David Rice - Two Creeks

1. What do you love most about the place you live? How does it influence your work?
Its the trifecta: Mountains, Ocean, Rivers. I grew up in Colorado exploring the surrounding mountains and that has carried over to my new home here in the Northwest.   I really love the idea of what happens in a landscape when no one is around to document it. The stories we don’t know about because no one was there to witness them. 

2. What inspires you to make art? Can you tell us a little bit about the influences and inspirations behind this particular body of work?
The natural world is my greatest inspiration. Like much of the what I have done in the past, this body of work continues to explore themes of nature by personifying its inhabitants and introducing new themes of security, nobility and authority. The focus is on an animal’s individuality, rather than grouping it into a species of non-differentiating members.

3. You incorporate a lot of textile patterns into your works, what is the significance of those?
We use repeating patterns to create a sense of order and harmony. We try and create a balance and aesthetic to please our senses in what we perceive to be a random world. These patterns exist on a scale beyond what is right in front of us. They are in nature and can be seen if we are actively looking. I use these patterns to bridge a gap between human and nature.

4. What do you find the most challenging/rewarding aspects of being a professional artist to be?
The most rewarding aspect, is simply getting to create. I think everyone has that desire on some level: musicians, carpenters, architects, brewers, etc. If you get to turn an idea you have in your head into an actual piece/product, then you are pretty darn lucky. The most challenging thing? -trying to verbally make sense of the ideas I want to express in my work. That and keeping paint off of my clothes.

5. You were interning with Blaine Fontana. How do you feel that experience helped you grow as an artist? What was the single most important lesson you learned? 
I’ve learned more in a year at The Fonatana Studios than I did in four years of art school. We worked in every scale/medium I can think of and that range has made me much more versatile as an artist. The most important lesson I learned when working on a painting is - if you mess up or aren’t happy, you can always paint over it. Nothing has to be permanent.

6. As supreme leader of the totalitarian regime which rules the People’s Republic of Rice which artist/art movement would you censor and/or exile and why?
I would probably have to exile the fine art movement of mariachi playing in crowded subway trains. That and clowns, can we just get rid of clowns already?

7. Conversely, whom would you commission to make your visual art propaganda?
- Well that’s a really tough question. I would probably compile a super group of my favorite artists like Andrew Hem, Sten + lex, Serra, etc, and would have to have my main man Mr. Fontana be the creative director of the crew.

8. If you had a time machine would you go backwards or forwards?
Keep moving forward

9. Extrovert or Introvert?
Introvert

10. Outer space or deep sea?
Outer Space. No boundaries.