We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Daniel Endicott a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I don’t remember there ever being a time when I thought I would do anything other than make art for the rest of my life. I was extremely lucky to have parents who helped me follow that dream from a very early age, there was never any hesitation on their part in fostering my love of art and pushing me towards making a living doing it. Though I knew it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life there were times when the reality of life stepped in and I had to find other ways to make money. Those times only strengthened the drive to make art full time in me as I realized very quickly that it was a rare boss who I would enjoy working for.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I sort of work two jobs as an artist. One is my day Job in which I create beer labels and take photographs for Forest & Main Brewing Co. and the other “job” is creating large oil paintings, mostly figurative, which I have shown around Philadelphia.

I graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2005 and very actively pursed a career as a painter for a few years before opening a brewery. The brewery has since allowed me to follow a career in art as the label designer, or Art Director.

My label design relies heavily on playful illustrations, mostly in watercolors and ink. They have a very present hand visible in them which is something I think sets our labels apart from others.

My paintings are often of cropped body parts dramatically lit and playfully arranged. The paint is thickly layered, giving the bodies a real weight and depth.

Both my labels and my paintings have a strong vein of comedy running through them, while stylistically they have little in common I think they share much in terms of subject and feeling.

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

I think we can start with kids and better foster the creative spirit that is in everyone of us but is all too often crushed by either a lack of time to create, a lack of acceptance of art as a good use of time, or pressure to make art that looks like something (i.e. draw a person that looks like the person). I’ve seen the frustration in kids when they think they aren’t good at art just because what they are drawing doesn’t look real, its so sad. If we could all hold onto the joy we have at ages 3-5 from just putting marks on paper, or paint on walls even, I think we would have a greater appreciation of artists in general, and probably a lot more very talented artists.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I’m driven each day to try and make better art than I did the day before. I believer art is no different than sports, music, or any skill, in that if you practice you will improve. There is no substitute for hours logged practicing. I try and make art every day and I feel every day I’m a little better than the day before. Sure, some days the end result is not great, but that’s all a part of learning and improving.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.danielendicott.com
• Instagram: danend81

Image Credits
Daniel Endicott