Alexander A. Germanis
Alexander Arthur Germanis was born at a very early age on June 27, 1977, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second son born to a Latvian immigrant and the daughter of German immigrants, Alexander was the third of his parents’ five children, born in the middle of the rather storybook pattern of boy-girl-boy-girl-boy.
His parents both strong advocates of learning and culture, the beauty of art and the written word enticed him when still in his formative years. At the age of four, Alexander sold his first drawing to the local newspaper. At the age of eight and again when he was eleven, he was selected as the sole representative of his school to attend a South-Eastern Wisconsin Young Author’s Conference.
Not a year after the latter of the two conferences, Alexander was given yet another opportunity to put his pencil to paper and churn out the creative word. Merely days before the start of his seventh-grade year, he was hit by a car, putting him in the hospital and, subsequently, on his back for weeks. When he had recovered enough to return to school, he was unable to attend the daily physical education classes and spent the time, instead, alone in the school library.
Although the hiatus provided him with the opportunity for completing his homework assignments, he soon grew bored with the routine. The seclusion and setting provided him the perfect impetus to start writing once again. It was then that he began writing the story that would eventually become his first finished novel, Monarchy’s Shadow. Even with a novel under his belt, however, Alexander still finds it extremely weird and somewhat conceited to write about himself in the third person.
But he digresses. During these same years, Alexander’s passion for art had not waned, however. But a love for other artists’ work spurred him down a different sort of artistic road than what he might have otherwise planned to travel. There had been a painting he had liked, one of which there were no prints available for sale. So, he endeavored to simply paint a copy for himself. After this success, the thought occurred to him that other people probably felt the same way he did, that there were ideas and images that others wished they could see on canvas and hang in their homes but hadn’t the talent to make it happen. Alexander, therefore, figured he was the man to bring those thoughts and dreams to life. Thus began Loyal Blue Commissioned Artwork.
Aside from writing and creating art, Alexander has other passions as well. A lover of music, his vast collection consists of an alphabet of different genres and different eras. From Mozart to Metallica, from Twain to Tool, from Vivaldi to Vaughn, he almost always has music playing. He loves a wide variety of movies ranging from the classics to the frenetic action films of today. But studying and learning are still paramount to him. Having studied German for years in school and Mandarin Chinese while serving as a missionary, he is never above further expanding his mind.
But his passions are not limited to cultural and intellectual pursuits. Whenever he can, he and his friends travel up to the north woods of Wisconsin to play paintball, following an axiom they have followed since they started playing, some of them, including Alexander, at the age of thirteen: if they don’t go home bruised and bleeding, they didn’t have a good enough time. Other sports that interest him greatly are motorcycling, bicycling, baseball and hockey. Though never able to play the latter two, he nevertheless loves to watch them. One of his goals is to attend a baseball game in every stadium in America, incorporating his sometimes insatiable wanderlust.
