The Art of Dining

The stereo-typical “starving artist” is a ubiquitous and enduring figure in popular culture, probably because there’s a lot of truth to a concept that embraces the extended family of creative professionals: painters, dancers, cartoonists, musicians, writers. If you sell enough of your art, you get to eat regularly.

It’s that first part that trips most of us up.

One time-honored strategy that visual artists use to overcome this dilemma is to partner directlywith restaurants. We provide them with pictures, and they feed us whatever is about to be tossed out of the walk-in. Even better, sometimes they give us real money, so we can sit down and give it back to them in return for a hot meal. Maybe two.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to see my work displayed in eateries large and small, all over the country. For more than a decade, my nautical Crab drawing has adorned the walls of the Crab House at Pier 39 in San Francisco.

Down on the Emerald Coast in Destin, Florida, sun worshippers have enjoyed burgers and wings at Beef O'Brady's, while looking at the Golf Bag and Baseball Glove.

Though I’ve never seen it myself, I am told that the Baseball print also hangs in the Ladies’ room at Glory Days Grill in Sterling, Virginia

In the New Orleans area, the Juke Box and Saxophone blend harmoniously with the local traditions at the McDonald’s restaurant in LaPlace, Louisiana. It was here that science teacher Barry Guillot discovered my work, and came up with the idea for the Gator Aid project.

The latest gourmet gallery to showcase DS Art drawings is Dyron’s Low Country in Mountain Brook, Alabama. Owner Dyron Powell commissioned two large canvas prints of gourmet favorites: The Crab returns on a grand scale, and the row of Long Stemmed Rose’s stretches a full six feet along the wall. Just a half a block from our studio here in Homewood, Alabama, a Golf Bag print decorates the wall of Sam's Super Sandwiches, right there at the end of the counter. And soon the Gator Aid drawing will be catching grits and gravy in New Orleans restaurants, as an art activity placemat.

Needless to say, I am very proud of the fact that my silly drawings have found their way to these many fine dining establishments, where they can be seen and enjoyed by so many people. If one of these restaurants is in your area, please stop by – often – to partake of excellent food, and pretty good décor, too. And if you spot one of my pictures hanging out in another eatery anywhere in the world, send me an e-mail and we’ll add it to the list.

Did they pay you in food?

While I am contractually and ethically prohibited from revealing the specific details of any of these exchanges, it is apparent to anyone who sees me that this artist has missed very few meals in the past 25 years. With any luck at all, I plan to keep up the practice for a long time to come.

Don

New DS Art Ballpoint Pens

I hear it all the time in my travels around the country, from wonderful people who appreciate my quirky ballpoint pictures: “Some pen company must pay you a lot of money to endorse their product!”

From their mouths to God’s ears. After thirty years of using a ballpoint as my primary medium, I can best answer them (and often do) by quoting the young ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, when asked why he hadn’t yet performed on radio.

“I’ve been turned down by experts!”

Yes, my artwork has come to the attention of several of the big ballpoint pen manufacturers, and we have been pleased to receive favorable reviews from some of them. So far, though, none of these companies has found a place for my drawings in their strategic marketing plans.

Their collective oversight has only encouraged me to find other ways to promote my art, specifically in terms of this unusual medium. Why, for example, couldn’t I find a pen that relates in some way to a particular drawing, and then sell the pen along with the picture?

(Or vice versa: sell a picture along with the pen? This caused me to pursue another round of contact with the various ballpoint companies, with a repeat of the results noted above.)

Why not consider creating my own line of pens?

Taking the idea a step further, why not consider creating my own line of pens? It’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever done. If I could come up with some way to produce a ballpoint pen to my own specifications, and then tailor the design to reflect a certain aspect of this or that drawing, we might have a way to promote the artwork and the medium.

No time like the present to try. So I got in touch with Mike Hulsey of MikCon Creations (www.mikconcreations.com), to talk about creating a special series of pens for the Gator Aid picture, part of a fundraising effort to support Louisiana’s Wetland Watchers (see August blog entry below).

Mike obtained a small supply of recycled cypress wood, and is now hard at work turning out the first official DS Art ballpoint pens. The selection of cypress fits perfectly with the efforts of the Wetland Watchers, who plant hundreds of cypress trees each year to help re-establish a healthy ecosystem along the shores of Lake Ponchartrain.

Ten of the new cypress pens will actually be used to draw the Gator, which is currently in progress here at the studio. These pens will be framed with a special set of ten Artist Proof prints of the picture, and offered as premium presentation pieces for the Wetland Watchers fundraiser.

This is just the beginning. If all goes according to plan, we will be issuing select pen designs for any number of future drawings. If these are well received, we may be persuaded to issue a standard line of DS Art ballpoint drawing instruments – unless of course one of the major pen companies makes us a better offer first.