We recently connected with Don Kilpatrick and have shared our conversation below.
Don , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
I have a few different projects throughout my career that have been meaningful, but some that stand out to me more than others was the opportunity to design an Olympic Medal for the XIX winter games in Salt Lake, my teaching both at CCS (College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI) as well as for Domestika (online courses/workshops), and my collaboration with Bespoke shoemaker / Artist Noriyuki Misawa on a pair of shoes that we both contributed to.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I moved to Detroit in 2007 to begin my career at the College for Creative Studies as a faculty member in the Illustration Department of which I have been the department chair since 2010.
I have worked as an artist and Illustrator, and my work has been featured in publications such as Fortune, the L.A. Times, and the Wall Street Journal. My illustration can be found on the Olympic medal for the XIX Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Most recently my work can be found in the form of a series of large-scale murals on the newly built Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit.
Additionally, I have exhibited his artwork in Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and Miami. The Butcher’s Daughter gallery hosted Kilpatrick’s first solo exhibition in November of 2012, and another solo exhibition in December of 2013, January 2015 in New York City, and in January 2019 at M Contemporary gallery in Ferndale, Michigan. This recent show included prints, woodcuts, paintings, and a collaboration with renowned bespoke shoemaker and artist Noriyuki Misawa.
My work blends various painting and printmaking techniques—painting, relief printmaking, mechanized monotype, laser-cutting, wood-engraving, woodcarving, and linocut. I explore personal themes and conceptual ideas, focusing on the tension between ambition and contentment, and the risks associated with questioning authority, particularly from a faith perspective.
I am fascinated by the dialogue between traditional and modern technologies, often restoring and repurposing old printing presses, and utilizing hand shoemaking techniques to create new work. This interplay between outdated and contemporary methods is central to my artistic process.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I have been a working illustrator and artist for the better part of 25 years now, and as an illustrator, I have learned hoe to create art under the circumstances. I have found ways to reconcile my own vision as an artist and work within the constraints of my clients, or others’ visions. I have moved towards pursuing my own vision without others art directing it. Through my partnership with M Contemporary Art gallery, I have shifted my focus towards solo and group shows of my work, and having more creative freedom through art directing myself through the themes I have been exploring in my work recently.
I enjoy working in both worlds. I enjoy illustration, but I also enjoy the freedom I have to explore themes in my work through my gallery work, and giving myself permission to direct myself for the most part. I also teach illustration and chair an illustration program, and this has afforded me the opportunity to explore my own work without the pressures I had as a working freelance illustrator.
Overall to sum it up, I see the larger lesson for me has been to not compartmentalize my work into “personal” and “client” work, but to look at it all more holistically and allow myself to carry one aspect of my work as an artist into another area.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
What drives me most is to expand my limits as an artist. I have a goal of expanding my art into bespoke shoemaking by combining it with aspects of my relief printmaking practice, and further exploring photography as its own medium, not only as something I only use for reference for my paintings and other work.
On my best of days I consider what I do as an artist as inspired by a quote from David Bowie where he speaks to “going a bit further where your feet don’t touch the bottom” ( I have to find this quote from a video clip I have saved and replay often).
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.donkilpatrick.com
- Instagram: @donkilpatrick_artist
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donkilpatrickartist
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donkilpatrick/
- Other: Online courses through Domestika that I developed-
https://www.domestika.org/en/courses/3161-contemporary-printmaking-with-linoleum
https://www.domestika.org/en/courses/4184-gouache-sketchbook-painting-your-surroundings
My page on Speedball art products professional artist network-
Image Credits
For headshots (or photos of me) please credit the photographer – Ali Lapetina