Today we’d like to introduce you to Damon Schindler
Hi Damon, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My artistic painting practice began in a side room at Mount S.A.C College. My teacher Thomas Herberg allowed me to paint whatever I wanted as others did still life’s in the main room. I struck the canvas spilling out my life’s experiences with the passion of a young being captivated by books I would find in the library by the German expressionists, fauvists and Mexican Muralists. This would lead me to study at the renowned California Institute of the Arts ( CalArts) where I hung out with and worked with artists like Derrick Maddox, Henry Taylor, Smilee Barnacle, Javier Martinez and many others. They elevated my practice and thinking while I branched out into the artistic community from there.
My grandmother told me my great great uncle was an artist and I finally was realizing how amazing he was. His name was George Luks from “The AshCan School” a small group of artists in the turn of the twentieth century that turned there gaze away from natural landscape painting and focused more on the gritty city scenes of the immigrant and working class people of New York.
But I think it truly started in the San Gabriel Valley on a tiny dead end street in Covina bordering Baldwin Park just behind an In N Out Burger where we were break dancing, making ramps out of scrap wood for skateboards and bikes, wrestling, drinking from water hoses, lighting illegal fireworks, playing ping pong, throwing Chinese stars and trying to long jump like Carl Lewis the 1984 Olympic champ.
This was where I was allowed to be free and creative. The sun above watched us jumping over walls, climbing on roofs, exploring railway tracks, walking to the market to buy Mexican sweet breads , wandering concrete washes and gravel quarries all before the street lamps turned on and the moon would bring its own sense of mystery. My Pops would instill a sense of mythology with different little sayings from time to time such as “they take a ladder up every night and add some wax to the moon until it is full” or playing records and reel to reel tapes of unique radio shows, speeches and music from the late 60’s and 70’s. All of these combined inspired me to imagine and to see the poetry of life and of course there was my mother’s golden heart and smile that illuminated my path.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
“Twas” definitely not a smooth road but that is what has made it interesting and engaging, even to this day. This is where you have to say what you mean and live what you say as you map out a path to get to a determined destination and that destination may shift and change along the way as you navigate those obstacles .The difficulties seem to arrive daily when you are your own boss. You have to be persistent in managing your time most efficiently. You are not only balancing the creative output of your work but also dedicating time to marketing and launching the artworks into the public sphere.
There is also the socializing aspect which can be difficult at first for some as it was for me initially. That is to say that you go out to gallery openings and engage with the artists, patrons and owners that make the marketplace for the artwork to be shared and economically viable. I guess the key, which should be obvious, is going to places where you are truly interested and inspired by the roster of artists, this makes the time spent beneficial for your growth and gives you insight into the make up of the market.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
In the realm of fine arts that is completely saturated with a vast amount and variety of talented artists my specialty may just be something I call “Kindergarten Cave Paintings” that is essentially framing the work through the lens of an earlier time distinguished by a fresh, honest and sincere vision of representing the world around me through this mark making process upon the canvas that tells a tale of the hero’s journey or the chronicling of the daily life lived in a somewhat whimsical visual language.
Also I’ve noticed whenever somebody sees a piece in a group show they can always identify my work from others or if I am doing a rendering for a theater piece I cannot step away from my style, for better or for worse since it is so deeply planted into my hand eye coordination
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Keep creating the work that you want to see, there will be an audience and you will not become stagnant or bored. Make time for creative production and for the business end of marketing, advertising and gathering an audience, these are important to your success,
If you’re any type of visual artist, draw something every day as Otto Dix said, this way you will develop your own visual vocabulary.
Pricing:
- DIrect message for sales
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cirrealean.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/damonschindler/
