8 Years of Austin: Opened January 3rd, 2020
Upon arriving in Austin in 2011, my main thought was: WTF am I gonna draw? I had spent years obsessively sketching my fellow straphangers during my daily commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but as far as I knew Austin's rapid transit system was underwhelming. Where was I going to find people and situations compelling enough to document in a moment with pen, pencil and watercolor? I found my first answer in music. As the amazing diversity of subway riders trapped with me in a metal tube for 30 minutes had driven me to draw, so did the amazingly robust and accessible music scene of Austin. Like the subway, it was quick and fleeting, perfect for my frantic style of drawing. But unlike the subway, there was a community based around it, and I began to find ways to connect with that community through my drawing, painting and in-time animation—a medium which gave me the opportunity to express more fully what I was experiencing when capturing live.It was a quick sketch at Fun Fun Fun Fest (RIP) 2013 of Killer Mike letting the fest know it was ok after technical issues prevented him from performing that connected me with my friends Mike and Josh, the stage manager of this venue at the time, and connected me in with a broader community, appropriately through the Mohawk. From music I began to explore other parts of Austin culture, engaging with other creative folks, capturing the people and creative ideas espoused around town. I connected with an old colleague, Ben Thoma, who had started up a chapter of Creative Mornings here, and I began to attend regularly, capturing the ideas and the energy of the speakers. I have thousands of sketches, paintings and animation from the last 8 years, some of which I love and many, not so much. I have done my best to share as many of them with you here because for me they all work together to create an experience greater than the sum of their parts. My hope is that my work will have you walking away from this experience seeing things a bit differently, connecting with aspects of this city and your daily experience—both mundane and extraordinary—a little more acutely. Thanks for coming and I hope you enjoy.
Photos by Mike Manewitz
Photos by Ron Pippin of Shiny Object
