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Dave Zackin | Episode 580
Dave Zackin studied animation at RISD, taught art classes for adults with schizophrenia for a few years, redesigned the recycling stickers for the City of New York, and then got into ceramics. Dave’s work, mostly depicting old men with big noses, is often made from greenware and bisquware discarded by others.
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I’ve heard people say, I’m not creative at all. What do you think about that comment?
I think everybody can be pretty creative. I feel like if someone is saying they are not creative at all that maybe they are afraid of embarrassing themselves. I kind of like to embarrass myself a little bit. If I have a secret, I can’t keep it a secret for more than ten minutes. Like I did something terrible and I want everybody to know about it. I am kind of on that side of creativity, even if it’s bad I think, Let’s me show you this thing I made.
When you approach a piece do you have an idea before you get to the piece or do you typically come up with the idea in front of the piece?
I always come up with it as I am working on it. I guess my work has two things, I make a lot of ones that are crazy old man faces, and then I make ones that are kind of painted jokes on a pot. And so for that faces it is always kind of , I keep mushing it around until it looks kind of human and then I keep on messing with the mouth and I am like, That’s a real facial expression somebody could have. I think I have hit on something real! So it is much more trial and error and I think that is why clay works out so well for me too, because when I just draw with a marker you kind of only have one shot and then you have to scribble it out, whereas with clay you can keep on mushing it around til you find that spot where you want to be. If I do do a sketch it may inform a little bit of what I make but I always make something different once I start handling the clay. I figure it out as I go along.
Do you do a lot of doodling and drawing before you go into the studio? Is that a practice of yours?
Yeah, I am always doodling. Those nose on my character may be a nose that I have drawn before but I can never quite draw the same thing twice so the sketches don’t quite lead up to what I am going to sculpt but the sketches and the sculpture are both part of the same world.
Do you make room for boredom in your life?
I don’t know. I guess I am pretty fidgety so I am always doing something. I think what I do with boredom is take the bisque ware that the studio is going to throw out and paint it at home and I just try to find an activity for when I am bored.
How about social media and looking at other people’s art. Does that help you be more creative or do you find that it tends to be a hindrance?
No, I think it’s good. Again, I don’t think it directly informs my work but I feel like there are artists who influenced me and figured out ten years later things like I really liked Mad magazine and that is where these faces come from, but looking directly at other people’s work I am just kind of psyched to see what they do. The North Carolina face jugs are really cool and I make jugs with faces on them but I am kind of from a different tradition.
Does seeing other people’s work that is “better than” yours, does that spur you on to be better for your work?
I don’t know if it makes me make better work but it makes me get into the studio and make work. This is one thing that really stuck with me from art school, I had a drawing teacher who said, You have twenty thousand bad drawings in you, draw those twenty thousand bad drawings so you can get to the good ones. So that is sort of my practice to try and make a lot of stuff and if I am making a lot of stuff I will make some stuff I really like. So I don’t try to get better by doing anything specific except keeping on making stuff.
Do you tend to generate way more ideas than you can actually use?
No, it’s like I don’t have an idea at all until I start painting, so it’s like, Alright I might as well start with an eyeball. I guess a nose comes next. O man, I should figure out something for this one to say because otherwise it looks just like a face that I have already done. The act of making something is how I generate the idea. It’s like, I don’t have an idea before hand, I don’t have an idea after. It’s just like when I have the clay in front of me, I better come up with an idea otherwise I have to clean up and wash my brushes and clean the clay off my hands and go home.
So for you, doing is the process of discovery.
Yeah, definitely.
What is your favorite tool to use?
I just like a little, pointy ribbon tool. Most of the ribbon tools are kind of rounded but I kind of like it. I will sometimes squeeze it so it has a bit of a triangle to it. In sculpting, my favorite thing to do is little lines under a character’s eyes. That is the most satisfying thing.
Book
Who needs Donuts? by Mark Alan Stamaty
Contact
Instagram: @davezackin