Dylan Davis--Illustrator

Home Base in Florence 

Dylan Davis

Name:  Dylan Davis
City/State: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Email: dylandavisart@gmail.com
Website: http://www.dylandavisart.com
MNartist.org profile: http://mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=158250

Bio~  
I was born in the small city of Mankato, Minnesota and grew up in the smaller city of Saint Peter, Minnesota, about 10 miles north of Mankato.  In 2008 I moved to Minneapolis and began attending the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, eventually deciding to major in Illustration.  In the first half of 2011 I studied abroad in a remote town in western Ireland, for a total of 4 and a half months.  For two weeks immediately following, I traveled to other countries in Europe.  I am currently entering my final semester at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Architect's Vision

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
    
My work has varied over the course of my 3 and half years at art school, but a few characteristics have remained consistent.  I enjoy opportunities to include humor in my illustrations.  I will sometimes draw characters in a “cartoony” fashion, if it fits the type of humor. If I have time, I will include details that reward the viewer for exploring the piece.  My pieces that I consider to be more “fine art” (as opposed to illustrations) tend to be more serious or self-reflective, but they usually include this same attention to detail.
    
In my most recent semester, I took an introductory course for basic animation, and completed a few small pieces that combined digital and hand-drawn techniques.  In the semester prior to that, in Ireland, a I made a series of  short, experimental stop-motion films.  I hope to do more animation work in the near future; I may incorporate some into my “Senior Project” at school and possibly into other future illustration projects.
    
Speaking of my Senior Project, for my “finale” at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I am planning to make a series of 4-5 maze illustrations.  I am still trying to decide on what the themes will be, but I will be drawing inspiration from some places I visited in Europe in 2011.


"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?
   
I find it immensely satisfying to be able to explore a piece of art and discover things you might not have noticed at first glance.  So, in some of my illustrations, I hope that the audience experiences this same joy of discovery.  I also hope that the viewer can feel amused or entertained by the humor I include in some of my pieces. 

Golems of Normandy

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 
    
One of the best pieces of advice I've received is to keep making and doing, and don't worry about the “bad” ideas that may result during the brainstorming stage.  When I'm doodling small thumbnail ideas for an illustration, I try not to worry about whether every idea is a “good” one or not.  I just keep doodling.  This helps to get the “weaker” ideas out of the way faster, and can sometimes lead to another, stronger, idea.   


Tell me about your work space and your creative process.
    
My workspace currently consists of a studio at my school, with a decently-sized table, and a few shelves and cabinets on either side of me.  I try to keep the table space free of unnecessary tools and materials, and leave as much room as possible for my current project.
    
My creative process typically begins with doodling a few initial ideas as thumbnails, and then turning to the internet or a book for reference images and research.  I often keep my laptop nearby for this purpose.   Once I have settled on a thumbnail idea that I like, I make a larger (but still smaller than full size) sketch.  I then use a projector to transfer this to a larger sheet of paper, and this will be at the final size, or sometimes larger than final size.  Once I have completed the drawing, I usually scan it to the computer and color the piece in Photoshop.

 Inside the Hunter's Home

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?
    
I could name at least a dozen classmates from school off the top of my head, but I'll try to narrow it down a bit.  Teagan White is a friend and classmate whose level of technical ability is amazing, and her sense of color and design is incredible (http://teaganwhite.com/).   My second pick would be my brother Dustin Davis (http://dustyart.org/).  His illustrations are fun to look at, often contain amusing or interesting ideas, and have an interesting feeling of child-like wonder (usually conveyed by the drawing style).


Other Minnesotan or Minnesota-based artists whose work I admire: 


Jennifer Davis 
Zak Sally 
Taisha Bosher 
Carl Thompson


If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
    
I enjoy some of the special exhibitions at both the Walker Art Center (www.walkerart.org) and at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (www.artsmia.org). I also have enjoyed what I've seen at the gallery Altered Esthetics (http://www.alteredesthetics.com/).  When I'm visiting my hometown of Saint Peter, River Rock Coffee place usually has some nice local art (www.rrcoffee.com/).

Unwrapped

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?


The artists and articles featured on the Drawn blog (http://drawn.ca/archive/tag/tumblr/) are a great source for inspiration, and for local art events I have found MNartists.org to be a good guide (http://mnartists.org/eventList.do).

What can we expect to see from you in the future?


For the near future, I will be completing my final courses at school in order to earn my Bachelor of Fine Art degree in Illustration.  As previously mentioned, this will include a series of maze illustrations for my Senior Project.  I will be searching for full-time work after graduation, and part-time and freelance illustration jobs between now and then, but what type of work is yet to be decided.


(Also, See some of Dylan's video work.)

Karl Raschke - Photographer

Karl Raschke

Name: Karl Raschke
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Email: karl.raschke@gmail.com
Website: karlraschke.com
MNartist.org profile: http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=9000


Bio~
Karl Raschke is a Minneapolis-based photographer. Hereceived an MFA from the University of Minnesota in 1999. His work has been exhibited most recently at Midway Contemporary Art (Minneapolis), Minnesota Museum of American Art (St. Paul, MN) and Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (Tehran, Iran). Since

2003, Raschke has been part of the team behind Creative Electric Studios, a Northeast Minneapolis art and

performance space. He is currently at work producing a movie about his father, the professional wrestler Baron von Raschke.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
The 2010-2011 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Photographers show just went up at Midway Contemporary Art (http://www.midwayart.org/exhibitions/11_03_mcknight/). The show runs through 7/24/2011. I was working on things for that right up to the day before it opened. I’m showing two boxes of photographs along with a one of a kind LP record - also available on cassette!

The boxes are laid out on a couple tables and anyone is invited to take the pictures out and look through them, sort them, do whatever they want. I’ve included some suggested methods for viewing the pictures but people are free to do whatever they want to do. I think of them as books without bindings or books that have lost their bindings.

The record is a new thing for me. It includes audio that relates to the pictures in tangential ways. I think of it as a weird version of the self guided tour thing. Maybe a self guided detour? A couple tracks are wrestling interviews that my dad did in the 70s and 80s. One track is a recording of a friend of mine reading a 1970s sports column from the Chicago Tribune. The writer just goes off on my dad in this great over-the-top way. He says things like - “I want to tell you about a grave threat to our way of life” and “The two tools of America’s enemies are von Raschke and dope.” Its got songs, too, and a couple more arty, maybe c-grade John Cage ripoffs. They all relate to the pictures in some way and might even give some insight into the pictures. Hopefully it’s fun to listen to as well.

I haven’t really tried to describe any pictures or sum up the content here yet. The content of the pictures varies and that’s very much by design. I want these things to be open and mutable. One box is called Obfuscation: Pro Wrestling Edition. There are photos of my retired wrestler dad in there but a lot of the pictures don’t have any obvious connection to wrestling. A number of them relate to obscure parts of my dad’s biography that you’d probably only know if you were a friend or family member. The photo selection process and the construction of the box is this very inward looking thing, very personal. I have no illusions that anyone will pick up on that stuff on an intellectual level. Hopefully it’s something they’ll feel without necessarily being able to name it.

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?
I wouldn’t say I’m trying to make a statement with my work. It’s more like asking a series of questions. The basic questions for me are - what is a photograph and how does it accrue meaning? These questions come up for me simply because I love making photographs and once they’re there in front of me I wonder why I’ve made them. I don’t have the feeling that “I’ve made this” when I look at my pictures unlike, say, if I make a drawing or something more labor intensive. This is probably the result of the mechanical process and instantaneous result among many other things about how photography actually works. The photographs become objects of my curiosity and I start thinking about what they mean or what they could mean.

I’ve made a series of books over the years that I call Google Books. I do a google image search for a word and then download the first hundred results. I print the photos and bind them into a book. I did one for the word David because that was my grandpa’s name. So I have this book that offers a photographic definition of what “David” is. I look through that book and think of my grandpa even though the book’s content is all over the map - sharks, empty parking lots, and lots of head shots of guys presumably named David. The book is like a different kind of snapshot of my grandpa - one that makes different demands on me as the viewer and that calls to mind all sorts of memories.

These are the kinds of things I think about when I’m making pictures but I don’t necessarily want people to come away with a specific conclusion. I want to open things up.


What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
I copied down something Robert Rauschenberg said and it’s taped up at my desk. I read it everyday - “When you make something nothing should be clearer than the fact that not only do you not have to make it but that it could look like anything, and then it starts getting interesting and then you get involved with your own limitations.”

That’s more admonition than advice but it’s something I like to keep in mind.


Tell me about your work space and your creative process.
I don’t have a dedicated work space. I have a shelf full of camera equipment in the basement and I’m usually carrying around a box with some pictures in it that I’m thinking about. I don’t do “street photography” per se but I think of my work space as somewhere out there. Similarly, when it comes to editing my work, where ever I happen to be sitting with my laptop is my work space.

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?
Justin Newhall (http://justinnewhall.com/home.html) - Justin and I went to grad school together and I’ve loved his photographs since we first met. The Walker acquired some of his work recently and he’ll be appearing there to discuss it on June 23rd. (http://calendar.walkerart.org/event.wac?id=6224)

Zak Sally (http://www.lamano21.com/) - Zak does a comic called Sammy The Mouse and runs a publishing company called La Mano 21 that puts out all kinds of great stuff.

Amy Toscani - Makes big awesome sculptures (http://www.franconia.org/artistpages/toscani/index.html)! You can see her work at Franconia Sculpture Park (http://www.franconia.org/artistpages/toscani/) and she’s in the current show at SooVAC (http://www.soovac.org/shows).

Stephen Shaskan (http://www.stephenshaskan.com/) - These days he’s calling himself a children’s book illustrator but to me he’s just an all around great drawer - if that’s a word! His first children’s book A Dog is a Dog comes out in November on Chronicle Books.

Richard Barlow (http://www.rbarlow.net/portfolio.php) - Richard’s Bromides series is a “body of work is all based upon a single photograph by Fox Talbot, the inventor of the silver negative photographic process.” They are wonderful. Two of the works are murals that can be found in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood. (http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?rid=247528)

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
I have a toddler so art outings are a bit curtailed these days. We managed to see the Franconia Sculpture Park thing - Franconia in the City @ Casket (http://www.casketarts.com/) during Art-a-Whirl and I take him to the Walker Sculpture Garden from time to time. When I get out it's to the usual places. I haven't had the chance to discover any hidden gems lately.

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?
I like twitter for finding out about art stuff. Top Art Tweets (@tw_top_art) uses an algorithm to decide what art and design related tweets to retweet. Lots of interesting stuff pops up.

What can we expect to see from you in the future?
I’m working on a movie about my dad with Phil Harder (http://www.mnoriginal.org/art/?p=1354). It’s going to be a weird kind of documentary. I’m hoping we can finish that up within the year. We’re going to be shooting a scene at the Walker on August 4th as part of their Open Field program. Show up there if you want to be an extra in the Baron movie!

I will also be speaking at the Walker on July 7th as part of two discussions with other McKnight Photography Fellowship recipients. http://calendar.walkerart.org/event.wac?id=6219

June 30: Lex Thompson, Paul Shambroom, Gina Dabrowski, and Chuck Avery
July 7: Carrie Thompson, Monica Haller, Karl Raschke, and Amy Eckert

Image List:
All images are Untitled, C-prints from Obfuscation: Pro Wrestling Edition, 12 x 12 inches, 2011.