Studio Visit with Scout Dunbar
Originally recorded December 16, 2021.
George Irwin of Western Gallery visits with Scout Dunbar, whose work centers on mixed media and who is based in Tucson, Arizona, for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist’s work, process, and studio practice.
Transcript note: Speaker labels were assigned from the source audio where available and dialogue context otherwise. Paragraph breaks were added for readability, and verbal filler was lightly edited. Joint labels mark rapid or overlapping exchanges. This was prepared from an automated transcription, so minor transcription errors may remain.
Instagram Live studio visit—December 16, 2021
Watch the original video on Instagram (52:00)
Participants: George Irwin and Scout Dunbar
George Irwin: I'm here with Western Gallery and I'm assuming you can hear me.
Scout Dunbar: I'm in a different spot today, I started going to a co-working spot some days of the week to get out of the house. And today we're gonna be visiting Scout Dunbar's studio in Tucson Arizona. is a mixed media artist. She's our featured artist actually in the
George Irwin: Impermanent Collection this month at western.gallery, so go check out her
Scout Dunbar: seven new works that she's got available there. Some are really pretty large and some are a nice smallish size that you can put on your office wall. And they're just really amazing works and I'm trying to remember how I came
George Irwin: across Scout, maybe she can remind me in just a second. But I love her work and
Scout Dunbar: I'm excited to see her studio and talk to her about our practice so let's see I think we're trying to get this thing worked out here. It's been a
George Irwin: little while since I've done this so this is fun. Thanks for tuning in. All
Scout Dunbar: All right, Scott I'm trying to accept your request to join. I don't know what's up. Maybe I can do it the other way.
George Irwin: Scout, wait.
Scout Dunbar: There we go, invite. You never know when you do one of these things whether or not it's gonna work out. Though I did notice that now there's an option to practice first So I'm going to do that next time.
George Irwin: Let's see, Scott, do you see my request anywhere?
Scout Dunbar: Oh, it says you're unable to join. Uh-oh.
George Irwin: Can you hear me?
Scout Dunbar: Hey, Scott.
George Irwin: How are you doing? Good. How are You? Good to see you. Yeah, same. Thanks for having me.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well so you are in Tucson Arizona and it looks like you're out
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: in your studio. I am. There she is. Can you kind of yeah tell us a little bit about the space
Scout Dunbar: and then maybe you can show us around a little
George Irwin: bit. Yeah totally. So the space is cool. I just moved into it maybe a year and a half ago during the pandemic. It's a little historic adobe structure on the property we live on and yeah it's great, it's small I'm hoping to grow out of it at some point but for now it does the trick so my shipping stations pretty tiny but...
Scout Dunbar: I hear that it's I mean it's pretty big for you know some artists you know work
George Irwin: out of the corner of their room. So I built this amazing loft this summer to surprise me with
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: so that stores all of my work. Very cool. Can you do like a walk in from maybe from
George Irwin: the door? Yeah, cool. All right, so it's kind of great because we have this like this is the house, but we have this like really nice patio. So I'll set up artwork here and I may even start doing some studio visits or like mini shows in the patio maybe with other artists but it's really perfect for that so then we have our nice new garden too that we've been working on very abundant yeah so when you um let can i flip this around?
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: Yeah, I think so. There's like two for you. Yeah, so this is my space it's a little
George Irwin: disorganized right now just because of all the shows going on. Yeah, but I have my closet that you don't want to open because you don t know what s gonna fall out of it and then this is the best thing I've included in my studio space this year. It's my filing cabinet and it has a bunch of new work, some older work, prints all of the things I kind of want to keep protected. Yeah flat files are amazing highly recommend check out Etsy or Craigslist for those really expensive so this is one of my working stations. I do a lot of packing on this table and a lot of my own framing as well. Yeah, so this is Catalina Moonrise I have out it's like an 18 by 36 that's really long. It's actually like a really great dimension for these landscapes because it fits really nice on walls that have like walls above I would say like couches and beds even. So
George Irwin: that's keeping this one in the dining room. And then this is flak over the San Juan Basin to 18 by 24 so you can kind of see a little preview here. I framed this one myself, and you can see that I added this really nice delicate spacer on the inside of the glass. And that just allows the work to sit away from the glass a little bit. And because I work on paper, you see this like deckled edge and so I want it to resemble fabric. So I kind of like keeping it separate from the class.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, it's really cool how your work goes right all the way to the, you know, right
George Irwin: off the edge and it's a pretty delicate paper right? What is it? It is yeah. Yeah, it's made from a mulberry plant and the paper I get is made in Thailand so it's like a thin rice paper very thin and delicate and yeah see if you can show us that edge. Yeah it's kind of hard to show in video but you can see like the fibers, like the individual fibers are kind of tufted on these, the border there. And then I use this tool to rub the colored pencil into the paper fiber and so you can see too throughout the piece you get a lot of these very subtle textures where the paper fiber is actually being scuffed up and so in person it resembles fabric, more so than it does paper in a way. And then again you have this really nice spacer and simple wood frames. And that's a main working station. This This is like the wall I work on. So whenever, I'm working on a few pieces here now.
George Irwin: But this is really where all of the drawing happens. And you know, I was working on table but I realized that I was starting to get neck problems and so I found that by standing up to work I actually really protect parts of my body. Very crucial. HR is really happy with it. There's Georgia, she keeps me company. Very cool.
Scout Dunbar: A little reminder and inspiration there?
George Irwin: She always is looking at me so I feel like she's in the room with me. And then this is the other main table I work on and you can see down here all of my materials are in their little baskets and ceramic bowls. I like to keep all of the equipment I use. I want them to be almost as beautiful as the materials I have, and so I like to use all of these handmade baskets and bowls to store my drawings with Tyson. Very cool. Yeah, and then these are two of the other pieces for the show that I have out. Well how you're talking about keeping your...
Scout Dunbar: I don't know that a lot of artists do that with their, you know, specific materials. A lot of times like, you know, paint tubes and stuff get really messy but that's cool you can do that because like, I don t know, I feel like the space, you know, has a vibe and that influences the work and
George Irwin: Yeah, totally.
Scout Dunbar: And that's interesting how you're kind of like curating your space around you to help facilitate what
George Irwin: you were in. Yeah, I actually, John Miro's studio inspired that because if you look up photos of his studio, everything is beautiful. It's like the tables he works on the bowls, the paint brushes, everything was handmade and I just find that environment is hugely impactful. And I just want to, I don't know, like enter a clean orderly space that feels intentional. And while I love messy artist studios, I like visiting them more than I do working with them.
Scout Dunbar: That's cool and so you mentioned Miro and I think it's clear that he has a heavy influence on your work. I don't know, I was looking at your work and I was thinking Miro and I was thinking about... I can't remember... Kandinsky maybe? I donno. And just kind of curious like how you got to like your line work style on the maybe on the free
George Irwin: your form. Yeah, that's a good question. Um, well, I would say another influence is Paul Clay. Maybe you're thinking of him as well but you know it was actually I think it all came down to this one class I had an undergrad. It was a two hour history course that was really interesting. It wasn't art but like the only way to get through it was to doodle and draw. And so I would just like over-caffeinate, and then go to this class and sit in this huge auditorium and just draw like freeform. And honestly, I think like some of my best drawings happen in that class. And that's kind of where I can remember the freeform line drawings originating from. You know, I've always been into drawing since I was a kid obviously, but all kids are. So I think that was kind of the start of it. And then I kind of put it away for a while, but when I moved to New York City in 2013,
George Irwin: I was working part-time as a dog walker dedicated to making artwork. But I couldn't afford anything in New York and so I couldn' t afford printmaking equipment and the fancy equipment that I had at school. And so I just remember this one teacher taught us this really simple line drawing technique. And I started exploring that, just out of essentially a necessity to continue to make with the space I had and the means I had. And that eventually over the years blossomed into what I have been working with now. And I think that there is something like very... I think the simplicity of it is really interesting to me because while you can create these really sophisticated works of art, you can also maintain this childlike playful quality. And so for the line drawings that's really important for me to maintain that connection. Yeah, you asked me to do that.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, yeah, you mentioned I think in like the intro video that you made that allows you to kind of connect with your inner child I guess a little bit when you get into the drawing like that. It's awesome and I love how, I think that it's really cool how you've taken that in you know you said you found out you started exploring it um as just because that was what you had the means to do and you refined it into such a really like to really like be fine art at this point. It's really amazing that, you know, it starts with like just here and it ends up with this really beautiful drawing with these... this beautiful palette and framed piece that is really very nice. It''s awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Can we look at some of the drawings you've got going up on your board right now that are just the pencil drawings? Yeah sure. Whatever medium you use to start them with.
George Irwin: Yeah so I have some scroll, I've been doing this like scroll series.
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: I wanted to ask you if you want to go through those because those are so cool.
George Irwin: Thank you yeah and I took a break from them and I didn't realize how much I actually liked them until recently and I was like okay I should get back into making some of those. So I started a small collection of them that I'm hoping to have ready by early January or next week maybe, but I can show you kind of some of the works in progress that I have there. So okay so here's one that just has this has the initial ink drawing so obviously there's no color added. You can kind of get a sense of the thinness of the two or two. So what I'll do is make this initial drawing, here's a longer one as well. And then I will go into it with colored pencil and so for this one I would say this portion is complete. So you can kind of see the layering effect. My goal with this is to really blend the materials so they don't necessarily read as colored pencil and I also layer a ton of colors, so
George Irwin: like with larger geometric pieces that you saw each triangle has between two to seven colors in it. And that kind of gives it that like illumination and the depth. So this one is partially done. And then this is a funny circus pony I'm doing. But you know, those are really fun for me. I grew up with horses and so they've been an ongoing theme in my work and I just find them really playful and fun, and I also had a family in the circus for a while
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: and so like the circus theme is coming in. Wow that's amazing! I didn't know that yeah
George Irwin: I knew that your mother and then isn't your grandmother also were both artists? Yeah, my grandmother was an oil painter and she worked in Philadelphia for a while at Mora College of Art and Design as the director there. And then is a stained glass artist and sculptural artist. She does stained glass but not in the traditional sense. It's very abstract and I yeah her work is amazing. I think is a ceramicist in British Columbia. So we have a lot of, we're like the yeah, a lot artists on that side of the family. Cool. I think you cut out for just a second. Who's the ceramicist? Oh my aunt. Yeah so and that's all on my mom's side. So all of the women in that family aside from my one cousin have pursued the arts, which feels really great that are generational and happy to continue following their footsteps.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, awesome! I mean, I think it's really cool to have that kind of like a background too with female artists not being as represented in the past as they are rightly becoming now. That's really,
George Irwin: has that been notably empowering to you? Yeah it has because my grandmother was this amazing artist and she was an artist in the 50s, 40s, 50s 60s when Siswini really wanted her to stay at home and be a mom. And so I think throughout her life, she really was like torn between these two worlds. And so, I don't know, like part of the reason why I'm an artist is not only because it's just like my identity as who I am but it's also for me, I'm like trying to pursue the thing that my grandmother and even my mom a little bit like wanted to pursue but like weren't fully allowed to. That said, my mother is definitely pursuing art. She's a great, the typical quintessential artist. But my grandmother I think really struggled with this societal boundary. And I don't know part of me feels like I'm doing it for her as well. I wish that here so we could talk about art more
George Irwin: because obviously I didn't do when I was younger. Yeah, so I definitely feel her presence when I work and I think of her often when I'm in the studio.
Scout Dunbar: That's awesome, that's really special, that cool. Wow, okay. Well, you just said something that ran a flag up in my head and I'm trying to remember what it was now. Oh, I don't know, I was gonna say
George Irwin: Tell us your mother's Instagram.
Scout Dunbar: I found her recently.
George Irwin: Oh, yeah. So I run our Instagram account. I haven't been doing the best job, but it's just Linna D. Dolph. D-E. Linna d. Dolf. Linna de Dolph, yeah I need to work on that a little bit more because her work is phenomenal. She has like thousands of pieces in her studio and but like I said, she is like the quintessential artist so she doesn't really dabble in the business side of things. So that's part of like, what I'm striving to do as an artist is not only becoming a better artist but also develop a business so I can help other people do the same thing and just keep it sustainable for my family and myself and others who just want the same thing for their lives. But yeah, check out her work it's really good. Yeah she's amazing.
Scout Dunbar: Um excellent. Yeah so part of that I think... So remind me did...
George Irwin: Was it in rainbows when I was introduced to you maybe? Or...
Scout Dunbar: Like New Western Talent? I don't remember.
George Irwin: Yeah, my friend, my really good friend Brad DeFreeze. He's an artist in Montana now and he showed me the well so he connected us and awesome. Yeah, he's really great we talk honestly we bounce ideas off of each other like every single day I was just texting with him like 20 minutes ago like five minutes before I think I have to go now. Oh that's
Scout Dunbar: Awesome. I saw yesterday that it looks like he has an exhibition of maybe eight of his pieces altogether, but really good.
George Irwin: Yeah, he's working with a gallery in Helena, Montana right now and then he also works just through his own shop. He's getting an oil painting now so you've been fun to see.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, definitely. Cool. Anyway so what was it? So something about how I started... I don't know. I don' t remember what I was going to ask you about now. Went down a different direction and forgot about it.
George Irwin: Cool. So can you show us some of the tools and stuff? You mentioned
Scout Dunbar: like you rub the paper and I guess you're blending several layers of colored pencil or whatever.
George Irwin: Can you show some of your tricks of the trade? Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I have too many. Well, I will say the type of colored pencil you choose to work with is really important. So for instance, I think most people are used to, this is like nerd talk right now. But like most people aren't into like Prismacolor which is like the leading brand but they're actually like a really waxy color pencil and so if you want to blend your colors well I really recommend using the Faber Castell. You can see that? what I typically do is I kind of like first start off with like blocking out the composition with a light layering of color. Just so I can understand the direction of the piece and then I go through with this, it's just really common tool. It's just literally cardboard wrapped up in a pencil. And then you use this, there's a name to it I don't know what
George Irwin: it's called. I just like going to the art store and finding new tools and like playing around with them but... and then you just like sharpen it on sandpaper But this like blends this color pencil really well so it almost starts resembling chalk pastel and I actually started using some chalk pastels but that gets pretty messy. So if you're doing like detailed work, I would recommend using a colored pencil or like a chalk pastel pencil even and then using this rubbing tool. So once I do that, I just go back through with layers of, you know, like, I mean, I can show you but it's kind of boring to watch is just like, you know, okay this triangle has like one layer. It's really cool to see. Yeah and you just I don't know like kind of color over it with this tool and then but like that doesn't really do much when you look at it and so then you have to go back over and
George Irwin: over again with different colors and layers until it like starts creating this like gradation and the saturation picks up. And for me, the key is to just layer really gently because you don't... for my work you don t want it to be overly bold. Like I really like the subtlety so even this I would tone down a bit. And then after a while I go back over it with like a cream-colored waxy or pencil. For these actually I'm gonna go back over it in caustic so I'm going to mix beeswax and resin, heat it up and then paint over this piece with that material and then what I do is I create this really weird looking contraption where I like suspend the piece from the wall and I take a blowtorch and I melt all of it off and it drips onto the ground. And then you have this like really nice film over the paper, the paper becomes slightly translucent and then you can hang it in
George Irwin: your house without worrying about sun damage or it tearing as easily because it provides this like you know layer of protection. It's like a natural varnish sounds like yeah
Scout Dunbar: yeah that's a really cool thing so I was about to you know I think you just answered my question about that was like why do you do it on those scroll pieces and not the other but it's like it's just soap because they're not gonna be framed or they're just hanging right on the walls for
George Irwin: their protection. Yeah, so you use um I typically get these hangers these wooden hangers and they have magnets in them, and you attach those to the ends of the scroll and then you can just hang it really easily anywhere. Or you could frame it horizontally. They look really nice over beds as well, like almost like a bedboard or like a headboard. But I just liked the option of offering something that doesn't need a frame that can just suspend itself. And I tried a ton of different options and this turned out to be the best one I found so far, but it's always evolving. So we'll see what happens at times.
Scout Dunbar: That's cool.
George Irwin: Does your hand get really tired? Yeah, definitely. I am worried about like, yeah, I may have issues later on some arthritis or something. We'll see. Worth it, I think.
Scout Dunbar: That's good.
George Irwin: Well do you have like a, do you listen to music or anything in the studio or is it just like you and the sounds of your scratching? I listen to Music and The News a lot. When The News starts to depress me too much, I switch, sometimes I listen to podcasts NPR One because you have news coming in, coming in, but then longer news stories as well that like just go more in depth on social and political issues. So I really liked listening to that app. And then oftentimes I will work in silence because a part of the process it's really meditative. And so for me, like just allowing my thoughts to come and go while I make work, it's like a form of therapy almost. And so it kind of allows me to just process things and slow down and just like be in the moment without having other distractions, because there's already like so much going on
George Irwin: at the moment you really don't need anything else. But so I kind of go in between all of those those things. And then on days where I'm having a really hard time getting into the studio. I lure myself in with romantic comedies on Netflix or like HBO. So, I'll just like... So you put it on your screen in the studio? Yeah, I just bring my computer and if it's- My rule is that if it is the weekend and I'm working Or after hours then I am allowed to put on a TV show while I work while I work, but I try to be a little strict with that.
Scout Dunbar: That's cool. So after hours and weekends, so you keep like kind of a regular work week schedule?
George Irwin: I tried to. Um, I also believe that like humans like our emotions and our energy like fluctuate. And so I try to like be mindful of that and just respect that because I I don't, like, I know that I'm very lucky right now that I am able to be in the studio working as a full-time artist and I have the luxury of choosing when I work. And I really want that for every person because I personally believe the nine to five schedule is just soul sucking and I don t know I just don't think that's how we're supposed to live our lives and it sucks that we're living in a society that's like, you know, necessary or it feels necessary. But yeah, I try to keep a pretty rigid schedule for myself. But you know I am human and if I need to do well, I would say lately I've been overworking myself. So that's also a problem.
Scout Dunbar: Yes, I was gonna say it seems like you've been up to a whole lot as of late. Both with the show for the Impermanent Collection getting all that done and then I know you've going out to some different markets and stuff like that as well.
George Irwin: Do you have any are you gonna be out at any more markets the rest this year or are you done? I have one this weekend St. Philip's Plaza in Tucson. I'm gonna try that out. It's just one day and then other than that I don't have any lined up for the rest of the year but I think spring, I would like to do some more and I may do one in Tubaac Arizona in February but I'd like to use them on the west coast at some point if I can figure out logistics there but you know that requires an ending because there's travel involved.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, so you're in Tucson now and I know you spent some time in Santa Fe. This past summer you were in Maine for a while.
George Irwin: How did you, I guess end up like being in Tucson for now? And how does that...
Scout Dunbar: I don't know the whole thing kind of comes together with the Southwest vibe for you.
George Irwin: Yeah. I am really good at letting life just kind of happen and then I find myself living in the southwest, and I'm like how did I get here? So that kind of has been my go-to method for life I would say but you know moving here was very spontaneous and it felt like the right thing to do and it really was I think. And then I met someone who lives in Tucson and I came to Tucson, to try it out very spontaneously as usual. And his family lives in Maine and so we have been going there the last two summers we were given the opportunity to go visit and so yeah I've been kind of trying to figure out how those two worlds blend but I'm really excited about both of them. I just essentially am now part of two galleries in Maine that I'm really stoked about and the work that I make for them is like much different,
George Irwin: I would say than the Southwest work. Much more fluid line drawings that pertain primarily to coastal life and the sea and Maine, like the you know the main community that's there that we visit. So, you know it is a little weird and I'm also trying to establish roots back in my hometown in Ithaca because that place is just so important to me and my family's there and so yeah i'm not sure how it's all going to fit together but so far it is and it's pretty exciting and I think it's also like really important for me to take breaks from different places if that's possible for my other work. And so by taking a break from making just Southwest inspired work, it allows me to like return to this area with like more enthusiasm and excitement. So yeah, it's just like a balancing act. And you know, I feel really lucky that like I've been able to do that the last two years. And yeah, so
George Irwin: So it's pretty great.
Scout Dunbar: It seems like you are, I mean, I don't know much about your personal life and history but in general it seems like that you're really good at balancing a lot of things. And maybe that comes into your work where you've got all the geometry but it's also balanced with the organic landscape. I think that you've got a good, like that's a really good tension. You nail well. So it's cool to see that coming into your work.
George Irwin: Yeah, I feel that is there for a reason. Like I can only do so many of the geometric pieces before I like slowly lose my mind because they are very meticulous and mathematical and which is cool but it's really nice to balance them with the fluid line drawings I hope to do more of that. I hope you get into some painting as well, just to really just explore a different medium that's like a little bit looser and more spontaneous. But yeah, the balance is important. I don't know that I balanced like in my personal life that well. Like I remind myself to like eat food and like leave the studio but...
Scout Dunbar: Well, I mean, yeah, I guess I was thinking more like spending time in Tucson versus Maine and kind of going back and forth and finding that. And then you're talking about also the two different kinds or your two different styles of working, balancing each other as well. Let's see. Oh I was curious like on a back to the nerd talk.
George Irwin: So do you use like a lot of rulers and compasses and stuff when you're making your geometric stuff? Yeah, I use rulers for most of it. And then circles, I go to the kitchen and grab plates and different hardware for my circles. And sometimes I'll do them by hand so I'll measure out little pizza wedges and then connect dots. I really like trying to just test my eye and for some reason, they're so difficult to draw. But sometimes it's really fun to try to do it freehand. So I'll do that as well sometimes.
Scout Dunbar: Another more like technical process question I have is like your Southwestern, I guess palette that you kind of developed,
George Irwin: do you, for each piece, do you pick out like your pencils
Scout Dunbar: for the palette for that piece ahead of time?
George Irwin: or do you just kind of like let it happen as you're working? Or do you have just a set that you stick to in general? Yeah, I do both. Sometimes if I really don't know the direction of a piece I'll lay out colors and kind of do little test strips and plan it out. But then other times I just will grab something and I mean, really usually once I pick one color color to start with and the rest kind of fall into place. But yeah, it is helpful to kind of loosely plan out a palette prior to working. I find if I plan too much it never goes the way I want and so spontaneity I think is really important for me in terms of planning. Yeah. Interesting. Mr. Picasso 21 is
Scout Dunbar: asking, and I don't know if this is really applicable. I mean, in that you're not using acrylic much but if you use acrylic
George Irwin: paint how do you make the picture shiny?
Scout Dunbar: varnish it
George Irwin: Yeah, I don t, I dont use too much acrylic paint. I have varnished like colored pencil drawings and that but I always prefer to use a matte. So that I try to avoid too much shine. But you know, maybe what he's also referring to is like if I use like an oil or like a wax crayon oil pastel that oftentimes provides a shinier surface that can resemble acrylic. They're actually like really great tools. It's this brand. I don't know what this brand is. Ashe? Ashe. I know it's French. I I don't speak French, unfortunately. This one is like, it's kind of like a compressed oil crayon for adults and I use that a lot and that is a little shinier. But yeah. I don' know if that answered his question, sorry.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, yeah. Well cool, that's interesting and I wonder when you are burnishing those all your colored pencils and using so many in a small area, does that start to just get really shiny as well?
George Irwin: It can. If I overwork an area, it sometimes gets to be a little shinier, I would say because you're flattening out the fibers and then you see less of them and the surface just builds this waxy or texture which looks really cool sometimes. I think it is, it can be fun to play with the juxtaposition both like matte and shiny. But yeah, I would say varnish should be a really good option if you are going for a shiny top coat but if you just apply varnished to paper it's probably gonna buckle a lot so yeah I would maybe adhere it to a different surface for... What was the next thing I was gonna ask?
Scout Dunbar: I don't remember.
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: Alright, awkward Instagram moment.
George Irwin: That's okay. So when did you decide to do art full time?
Scout Dunbar: Was it kind of like a thing that you've always wanted to do and then you develop your practice until you felt like you could or was it something that you're just like, this is what I have to do.
George Irwin: Well yeah, it's always been the goal since I graduated school but you know life doesn't pay for itself. And so, but since graduating, I've never worked like, I'm never okay, how do I say this? I've been working other jobs since graduating school. But I always dedicated myself to the arts and so I never committed to full time work which was a huge sacrifice financially. And I I don't know how I made it through living in New York City, honestly. I really don't. Working part-time. I don' t know how did that. I somehow did it. I feel like I can do anything now but you know that has always been kind of my rule like you never give up on your art practice and realistically like I just couldn't because so embedded into who I am that I tried giving it up sometimes. It just didn't work for me. I was very unhappy. And so, yeah, really necessity, just financial necessity
George Irwin: made it so I wasn't able to do this full time until actually the pandemic. And then obviously, I was substitute teaching at the school district and schools closed. So I really didn't have any other options at the moment. And so I just wrote it out and somehow, I don't know maybe if people were really bored of their houses but I'm still so grateful that like a lot of people during that time reached out to have commissions made, custom work made. And like I had been selling art this whole time you know like and so I have like a little bit of a business going, the undercurrents. But it wasn't until the pandemic and people starting to commission some work. And I started to actually develop the savings that I was able to do this full time. And I haven't looked back since. But it really just reminded me that all people need to get started is just like a little bit of savings,
George Irwin: just a small amount of overhead, like oh, like just a little bit of capital goes so long. And I think the most important part of that for me was not just having like a small nest egg. It was just like finally seeing the vision and understanding that it's possible to be a full-time artist and knowing what that actually feels like because I'd only experienced it one other time when I had like a year-long fellowship that was like a stipend fellowship. And so just, it was so important and yeah, I see now like a goal of mine in the future is to get to a point where I can have enough of a savings to then give that back to an aspiring artist who like has to work a craft job that brings them no joy just to like give him a little boost So then they can go off and like make something with it, cause that's all it takes. At least for me, that was my experience.
George Irwin: And so yeah, this is the beginning of me being a full-time artist but I've been taking it very seriously and... Oh yeah. It'd be really soul crushing. So I'm just, yeah everything I cannot do.
Scout Dunbar: I definitely understand that. And you're showing, you show your work in a lot of, I mean, I think you're in some galleries but you're also showing in kind of like some hybrid boutique kind of gallery spaces too.
George Irwin: How, and there, and you've, and I want to say that you're someone like Santa Fe and
Scout Dunbar: Taos and kind of throughout the Southwest.
George Irwin: How do you go about finding these matches for your work? Well, Santa Fe in particular is just a really special place. And when I moved there, the first thing I just committed myself to was to just getting to know the community. And I met a lot of other artists and people in general through just the friendly and everyone. And so that really just unraveled very naturally for me. And I had heard about CeeLo Handcrafted, I think my friend Rachel Donner who's a potter in Santa Fe, she's really amazing. She told me about them and then I always just reach out and ask because I feel like what's the worst that can happen? So I connected with them And then Rachel actually also introduced me to Mariah at Momo's house, which is a great boutique and she has incredible works. And so I think for that it really was just about meeting people and being passionate and the women also I found in Santa Fe
George Irwin: are so supportive of each other. And so everyone's just like trying help one another out in their careers. And then in Tucson, I haven't, I have met some incredible makers here as well, who we've started forming connections together that have been really great but the pandemic made it a little harder on because I moved to where it started and so I'm still figuring out Tucson. But the community of makers here seems really strong and so I just it never hurts to ask. Just see if you're a fit sometimes they'll get rejected and other times people will be something in your work and really great friendship will come out of it. Very cool. Oh and then
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: that's a really cool spot in Albuquerque and there was a purline supply
George Irwin: spur line. Yeah they're in Albuquerque and also they have some artwork from local New Mexican artists but then also other people
Scout Dunbar: living in the Southwest so cool thanks for sharing all this with us I know I kind of threw some surprise maybe business questions your way. Oh no it was fine. conversation was going but it's really great to see your space and how you work and to see your works in progress there. Oh can you, well I guess before we go, can you show us real quick like again some of the pieces we've got in the Impermanent Collection?
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: Yeah sure. Scott made seven pieces for the Impermanate Collection. This is, that's the
George Irwin: biggest one right? It's Eagles passing. Yeah Eagles passing, the suns making it a little bit hard to actually see it. Yeah, but it's pretty large. You can kind of
Scout Dunbar: see it back here a little bit better. I love how that piece almost is like kind
George Irwin / Scout Dunbar: of like... it's almost a blend of your two styles. Yeah I started doing that
George Irwin: a little more which has been really fun. Yeah and then this is Road to Mount Graham and that one I really liked this one how it came out. It's a square too, which I don't typically work in square formats. Yeah and then these guys actually have someone here too. I wanted to touch up the frames so I took them out of their frames but these are a couple of the others that are in this show as well. And this one is actually one of my favorites that I I made. And it really blends, starts to blend the two styles you can see and I think that is a direction I'm very excited to go in. Yeah, I'm really enjoying this. And then this is something new that I tried out too. I, you know, small, small evolutions but I negated the black circle, the outlined circle, and then I I wanted to create this haisiness. I just made this really light, translucent sphere there that then casts sunlight down
George Irwin: into this area. This is inspired by a hike I recently took in Santa Fe at Alaya Mountain and the sun was rising and it's like so all of the mountains around it were bright purple. I just found it to be really, really gorgeous. It actually pairs really well with this one. They almost look like they're a part of the same piece. And then this is another one from Mount Graham in Arizona. So have to reframe these guys.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah, thank you. And I guess like your... so most of these pieces also are tied to, excuse me, are tied to like your experience in a location or with a
George Irwin: location and then like your memory of it? Yeah. So typically I'll go and I'll either take photos, but I really like to just sketch to a quick sketch of a place and sit with it and experience it. Um, so yeah, a lot of them are based on loose sketches and then my memory of the place. So they're not supposed to be accurate portrayals necessarily. But I just like, you know, sometimes some... You see one thing that sticks in your mind's eye and you just use that as inspiration for the entire piece. And so I find that I typically do that. And also if you're traveling through a place, sometimes you're going relatively quickly. And so you just have to like take snapshots of like life around you and like Kind of like date them later no But it's been really making work based on like actual places because at first with these works. I wasn't doing that I was just Drawing
George Irwin: And letting off in any way they wanted But now I'm really liking that they have a story to tell and so now also like when you travel, I do so with a different kind of intention. And it's been like really rewarding to bring something back into the studio from these experiences. It just ignites my interest in traveling not much more.
Scout Dunbar: Interesting. Yeah, it's going to be fun. Awesome, Scout thank you so much for chatting today. I know I've kept you on here for a while. It's really, really fun to see your space and
George Irwin: chat about your work. Yeah so much. Those are... sorry go ahead. Oh just thank you. I appreciate it.
Scout Dunbar: Yeah sure. Yeah um and I want to say the same thank you to all the people who've been
George Irwin: tuning in and or going to watch this in the future. Hello from past George and Scout. And be sure to check out all of Scout's work in the Impermanent Collection at western.gallery in your browser and then there's a bunch of it on the Instagram pages as well. So thanks for tuning in, and Scout I will talk with you in the future. Sounds great! Thank you so much. Bye everyone.
