"I feel like I've spent the first half of my career helping people create memories and the second half helping people recall them."
- Dave Russo
Ancient Times
Dave's cartooning career started as a teenager in concert lots and festival campgrounds ("lot" for short) in the mid-late 1990's. Rolling through on his skateboard with paper and markers, he'd draw fans, often in groups, in exchange for burritos, tickets, party favors, or cash. Hundreds of these caricatures are still framed on the walls of seasoned concert goers, who named him "Scribble".
Throughout art school and then into his career, he preserved the marker style developed on lot with its explosive center, undefined borders, and kinetic energy. Even in paintings, the markers still find their way in, even if only in spirit and style.
Running Away with the Circus
In 2006, he founded The Primate Fiasco, a band that would soon go on to perform at many of the same festivals that he'd attended as a fan. The band toured for over ten years, achieving five albums with radio spins, a Grammy nomination, and somewhat of an odd-ball cult following. As a musician, often topping the bill, Dave no longer needed to hustle for burritos, tickets, party favors, or cash. These things were already supplied for him. His visual art was still a large part of the band's identity, though his electric banjo was the weapon of choice. His new campground hustle was trading memorable moments through surprise parading sets in exchange for an empathic rush from the surrounding dance party. All the while, his art career weaved in and out of the band's environment.
Down Shift
In late 2017, Dave's will to be a performer was struck by a perfect storm. What started as an inspiring dance party had become a sea of cell phone videographers. A very close loved one and muse had died. And a mysterious psychological phenomenon caused music to sound like nails on a chalkboard to his ears. It would take at least a year before he was able to listen to music again. The Primate Fiasco quietly switched off and went their separate ways.
Fortunately, his art career was still humming along in parallel and it now has no distractions.
Surprise!
His fans watched as the art rolled out. Finally, people started asking "do I recognize this style? Is the singer from Primate also that Scribble guy from Phish lot?".
Dave was unaware that the print market within the concert scene was exploding. His musical themed traveling art gallery and poster design vacuumed him back into the music festival world. Instead of a smile and nod from the stage, he now has the entire weekend to connect with his fans.
Process
"I try to leave as much of the process as I can to chance, mainly because I don't believe in chance."
As described by the artist...
"Let's say the drawing is a restaurant. The first step is staring at the empty paper while thinking about my restaurant memories. Perhaps my band performed there in our early days. And maybe I met dear friends or lovers there. I would try to let myself feel those feelings again. These feelings will manifest down my shoulder and build up in my elbow and wrist. I'm clutching the marker with the nervousness, love, laughter, and confusion of the feelings I've dug up.
When the marker starts to move across the paper, it's fast and loose. Only some of it is deliberate. Like, I chose the color to match the bricks and I at least attempt to mimic the shape of the building in 2D. Those parts come from my brain and not my body.
The rest comes from my body, where I let those memories manifest. Missing that old friend. The thrill of having an audience jump to the rhythm of my fingers. That perfect combination of people around a brunch table. It's my body that determines how fast the marker is moving, how hard I'm bearing down, whether it moves in a gradual arc or zigzags in an unpredictable way. This is my body more than my brain. I'm just the messenger to some degree.
All of that happens in the first 3 or 4 seconds. To an onlooker, the page has an explosion of spirals and scribbles on it. To me, I see the conversation I had at the back table, or the person I saw for the last time on the stairs. Then I might switch colors and try to wrestle it into form. Each new layer of color has to conform to the previous accidental seismic reed-outs, as if the concrete was poured that way or the carpenter was from another dimension. Eventually the windows and lights tighten it together into something recognizable.
After all of that uncontrolled madness, I pick up a black fine tipped pen. Now is the time to slow down and deal with every accidental drop of ink. The edge of the color where the ink meets bare paper is not a straight line but a jagged coastline. I'll outline it meticulously, choosing what becomes foreground or background. This is where spirals become 3d. If I choose not to outline something, it will seem blurry. If the background is left blurry, it mimics a camera's depth of field. If it's the very distant background it might look like atmospheric perspective. Perhaps it's the reflection in the water that I don't outline. Bla bla nerd stuff.
The black outline presents me with limited choices based on the decisions I've made in the past. It's like life in that way. Sometimes I regret some of the marks on the paper because they present a lot of navigating. More often, I regret the things I didn't do. For the most part, I'm having fun reliving the whimsical landscape that I may had forgotten I created had it not been for that black pen.
In the end, the black outline tells me when the drawing is done against my will. I can no longer add to it. I can no longer change it, just like the memories themselves. When I look at the finished piece, even if it's a year later, I still see how my hand was releasing that joke I heard in the parking lot, or the exhaustion I felt during the encore. It's written right there in plain english, like a tiny needle drawing an earthquake."
- Dave Russo