Interview with:Dragonbrusher [dragonbrusher]
ART
 | What do you do? How do you define yourself as an artist? I do many different things. As an artist, I am constantly looking for new medium(s) to work with in order to create visually stimulating, and thought provoking work. I am a painter, illustrator, graphic artist, film maker, and teacher. That is why it is difficult for me to define myself, and lock myself into any specific niche. When I have a project, even if it is not a medium I have worked with before, I learn very quickly how to produce an interesting piece of work with it. That I think is what an artist does. We take a medium, and bend it to our will to create something interesting for the viewer to experience! |
| What is your message? My message is to "Remain true to yourself always!" In other words, do not listen to those negative influences in your life who say you can not accomplish something. Those people are toxic. Listen to your inner self, your heart, your soul, and accomplish your dreams! Never give up! Remain the dreamchaser, someday you will catch it! Do not stagnate, re-invent yourself, and your dreams! |
| Your biography in four lines. Dan Monroe was born with a paintbrush in his hand. He served his country for ten years, then began selling his artwork in art galleries throughout America. He then became a teacher at Western Michigan University for several years. Dan Monroe continues to produce artwork, illustrations, and video's that inspire others! |
| Do you upload your work to the web? If so, where could we see it? |
| How is an idea born? For you, what is inspiration? Life. No matter what I am looking at, my mind instantly begins to calculate the brushstrokes it would take to capture, and paint it! |
| What role does technology play in your creative process? I am using computer technology quite a bit. Right now I am using Photoshop CS3, Painter Essentials 3, Corel Painter Classic, Magix Movie Edit Pro 14, Zbrush3, and many other pieces of great software. I also use a WACOM Intuis3 12X12 digital drawing pad. |
| What is art? For me, art is the expression of your inner self. As a human being we have the ability to formulate thought, an idea. Then we have the ability to find a suitable means to express it intelligently to others. Whether we use paint on canvas, graphite on paper, or moving images on a video cell, we are expressing our thoughts, and ideas for others to gain some inspiration. The ability to experience, and share an intelligent artistic expression is a joyous wonder! It is what makes us most like the one who made us. |
| When do you get your best ideas? There is no easy answer here. I am inspired by life! I will say that I may see an image, a tree blowing in the wind of an oncoming storm, or a woman standing on a pier with her child, or a spider crawling down to a moth captured in its web, and say to myself "I so want to paint that!" |
| How do you evaluate whether an idea is good or not? It depends on the level of excitement it evokes within me! There are times when I have a project which is just not exciting, however, I am doing it for the money. Then there are those times (often) when I am working on something which is so exciting that it does not let me sleep! I may be exhausted, and lie down to bed. However, my mind is so stimulated, and excited that my heart begins to race, and I must get up and start working on it again! THAT is how I KNOW. |
| Three creative ideas that you would have liked to have created? 1) I wish I had written the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" series of books by Stephen R. Donaldson.
2) I wish I had been able to make the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Peter Jackson did it exactly the way we wanted to see it!
3) I wish I created the internet! Such a wonderful way for people from every walk of life to be able to share idea's! I just wish it were a friendlier place! |
| When and how did you begin to see yourself as an artist? There was a time when I was about four years old that I took a picture that I drew to my mother. It was a picture of Bugs Bunny. I had actually copied it from a Bugs Bunny comic book. I did not trace it. My mother accused me of tracing it, and I sat down and drew it again in front of her. She was amazed! She also realized that the original one I drew was much larger than the tiny picture that I referenced! When I saw the amazement upon her face, I was hooked! I also remember the first painting that I realized was a painting. It was in a school textbook when I was about six. It was the "Persistance of Memory" painting by Salvador Dali. I would sit and stare at that painting for hours! It stimulated a response within me at that young age that I will never forget! I began producing, and selling pastel portraits of people by the time I was nine years old. |
| Why do so many artists and creators have such volatile personalities? Hightened awareness. We are so stimulated with sight, and sounds. The things that "normal" people ignore, we do not ignore. As I stated earlier, my mind is always calculating how I would produce an image. Every single second of wakeful awareness. I have even "painted" in my sleep, in my dreams! We do not rest. I think that we become frustrated with people who do not seem capable of self expression, or who just seem not to care about it. People generally do not realize the hours, upon hours of solitude that the artist invests within they're artwork! Not only do we create in solitude, we also learn in solitude. The artist is alone with his/her work! The artist often will sacrifice personal health, companionship, and even hygiene in order to produce an interesting piece of work for the viewer to experience, and enjoy! The problem is that most people do not know how to experience it. They look at something for five seconds and then move on. They may even say "That's kinda nice"
The artist is of course screaming inside! I think that artist's are so creative, that we just can not understand how people do not, or can not appreciate what it is that we do, or the lifetime involved in doing it. I have had people say to me, "Dan, I just don't know how you can sit down and create something." My reply is, "I do not understand how you can not do it."
I think in the end. It comes down to the artist being frustrated with people who just don't get it. |
| Do you consider yourself postmodern? I consider myself "Cross-modern" I say this because I will use whatever "Style" that I consider to be interesting at the time. I do not limit myself to a cubism, dadaism, or classical style. As an artist, my passion is to create art in any form possible that will stimulate the human mind, and be experienced in a way to evoke a response. If I feel that I can use a classical style, surrealistic style, or any other style to achieve my artistic goal, then I do so. |
| How should a work of art be evaluated? Art should be evaluated by the feeling(s) that it generates within you. Whether it is to laugh, cry, or to induce a deep idea. Great art is not exclusive to the walls of art galleries. There are great resources of great art all over the internet,in magazines, on book covers, in movies, and probably in the halls of the school your child attends, or hanging on your refrigerator under a magnet which will never grace the walls of a stuffy gallery! It is just too bad that a select few can dictate to the population what the idea of art is. Art is not a "painting" by an elephant! THAT is commercialism.
If you are a human being, and you can pick up a pencil, crayon, or paintbrush, and express your abstract idea. That is to have a thought, and control your motor functions in such a way as to express it through the use of an outside tool for others to look at, feel, touch, experience, then that is art! |
| Must an artist reinvent him/herself everyday? I think an artist must reinvent themselves often to avoid becoming stagnate. For many years I was a traditionalist. That is to say, that I would not use the computer to produce art. I felt that it was not art unless the artist had his/her hand in the medium! I thought the artist must be covered in paint, graphite, etc. I thought the computer removed the "human equation" I viewed computer generated art as a series of button clicks by a non-talented individual which was just streaming together a series of shapes, and colors to hopefully make something kind of cool. Well, I was so narrow-mindedly wrong! I have since realized that the computer, and computer software is nothing more than a tool, much like a paintbrush, and canvas. It is how the individual uses the tool to bend it to they're will, and create an intelligent expression which gives it life! The "human equation" is intact!
I reinvent myself often. |
| Which artists do you admire and how do they influence your work? There are so many! I have of course admired so many of the old masters. I love Salvador Dali. I also love some of the artist's that do not always get a "fair shake" from the art establishment. In other words, I like the illustrators that we have enjoyed for the past fourty to sixty years. I love Norman Rockwell, Boris Vallejo, Greg Hildebrandt, and Frank Frazetta. Is they're work stylized? Yes. Do they paint the human figure in idealized expression? Yes. However, no more, or less so than Raphael, Michelangelo, and even Da vinci. You may see some of all of these influences in some of my work. |
| What do you think about public funding for the arts? There should be more!
As we have noticed from paleontology a culture is largely known by the artwork which survives it. Once again, not only by the "gallery art", but by the designs on clay pots, beaded sandles, and the pounded metal by the humble smithy. We need to fund more art projects in our cities, and schools to stimulate the young minds which are losing the ability to express themselves through artistic means, because the school system chooses beefy bodies chasing a ball, over exercising the creative mind! |
| Is art necessary? Without art you would be naked. You would be hungry. You would be un-educated. You would living in a cave. You tell me if it is necessary. |
| Does it pain you to let go of a piece you have sold? Yes. At times it does. It is truly like a child you are letting go of. As I mentioned before, think of the investment the artist has put into the artwork. |
| In art, there is no guide. How do you know what the next step is? You don't.
Experimentation is key. |
| What advice would you give to those just beginning? Never give up, never surrender! Remain true to yourself, and your own ideals, goals, and character always! |
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[dragonbrusher]
Dragonbrusher
Kalamazoo, Michigan
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