Know Your Neighbor: Jason Brower, Sketch Card Artist, Mt. Kisco
For many people it’s never too late to give something new a try. In Jason Brower’s case, it wasn’t too late for him to return to his first passion.
Brower had loved art as a child, drawing prolifically since he was about three years old, particularly enjoying horror characters such as Dracula and Frankenstein.
But as he entered his teen years, other pursuits such as music took priority.
It wasn’t until about three-and-a-half years ago that Brower, now 45, turned his talent and love of art into a new career under rather unexpected circumstances. He was working a seasonal job for UPS and discovered that the Topps Vault, the trading card company, was a regular stop on the route.
Brower would venture inside the company’s space seeing boxes piled high, merchandise that had been purchased online by customers and ready to be shipped.
“Every time I walked in there I would stare wide-eyed at all the vintage items, original artwork and interesting items throughout the warehouse and showroom,” said Brower, who has lived in Mount Kisco for the past four years.
When Brower’s temporary UPS job was ending, he applied for a job at Topps and got work in shipping and receiving. His boss, having learned he was an artist after Brower included that on his resume, gave him two blank sketch cards in a sort of impromptu tryout.
“I sketched the things and two days after that he sent them to the art director without me knowing,” Brower recalled. “He tells me he liked what he saw (and asked) how would you like to be an artist? It was the first week, so it was pretty cool.”
Brower became a sketch artist for Topps, first working on sets of Wacky Packages Old School 4, a revival of the old wacky cards, which parodied various products and had first been popular in the 1970s. That was followed by his work on a set of cards for the comeback of The Garbage Pail Kids, a set of cards from 1985 that lampooned the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Through networking with fellow sketch artists, Brower today works for four other card companies on a freelance basis in addition to Topps–Upper Deck, Monsterwax, Pastime Cards and Viceroy Card Co., doing all of his sketching out of his Mount Kisco home.
He has also sketched for Wacky Packages Old School 5 series and was recently signed by Topps to work on a Star Wars Chrome card set. In addition, Brower has contributed artwork to the magazine Little Shoppe of Horrors, a trade publication on British horror.
“It’s only been about three years since I’ve gotten into it,” Brower said. “When you think about the amount of stuff I’ve done it’s just unbelievable.”
Although Brower never totally gave up art, it took a back seat in his life. Instead, the lifelong Westchester resident who grew up in Ossining pursued a music career. From the time he was a teenager, he was a drummer in a host of bands playing a wide range of genres.
“When I was doing music that was my focus, my interest, my goal,” said Brower, who lives with his girlfriend and her two sons. “I played on a lot of big stages in New York City, played the Apollo at 16, played B.B. King’s a couple of years ago.”
But in just a few years, after getting his chance as a sketch card artist, he is rapidly becoming more well-known among those in the card collecting world. Plus, it has quickly accelerated into plenty of work as the card companies provide him with several artist proofs per set to sell or privately commission to collectors.
Brower is confident that positive things are in his future and he’s looking forward to the opportunities that await.
“Never give up on your dreams; always follow your passion…and great things will happen.”
For more on Jason Brower, visit his Facebook page Low Brower Art.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/