We recently connected with David Wayne Fox and have shared our conversation below.
David Wayne , appreciate you joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t being creative in some way. As I grew up in the suburbs of several Texas cities, I began by taking pen and crayons and copying the pictures in my childhood storybooks, particularly L. Frank Baum’s Oz books. At the same time I was always putting on puppet shows, sitting down to my mother’s piano and plunking out the latest melody I’d heard, or just singing along with my (very musical) family. I was nurtured by my parents to create in any and every way I could – and boy, did I. In high school and college I studied acting, painting, music theory, singing, set design, and composition. I had no idea what I wanted to do with all of this, I just knew I had some talent in all these areas and wanted to study as much as I could in all the arts. The only one of the arts I realized I had no talent in was dance – I could move on stage but it took me a week to learn how to put one foot in front of the other.
The effect of this multiple field of study was that while I learned much in each field, I found it hard to focus on one area. Thus, out of college I ended up with a 9 to 5 job in the art department of a Texas screen printing and billboard company. That lasted for a year, then I moved to Denver to be near my family who had moved there a few years prior. I landed a job in an optical lab making eyeglasses in “about an hour”. I gave up my work in the arts for a few years and became utterly miserable, so somewhere in my early 30s I got back to painting, writing music and acting again – never at the same time, but in rotation! Interestingly, while I always enjoyed photography, it was never anything I took seriously. At best, I used my photos as guides for my paintings which were all very realistic. I vowed to never again let myself be without a creative project – it became almost a religion to me to make sure I was always creating. After moving to New York in 2009, that became so easy to fulfill on all fronts – I continued to paint, I acted on stage, and for the first time I got into film acting. Around this time as I continued to paint, I also began using photo manipulation on my reference photos, never intending them to be seen on their own – but noticed I was coming up with some interesting photographic images on their own merit.
Then came 2020, and I was furloughed from my job and housebound for the first months of that year. Between dodging a virus that no one knew about and watching my country nearly fall apart on several levels, like many of us I was depressed and frightened like I had never been before. I took to singing on YouTube to calm my nerves. And then in August 2020 I decided to teach myself a new skill, so I began learning Photoshop and beefing up my photography skills. The year before I had begun dabbling with portrait photography and bought myself a nice full-frame Nikon, so rather than let it sit and collect dust while we were all social distancing, I took it out on the streets of the NYC theatre district and captured images of the deserted streets of Broadway. I then brought these images home and tried out my new photo editing skills, creating a mood with these shots that went beyond the original image. I posted a few on Facebook, and immediately people began asking where they could purchase prints of these shots! After selling a few to Facebook friends, I realized had something here. I started collecting other shots of the city I had captured, as well as going out on photo walks to take new ones of a still-forlorn NYC which was the first and hardest hit by this deadly pandemic. I captured one vast, empty shot of Grand Central Station that redefined the stereotype of the wall-to-wall people that just a few months before had been its trademark. It’s still one of my best-selling images. A month later I had my first online shop on Etsy, selling images from several places but mostly from New York. It has enjoyed a modest success, not enough to live on so I’m back to the full-time work in the optical business – but I have made sure to give myself enough time in the week to continue with my creative work, and I feel like I’ve struck a good balance for now.
David Wayne , 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?
As i mentioned, the creative life is almost a religion to me. I don’t believe we have to limit ourselves by separating the arts as much as we do. Many of my clients have observed that my paintings “look like photographs”, but now that I’m focused more on photography I’ve been told my photos “look like paintings”. And indeed, in editing my shots I employ many of the principles of light, shadow and composition that I have learned with my painting. Yet there is also music to be heard in these shots, and pictures to be seen with the music I have written. It’s all interconnected, and that is what I believe makes my work unique in many ways – I use most or all of the disciplines I have learned over the years when I am creating no matter if it is playing a film role, writing a choral piece or editing and displaying a photo. Even if it’s not blatantly apparent, it’s always there in the background. Those same principles apply toward the increasing amount of portrait work I have also been doing – I particularly love some theatrical portrait work I have been doing with actor Romy Nordlinger for her one-woman show about silent film and Broadway actor Alla Nazimova, in which I have been trying to emulate the style of 1920s Hollywood portraits.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
Creative people need time alone. That is commandment number one in my Book of David’s Creative Life journey. It can be a blessing and a tragedy at the same time, and creates challenges in interpersonal relationships. But there are many rewards for a creative soul who shares with other creative souls on a deeper level, and artistic collaboration can be as satisfying as a marriage between two who are deeply in love.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding part of being an artist is that I set the rules and I create the worlds. I see my whole life as a blank canvas, an empty page of musical staff paper, an unfilled digital SD camera card, or simply a blank page in a notebook. Even at 61 years old, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of possibilities that are there, and that promise of new projects and new adventures will keep me young until my last breath.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DavidWayneFoxStudio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidwaynefoxphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidwaynefoxphotography/
Image Credits
All photography by David Wayne Fox