We were lucky to catch up with Dance Doyle recently and have shared our conversation below.
Dance, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
From 2012–2020, my work was centered on one-to-one interviews with people who live in the San Francisco Bay Area who are or have been homeless, have struggled with addiction, and/or mental illnesses. Since 2009, I’ve been sober and this topic is heavily personal to me. My work, which resembles woven paintings, attempts to capture special moments extracted from experiences we’ve had along the way living in overpopulated urban environments in this country.
These interviews have included questions about resources, affordable housing, food, and access to medical treatment, their city has provided for them. In this series which I’m continuing with larger works, I tackle the nature of the stigma and the practice of harm reduction, how they relate through the lens of the public, and how that has a mirrored effect on public policies.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am an artist who was born and raised in Oakland. I learned how to dress a loom as a textiles major at San Francisco State University. I pursued teaching myself tapestry after college until 2015 when I started showing my work more.
After years of teaching myself tapestry on a big 4-harness floor loom at home in Oakland, I continued to grow.
My primary focus as a contemporary artist has been telling hand-woven narratives that reflect, piece-by-piece, examples of our human condition in overpopulated urban environments such as San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, LA, etc.
I also used to play really competitive soccer another lifetime ago. Fun facts!
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Buy work from artists that are still alive. Support your local artists.
The grant circuit is slim here in CA. California needs more foundations set up to support a thriving environment for creatives.
It’s not currently described as thriving because of the cost of living. More than ever now, I’m witnessing a mass exodus of artists to neighboring states. It would be a game changer if we had a California Foundation for the Arts. New York has NYFTA (New York Foundation for the Arts) which gives an artist, who lives (in the 5 boroughs of NY) an unrestricted grant of $50,000.00 every year. California should have a grant like this and more grants available for artists to apply to.
In Canada, you’re eligible and can apply for the same type of unrestricted grant every year. Many artists are supported this way and depend on these grants yearly. This means if you won last year, you are eligible the next year, and so on.
The cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area is overwhelmingly challenging and downright impossible for many artists. So, in the last ten years especially, artists have had no choice but to find a place to call home somewhere else.
I need to highlight that these are wildly talented Bay Area artists who would’ve added to the richness of our arts culture here if they were able to stay.
When I lived in New York for a few years, I heard from many artists that “New York takes care of their own”.
I want to say that about California.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I’ve always been an artist but In my early 30s, I studied real estate practices, principles, appraisal, and law and was about to send my credentials to Sacramento, CA so I could get a test date (California Board of Realtors Exam). I thought,……I know I’m talented at this woven tapestry as a painting thing. If I never give myself a chance to try this art career, I’ll be the saddest realtor on the planet. No one buys houses from sad realtors.
I set it up so that if I failed at the art thing, (which deep down I knew I wouldn’t) I could come home and sell single-family residential houses with no problem.
The art thing worked out. It’s my calling and I’m wildly invested in it.
We shall see what the future brings…!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.dancedoyle.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dance_doyle/
Image Credits
Dennis Tyler Photography.
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