We were lucky to catch up with Bill Dambrova recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bill, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I’m a fine art painter now, but when I went to undergrad I didn’t know what type of art I wanted to make so I chose a BA in Studio Art which allowed me to explore different mediums like Sculpture, Drawing, Print Making and other strange programs like one they called “Inter-media” that I’m not even sure if it exists anymore but it was about making site specific installation artwork. I took a few basic painting classes and didn’t learn much more about technique than you could learn from a book for beginners. At the time, (Early Nineties) there was this strange trend at ASU Art School for professors not to really push technique, but to push concept. By the time I was taking more advanced classes I actually really liked making conceptual art so I went in that direction. What’s funny about that was that most of the “artwork” that I created didn’t exist in physical form so I didn’t have much to show for my degree. I wasn’t interested in a Masters Degree. The professors told me that I only really needed it to get a focus or to teach. I knew I didn’t want to teach, and I figured I could get my own focus and save thousands of dollars and have more fun doing it. When I got out of school I ended up organically choosing to make paintings. Since I dint learn how to paint in college I basically taught myself to paint the way that I do now and it’s not exactly traditional. I use a variety of methods based on years of trial and error experimenting with different mediums and types of paints from cheap house paint to new types of color shifting oil paint that allows me to work at the pace and speed my brain does.

Bill, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I got a degree from ASU in Studio Art back in ’93 with no real sense of how to be an artist making and selling paintings for a living in Phoenix and I was not in any way interested in the business of art. The galleries in Scottsdale were geared mostly towards Southwest art and the few contemporary galleries we had weren’t a fit for the work I was making. The obvious thing to do was to try and get a job in a gallery or museum to see how things really worked. I got a job as a guard at the Phoenix Art Museum and in 2 months I learned about other types of work I could do in museums and I moved from guard to prepararor (art installer/ furniture builder). Being at a museum allowed me to meet professional and even famous artists giving me a glimpse into the bigger “Art World”. Two years later I was hired at the Heard Museum as a preparator and within a year and a half I moved into the design department as an exhibit designer. All this time I was painting when I had the chance but museums were becoming a career and I had less time to give to art. I moved to Los Angeles in 2003 and worked full time at several major museums like the Getty and the Natural History Museum, and the Long Beach Aquarium. Sometime around 2008, I was working full time for a design firm on the East Coast remotely from Hollywood. The recession happened and I got laid off. that was the best thing that ever happened to me. One of the projects I was working on wouldn’t move forward unless I could continue to be part of the team, so the company I was working for hired me as a freelancer for quite a bit more than what I was making on salary. This was eye opening and liberating… Now I could work part time as a freelance designer making the same money and have time to make art. From there design work became project based and I could work for a museum for a few months then take time off to make art and travel for a few months then start the cycle again. I have since lived in Hollywood, Venice Beach, Leupp, AZ (near Flagstaff, and now I’ve been in Phoenix for 8 years perfecting this balance of doing project based freelance design work and having large chunks of time to put towards my art practice.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Aside from the obvious getting to paint in the studio while listening to music all day and being part of a really great local art community here in Phoenix, I really like it when people that may not see themselves as knowing or caring much about art start up a conversation with me about my work and end up becoming a fan of art or even a new collector.

: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
There is a “creative itch” I need to scratch or I get grumpy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://billdambrova.com
• Instagram: @the_gila_woodpecker
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bill.dambrova
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-dambrova-0a652724/