We were lucky to catch up with Dan Gheno recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Dan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?

I made my first dollar—actually $10 as an artist at age 16 when I was asked to do a weekly sports cartoon for the Santa Barbara News-Press, lampooning the competitions between the many local High School football teams. It lasted for only around 10 or so weeks, the extent of that year’s football season, but it was a very formative experience, teaching me a lot about the importance of meeting a hard deadline. I still remember the admonition of one of the reporters there, Walker A. Tompkins, who advocated for me getting the job. “There’s no I’m sick, or can I just finish the cartoon for the next day’s paper,” he said. “The deadline is the deadline, and you have no choice in the matter but to hand in the cartoon—no exceptions even if you are on death’s bed.” A couple of years later, I continued doing political cartoons, illustrations and art reviews for the competing newspaper in the town, the Santa Barbara News and Review, lasting for the rest of the 70’s decade. All along, I was doing fine art and exhibiting locally, but as the 70’s turned to the 80’s, I decided that I had to emphasize one aspect of my career if I wanted a chance to excel at something. So, I picked fine art, since it allowed me to be more personal in my artistic expression. While there aren’t many “hard deadlines” in the fine art world, Tompkins’ words stick with me to this day. Especially at the beginning of my voyage in art, they helped me stay focused on my artwork, treating it like the job it was, holding to a schedule and trying to devise a timeline for my workflow even if it was only a personal goal that mattered to me alone.

Dan, 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?

In my life as an artist, I’ve tried to fuse a traditional vision of art with the contemporary, visual concerns that living artists are now free to experiment with. Most of my paintings are metaphorical in some way. In my artist statement I explain “I’m fixated and focused on the human figure and the concerns of humanity’s form, its anatomy, its environment, and its psychological concerns. I normally utilize the model as an actor, and I most often see the model as a player in a metaphorical tableau, depicting various states of mind, sometimes reflective of the communal human condition, sometimes directly autobiographical. As a traditional figurative artist I have a fascination with the Old Masters and a love of volumetric drawings and paintings, but I also frequently enjoy combining these interests with formal, abstract concerns that acknowledge the flatness of the canvas, and a fondness for painterly, expressive application of paint.”

Most recently, my artwork has moved into a more overtly political direction, perhaps as a partial return to my roots when I did political cartooning. But as I have pointed out in another essay I wrote for my one person show at the Reynolds Gallery of Westmont College in Montecito California, I don’t want these paintings to appear too didactic or obvious. Describing my approach to narrative and metaphorical art in general, I wrote, “I approach each new painting with a firm idea or concept in mind. Various scenarios run through my mind as I work, concerning the psychological, emotional or political implications of the objects or persons represented. I try to spontaneously work out a background history for the depicted scene. But I try to keep the overt meaning hidden, so that the viewers are left with the title or their own intuitions as their only clues.”

Drawing the human figure and face has always been a lifelong passion for me. The nude human figure in particular holds a great deal of abstract visual power for me. In my drawn work, I try to investigate its underlying silhouetted power as design and as a symbolic emblem of psychological, emotional, spiritual or sensual expression.

I don’t do as many landscapes now as I did a few years ago since my mother passed away, making it more difficult to get back to the California landscapes I enjoy painting from life. Living in New York City reduces my options both in terms of subject matter and weather conditions. But even here as in my time visiting Santa Barbara, I like to emphasize the individuality of each tree almost as if they were portraits of people, focusing on their forms as much as the terrain’s overall atmospheric perspective, often treating their limbs as I would the arms and legs on my figure drawings.

The written word has been a passion for me as well. Early on, I tried to combine a life as a writer with that of a visual fine artist. But I eventually realized I needed to concentrate on one or the other to fully develop my potential. While I’ve spent the rest of my life concentrating on painting and drawing as well as teaching, I’ve used writing as an adjunct to my teaching efforts. I wrote for Drawing Magazine and other periodicals about drawing and painting for many years, using it as an extension of my pedagogical pursuits. Many of these articles ended up expanded upon in my book “Figure Drawing Master Class.” I had plans and material written for a follow up book, but unfortunately, the first one is now out of print and only accessible as an e-book. So a printed sequel is unlikely to appear–but who knows, maybe another e-book is in the future. And of course, I will continue to do my in-person teaching at the Art Students League of New York as long as I’m able to walk there and artists continue to want to study with me.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Society puts a lot money and concern into the building of vast and impressive buildings to house the artworks of famous dead artists. That’s great and important to do. But, society gives the living fine artist very little support. Most of us have to make due with our situation. And many of us can if we are lucky enough and making artwork is our priority. But what happens to our artwork after we die? I’m of an age wherein I see many of my contemporaries struggle with the fear that they are leaving their children or close friends with an impossible task of dealing with a lifetime of their accumulated artwork. This goes for highly successful artists as well. Look at some of the photos taken of Alice Neel’s apartment after she died. Her hallways were crammed with stacks of canvases leaning against the walls with only a little room to walk. That about sums up the living situations of most artists I know, even the highly commercially successful ones.

It would not be an impossible task for society to set aside some money to catalogue and store the works of dead artists in a couple of simple, bare boned warehouses– probably at a fraction of the construction cost of a new museum. Art trends wax and wane, and while some artists may be hot today, maybe tomorrow they can’t sell their works anymore, but perhaps a couple of decades later, their work becomes hot again. For instance, William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s works sold for incredible prices during his lifetime, but in the 60’s they were selling for pennies on the dollar. Now his work is priceless again. The same with Van Gogh’s canvases, some of which were used to line the walls of a chicken coop after his death. Think of how different art history would be today if these works hadn’t been saved by someone with a belief in his vision. There has to be a way to protect undervalued art (and the history of art makers), to preserve it for future generations who might eventually develop a taste or historical interest in it. Unfortunately, it’s a doubtful dream given the direction that our society is headed.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being a creative is of course having the opportunity and time to do my own work. Time to work is a very precious gift that one must not waste, especially given that there are so many artists who are struggling with difficult financial situations that limit their ability to produce.

Secondarily, but perhaps equally important is my duty to find the time to pass on the information that was gifted to me from my past teachers as well as the lessons I’ve learned on my own as an artist. As artists, we stand on the shoulders of previous generations. And as a teacher of art, I see my role as a calling that one owes to all the artists who have gone before us, to pass on the traditions they built up over the ages. Most artists can trace their lineage through their teachers back to artists who studied with one another dating back to the Renaissance—and probably even earlier, when records of Master and acolyte were not preserved. It’s very rewarding for me personally that I’ve gotten to know and I think helped in some way to guide thousands of artists in their art journeys through my teachings at the Lyme Academy, The National Academy School and currently at the Art Students League of New York.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dangheno.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danghenoartist/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanGheno
• Other: @dangheno.bsky.social

Image Credits

All images reproductions photographed by Dan Gheno