the top-selling artist in America, if not the world. Godard has been quoted as saying that the demand for his artwork is higher than the ability of printers to make reproductions and the waiting list for his original work is so long his pieces are sold out months before they are produced. With a who's-who clientele that includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vince Neil and the Pentagon, Godard has shaken the art world and turned himself and his work into an enterprise employing thousands. Not bad for a man who, up until six years ago, was still selling art out of his car.

Godard is a conundrum to be sure. In the ultra-conservative world of contemporary art, he flaunts a head of long, dark hair and displays an entire tattoo sleeve of his own design down his left arm. He is considered the "rock star of the art world," but is in reality a loving father who donates a considerable amount of time and money to numerous charities.

However, what might be the most baffling aspect of this walking contradiction is that he has made a fortune selling pieces of art depicting olives and alcohol, but does not drink. "I use alcohol to communicate with people," Godard explains. "It's like watching a scary movie, I can live through it vicariously and describe the world around me as I see it."

That world hasn't always been pretty for Godard, who was born in West Covina, Calif., during the 1960s to Carl and Rita Godard. At age 5, Godard's father was diagnosed with a rare muscle disease and was given less than a year to live. Although treatment kept Carl alive much longer than expected, adverse reactions from the pharmaceuticals launched him into depression and Carl withdrew completely. By the time Godard had entered the second grade, his mother and father had divorced.

Godard and his sister Denise bounced between California and Las Vegas after their father moved to Nevada for medical supervision. When Godard graduated high school he had attended 16 different schools. Always the new kid in class, Godard learned to make friends by using his ability to draw. "I'd sketch something cool and wait for a kid to say, "˜Hey that new kid can draw, will you draw me something,'" he recalls. "That's how I made friends because I was so shy."

During high school, Godard worked as a gas station attendant and as a roofer with his stepfather. Finally, his talents landed him at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas where he studied fine art. However, Godard, who struggled early in his career, spent nearly nine years as a mechanical engineer before beginning full-time as an artist in 1999.

When Godard first began painting the infamous olives, it happened at the lowest of personal times. In 2001, Godard's 11-year-old daughter Paige was diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalitis, a brief attack of inflammation in the brain and spinal cord, which put her in a coma for three months. In a fit of despair, Godard had stopped working completely, until one day he ran into a friend who encouraged him to paint something fun. "He told me, "˜you owe me a painting. I want one with a martini and olives in it,'" he recalls. By 2 a.m. the following day, Godard had become "the olive guy," and a phenomenon was born.

It would take three years for Paige to recover from the coma. The encephalitis had impaired her ability to walk and she needed therapy and special education classes in school. Meanwhile, Godard's olive and martini art had made him a national sensation, enabling he and his family to provide Paige with the hope and treatments necessary to recover. By the end of junior high, she had worked her way back into regular classes and into high school.

In November of 2006, tragedy would hit the Godard family again. Paige, who had been diagnosed with medulloblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, passed away after 17 months of battling the disease. Godard took a brief break from painting and responded by founding the Paige Godard Cancer Connection. He continues to dedicate his life to charity by auctioning off artwork to benefit philanthropies such as Ozzy and Sharon Osborne's Colon Cancer Foundation and Starlight Starbright, Steven Spielberg's nonprofit organization that aims to improve the lives of children in hospital care.

"Her death gave me clarity about why I paint. It's never been about money, money is simply a tool to help you," Godard reflects. "The most beautiful thing about success is to make other people's lives better along the way. I'm being used as a vessel to do something for the greater good. It's as if God walked right past me and dropped a paintbrush. That's really what my artwork does. It saves lives."