Meet Austin McCormick | Artist

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

Hi Austin, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I grew up in the San Bernardino National Forest in Lake Arrowhead, California. I spent most of my childhood at my father’s construction sites and my mother’s dance school. Growing up in Lake Arrowhead is unique; it is a small town on top of a mountain. It has an epic elevation climb and views of the ocean from one side and the forest transitioning into the high desert on the other. I took all this for granted growing up until I left and moved to Los Angeles for college. After spending 16 years in the city, I felt the withdrawal and knew I needed to return to nature. It is now essential to my well-being and my work as an artist. Lake Arrowhead can be very dull, which, as a youth, often leads in two directions; destructive behavior, or imagination and creativity.  I was lucky to experience the latter. The unique blend of beauty and boredom influenced my creative development and resourcefulness.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

Lately, I have been interested in making hybrid sculptures and paintings that reveal process, action, accumulation, and decay and raise questions about value, hierarchy, and the environment. While living in Los Angeles County, I worked in various occupations where I saw excessive material waste. My experience stirred up questions about consumption, excess, and its impact on the environment. In my work, I collect and repurpose the discarded materials and production processes from these trades to flip the lens to look behind the scenes and value the process and work itself.

What sets me apart from others is my unique upbringing and adaptability. My work stems from my early exposure to making theater productions and homebuilding, where I learned to value craft and imagination, the practical and the expressive. This experience gave me the appetite to learn lots of different things. At art school, I was told in order to be successful, I had to focus on becoming an “iconic” brand with one style, which I could never commit to. I found out later that my stubbornness to be true to myself by following my interests was not a weakness but a strength. Eventually, I was offered a rare opportunity to illustrate part of a prop book for Martin Scorsese’s film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which I am incredibly proud to have been a part of.

Having acquired various skill sets has allowed me the flexibility to pivot in and out of different fields, including fine art, corporate events, the entertainment arts, construction, and illustration. Having a bag of tricks to pull from helped me survive in such an unstable economic environment and continue to be an artist. My art is a personal reflection of everything I have learned along my journey.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I just moved to Santa Barbara and am new to the area, but some of my favorite spots include Lotusland, various hikes in the foothills, the botanical garden, a bike ride along the coast into the funk zone, where there are breweries, restaurants, and wine tasting. Cold Springs Tavern for some tri-tip, drinks, and live music. State Street downtown for the art museum, Arigatto, or Sama Sama for dinner.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
That would be my life partner, Shiloh. She is my rock, best friend, and secret weapon.

Website: www.austinmccormick.com

Instagram: @austin_mccormick_art

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-mccormick-29279312/

Image Credits
For the portrait photo credit : Garret M. Clarke