Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Ray Everett

Hi Dan Ray, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?

According to my mom I started painting when I was one when I smashed my birthday cake and started drawing with the icing. My mom is an artist, so I assume I started as soon as I could hold a brush or a pencil…most likely a crayon. When I was eight there was controversy over an art contest when a painting I did won first place. The submitted painting was a portrait of my dog Coco, and apparently people thought my mom painted it. So that was my introduction to the “art world”. My mom had art shows all of the time while I was growing up, and she still does to this day, so I felt very familiar with artists, and art shows. My mom would take my sister and me to the Philadelphia Museum of Art at least once a month, sometimes more if there was a great temporary exhibition. During the end of middle school and the beginning of highschool I was very inspired by Surrealism, and I started making paintings inspired by that movement. However, art stopped for a few years when I started living with my dad. During the last few years of highschool we could barely afford enough to eat occasionally, so naturally my focus on painting was moved to the back burner. I worked full-time and almost never went to school. My dad couldn’t keep a job after selling his business as an arborist; needless to say, times were tough. When I turned eighteen I was kicked out of highschool for never attending. I immediately received my GED, but shortly after when I quit my job, my dad kicked me out of the apartment. That summer I stayed with my mom, but I needed to figure out a plan. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I remembered how much I loved art. With some encouragement from my mom I decided to go to art school. I found a two year school, DCAD, and I was accepted based on my early highschool art portfolio. DCAD was a great school, despite it being new and small. The teachers were very passionate and I learned a lot. Things took a turn for the worst at the end of the second year, a few months before graduation my dad took his life. This left me devastated. Before this my teachers would tell me I was on the track to being a famous artist. A strange thing to hear from your teachers, and classmates. I tried not to let all of that go to my head. After my dad died my passion for art went away, and amost immediately, all the praise went away too. It was night and day. Before my classmates and teachers would talk to me as if they were in the presence of a soon to be famous artist, but in those last few months at DCAD my drive and focus completely changed, and everyone’s opinion changed also. I feel strange talking about all that praise, even to this day, because I genuinely did not enjoy that attention. I only wanted to make great art, and before my dad died there was a fire inside that drove me to make art, but after he died that fire went out.
After I graduated DCAD with my Associates degree, I briefly attended PAFA, my dream school, but quickly ran out of money and had to drop out.
I eventually ended up attending MICA, where I received my bachelor’s degree.
Looking back on my two years at DCAD, I realized that I was a big fish in a small pond. In contrast, MICA was a large pond full of the best artists from all over the world. Having no desire to make art, and no longer being the big fish made it very difficult to be there.
Similar to DCAD, I got into MICA based on my portfolio. The only difference was this time I received a huge scholarship. MICA was nowhere near one of my top choices for art school, but with that scholarship I felt that I needed to try it out. I was very lost at MICA because my passion for art was still gone, and the curriculum offered there was not what I was looking for. My work during my first semester had my teachers and classmates scratching their heads, wondering how I got into this prestigious art school. I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore and I did not want to be there. With some guidance from a few supportive teachers, I decided to study abroad in Florence, Italy the next semester.
I studied fresco painting and finally started to get my passion back for art. In Italy I found an unexpected influence, which I will talk about in a bit. I really hope to return to Italy one day soon.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

I would not describe the road as smooth, more like an endless winding, upward dirt path along the razors edge; but it’s the path I chose and continue to travel. I’ve been making a very modest living for the past ten years, mostly from selling my artwork. Even though it’s been challenging, I wouldn’t change anything in those past ten years. I’ve made a living from my artwork and I can’t imagine doing anything else. I lived out of multiple vans, RVs, and studio spaces during those ten years. I traveled along the West Coast selling my art in gallery’s, events, and just selling on the street. I am currently located in Portland, and I just finished two murals. In October I started renting a space inside of the “Memory Den”. The Memory Den is the largest vintage mall in Portland and has been renting spaces for artists to use as studios, gallery’s, and shops. I’ve been using my space as all three of those things and I hope to continue renting my space for as long as I can. I have my original artwork on display and a shop with screen printed shirts, and prints for sale. I use part of my space as a studio, so you can find me working on new artwork most days.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I just had an interview with you and explained a lot about the inspiration behind my work, so be sure to check that out. I make acrylic paintings with the subject matter centering around my love of mythology and storytelling. The past year I’ve been the resident artist at Mother Foucault’s bookstore in Portland Oregon. I just had a solo show featuring my work, titled: “The Snake and the Golden Baby”…a myth that has continued through my work for the past fifteen years.
The work I’m most proud of are my pieces which are inspired by Persian and Indian Miniature paintings. To relate back to my time in Italy; while I was there I found a book on Persian Miniature paintings. I was shocked that I had never seen this style of painting before and that it was never brought up in all my years of art school. I showed the book to all of my teachers and they all had the same reaction, “oh that…no, that’s not REAL art…just folk art…” Etc. To me this was the most beautiful art I had ever laid my eyes upon. Not only was I astonished that I never knew about these art forms before, but to have my professors dismiss the entire genre was, for lack of a better term, heartbreaking. It truly felt like everything I knew about art before was just a lie, or just some facade. From then on I collected as many books as I could find on both Persian and Indian Miniature paintings, and read the intricate history of both art movements. I learned that the masters of these miniature paintings would claim to not use any tools to make their pattern work; no rulers or compasses, just free hand. After reading this I studied the intricate pattern work of these paintings, and many of them I could tell that the pattern work seemed a little off, and was clearly done free-handed. I enjoyed this quality of imperfection very much. However, some patterns were so intricate and so precise that it was hard to believe that tools were not used. After studying these paintings and reading about this, I had the ambitious idea to try it myself. Most of my pattern work since 2009 has been free hand and most people do not believe me, or are shocked when I tell them.
My website has all of my artwork available to view or purchase, so you can see for yourself:
https://danrayeverett.storenvy.com/

What were you like growing up?

I was very introverted as a child. I would spend a lot of time in my room drawing, and I would spend as much time as I could in nature. I remember imagining other worlds to draw. I would have an idea for a strange world with strange creatures and strange rules. I would start to draw one part of the world, and as I worked on it I would add more aspects, either characters or landscapes. I could get lost in these worlds for hours. Pretty strange for a child, but not much has changed. I still find myself getting lost in imagined worlds.
Getting lost in nature gave me the desire to create these worlds. I could spend hours just focusing on one little scene in nature. For example, sitting by the edge of a pond and watching all the strange creatures interacting and dancing around. Focusing on a hundred tadpoles swimming around, some with legs, some without. Watching all the strange water bugs skimming across the water, and other bugs diving in. A scene like this makes you feel like you’re witnessing another world, especially the longer you observe. Of course this is our world, but the longer you watch the more subtitles you notice, and you get this strange feeling of being a stranger in a strange land.
My true passion for art is to create these worlds that are both believable and unbelievable simultaneously. Worlds that are familiar, yet bizarre and unexpected once the details reveal more and more.

Pricing:

• Please visit my website: https://danrayeverett.storenvy.com/ I have all of my artwork available for sale, along with signed prints.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://danrayeverett.storenvy.com/
• Instagram: danrayeverett