Meet Donald Fodness | Multifaceted Creative Engine

We had the good fortune of connecting with Donald Fodness and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Donald, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I was born on a farm in Minnesota. My parents divorced when I was young and each year I split my time between northern Colorado during the school year and the Fodness farm all summer. In my mom’s household we had a blended family of 8 kids and 2 adults; I was the oldest of the lot. We started out in trailer houses, and even once lived in a barn, while my stepdad (with a 10th grade education) launched his construction business which ended up doing very well by the time I was graduating high school. During the summers I lived with my dad in rural part of Minnesota. While running a farm and ranch is serious business, he was a reclusive biker type and kept actual motorcycles and engine parts in the house. Both environments were very wild and feral. At my dad’s house I was encouraged to hit indoor targets with throwing knives, ninja stars and guns. At my mom’s house, because both parents worked often and I was in charge of the other 7 siblings, it was consistently a “Lord of the Flies” situation.

These environments have had a significant impact on what I call my “clusterfunk aesthetic”. Otherwise I think these experiences have taught me to be resourceful, resilient, and restless. By restless I mean I am able to quickly and smoothly transition between materials, processes, projects and ideas in ways that keep me interested and excited about what I am doing and the end result is a satisfying productivity.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art is very psychological. While it stems from the personal, there is enough reference to the cultural commons that others are provided inlets into an otherwise hermetic space and the psychological nature of the imagery is relatable in terms of emotive residue even if the audience never knows the specifics.

Immediately after high school I started working in metal casting foundries. This work was physically laborious but also allowed me to listen to audio books all day long and study first hand an ancient artistic process of metal casting so it was a very unique informal education. Even though I performed grueling physical labor during the day I would push myself to work an equal amount of time and energy with my own personal studio practice in the off hours and even rented a chicken coup as a studio. I produced several meaningful bronze castings from this time in my life. I eventually shifted to part time employment at the foundry and studied as a non traditional student earning an art history degree which I completed at the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana. While working at the foundry and attending school I was also exhibiting my art professionally. I moved around the west living in Utah and Arizona where I continued to work in metal casting foundries. In Arizona I worked at Cosanti where we poured 2000 degree bronze outdoors in the 100+ degree daily heat of the Phoenix valley before moving back to Colorado to earn a Master’s of Fine Art in painting at CU Boulder. Throughout this timeline of working in foundries and and while attending universities, I continued to exhibit professionally and immediately upon graduating with the MFA I was showing in China, the Boulder museum of Contemporary Art and shortly after at the Denver Art Museum. I have experienced great fortunate with these opportunities but they have always come with persistent hard work in the studio and a fair share of rejections that go unseen. Over time I have learned a type of efficiency with directing my energy towards the right opportunities so I have faced less rejection than some artists do, but developing a thick skin and knowing not to take things personal is essential in this field. This can be difficult for artists because so much of what we do is personal, and felt at the depths of the soul.

In addition to my own personal art I also curate and organize exhibitions and opportunities for other artists. One highlight of these endeavors is the “Drawing Never Dies” project that I co founded with my wife Daisy. It initially started in 2016 as an expansive exhibition that celebrated drawing is a primal artistic act with a multitude of variable outcomes.
Almost ten years later, it has evolved into an experimental artist residency out of a treehouse (of my design/build) and publication celebrating drawing as the most essential act of visual communication. Our expansive and inclusive residency fosters creative exploration, connection, and personal growth through a celebration of visual art’s most fundamental act: drawing.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
To the right people I highly recommend Lakesides Amusement Park. Its just the right amount of oddly layered aesthetic history and grungy organic patina that can’t be replicated. I also think a concert at Redrocks Amphitheater is an essential thing to experience when in Denver.

Art lovers should see museums like the Clyfford Still Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Kirkland Museum, but also galleries like David B Smith, K Contemporary, and DIY spaces like Leon and Dateline. My friend Rebecca Peebles is doing a really cool creative project out of her house called “Home Safe Projects” where she hosts curated art exhibitions and improv events. She used to run a gallery in a dispensary and it was one of the most vibrant venues in Denver. Anything she organizes is cool.

Tobias Fike (who is another friend of mine) and I curate art exhibitions in unconventional contexts such as an abandoned uranium mining town, a college party house, and most notably in Denver, we’ve organized an ongoing series of art exhibitions out of a taxidermy shop in collaboration with The Terrorium (which is another cool Denver spot worth checking out especially during a TAD pop up.

As far as food and drink goes, I recommend Goldspot Brewery and Post Oak BBQ. I am a reformed vegetarian of 18 years and Post Oak does the trick for my newfound love of high protein meals. Linger is a cool spot to have a rooftop drink, and Power Cone is my favorite Ice Cream shop.

Lastly, I love taking walks at Regis University. The campus is an arboretum it’s such a beautiful, peaceful and contemplative place.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I am grateful to my wife Daisy McGowan for her support in what I do and the level to which she “gets me” I am a pretty weird guy to get and she is right along with me on everything which is pretty cool. My parents for making me, my kids for maturing me in the right ways and keeping me young in the right ways. I also want to acknowledge the Tao Te Ching as a guiding text and principle for much of my life.

Website: www.donaldfodness.org and www.drawingneverdies.com

Instagram: @donald_fodness and @drawing_nvr_dies

Image Credits
Connor King
Wes Magyar
Raymundo Muñoz