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

Alright, Danny thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I’m a self-taught artist and a trained musician. I also worked for a major food distributor for the past 12 years. My art has been a sustaining force in my life, but I always made it a secondary passion and made my career primary. Taking time to develop my skills and ideas while having a steady flow of money in the meantime. Over the past two years with the pandemic raging on, I used my artistic practice as a way of releasing stress. But it was also through this pandemic that I found art emerging as the primary source of light in my life. After discussing with my family, I decided to leave my career, return to school and further my abilities while also pushing to become an art educator or gallery artist. Finally getting some art shows at the Green Door Gallery and the Soulard Art gallery gave me the confidence to feel that I had made the right choice.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For folks reading about me for the first time I want them to know a bit about my life and why I am a creator. When I was young, I worked hard to learn the drums and piano. We had this tiny 66 key piano, a rare instrument really and we kept it in the garage. With my parents having drug addiction problems and the home life not very secure, I found refuge in that garage and that is where I started doing some of my first composing. I felt like I always had a river of emotions that I needed to release and the only way to do that was to sit at the piano and create sound. Any sound. As a visual creator I wanted to draw people, their faces, their bodies. I think that is one of the main reasons I focus on portraiture in my paintings and prints. It has been a long-time goal for me to merge these two focuses and mix sound with visual. I’ve dreamed of creating a project where sound informs my paint or ink. In my dream project I would like to use large speakers connected to a piano, then lay paper and ink over the speakers and perform a composition. Letting only the sound wave of my piano piece create the movement of the ink. I know this in an area that has already been explored by artists but, I think incorporating my own composition into the process could create performance based visual media that would be purely my own expression.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

If there were an ultimate goal driving my creative process or journey, I would say, simply finding joy. However, I think it goes a bit beyond just having joy in my life by also finding ways that I can share that joy with people in my life that I cherish and love. My nieces and nephews are very important to me, and I think that is in part to the fact my wife Elise and I were unable to have children. This weighed down on me for a very long time and in the end, I found that sharing joy with those close to me is the best medicine. I hope that my music and art can inspire those around me to do great things, especially those kiddos, Matthew, Sloane, Elliott, Jonni, Jack, Quinn, Cohen and Collins.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

First, I would like to address the question by stating that I believe everyone can be a Creative. I think there is a misconception that drawing, painting, playing an instrument or writing a song is reserved for a select few. In my mind, anyone can learn to draw, it’s just whether or not that person wants to admit that it will take time. They might have some bad drawings along the way and that’s fine. In that acceptance of self-pursuit, I think all people are creatives in their soul and it’s more of a question as to how that creativity manifests itself. So, the journey comes in not giving up and having a mindset that tomorrow we can do it better. The feeling of looking at something that you created with your own hands will be very satisfying. Secondly, I found that comparison is a great enemy of the artist. Comparing your own art to other people’s art can stop your progress. Instead compare yourself with yourself. Are you growing from day to day? If yes, then keep going.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dannybessart.wixsite.com/paint
• Instagram: danny_bess_art