A chance encounter with Dave

When I joined dA, Dave’s gallery was the first I stumbled upon (a serendipity, yes). I have been chained to the site ever since with his quips and dry sense of humour.

Who is he really? A photographer? A musician? His mother’s son?!

Not focusing merely on the photographer, let’s take a closer look at his personality and explore how an abstract artist  sounds more like a modern philosopher..

#1 Your name: davespertine.. clever word play, where did the idea come from?

finding names to use as unique id for websites is a new phenomenon
unless we get in there quickly our preferred names are already taken
so to avoid simply putting numbers after those original choices we have to invent new names

i started looking through my dictionary at words which started ave, with the view to putting a d on the front to form dave+restofword
avenge - too vengeful
avenue, average - too average
i didn't like those, the word has to have something both in meaning but also in sound and meter
so i tried words beginning with ve
that's when i found vespertine
[active in the evening/occurring in the evening] was suitable for my nocturnal nature
it had a gothic almost vampire like feel to it, not that i am a goth type, or a vampire
but i still liked the imagery
so i became davespertine, with a simple bit of welding

Oh, I understand this humour around wordplays.. in some ways all the words are nonsense, why couldn't we invent new ones?

inventing new words is a great thing to do, truly creative
words take on new meanings, and names are often alien to new cultures anyway
so anything goes these days

language is evolving and mutating, and will establish itself as a global form faster than the gramatists, (if there is such a word) can keep up with...


#2  What's your real name by the way?

my real name is Dave (David) Cox

what is yours?

Now I feel like I am being interviewed My full name is Ida Pap

Pap, is that short for paparazzi?

Nice one! I haven’t even thought of that before
Frankly, I was a bit worried about asking you straightly about who you are.. I was expecting a bit more abstract answer like "I am not what I am" and such

#3  When have you first taken a camera in your hand?

I never really liked film cameras
they just didn't do it for me... i guess it was too expensive to be excessive and too wasteful to be experimental... i got back one roll of over exposed white images, then a roll of under exposed black ones.... i didn't realise their minimalist qualities at the time and gave up

i first flipped on photography when my brother bought a digital camera - probably 10 years ago
it was a sony mavica, which had a x10 carl zeis zoom, and stored it's fairly low res (640x480) images on to floppy disk
i used to borrow it from him and i just photographed everything in my flat in every way i could imagine
i had two batteries and 100s of floppy disks, so i could photograph all day...... which i did... to complete excess

although it was completely automatic, i found techniques to force it into different exposures and focal distances

these images were taken with that mavica camera:




i really wish i could have that same camera with a better resolution

I wonder what was your brother's first expression when he got his camera back..
What did he say when he found five hundred pictures of pipes, cups and dices?

my brother didn't realise quite how many photos i was taking with his camera
and none of my family were all that impressed by my images


So everything started in a room.. Now I understand how your hunger for excess worked out: you found yourself invading the streets after a short while

#4  Tell me why streets? Why not landscapes, flowers, animals or people?

i was completely influenced by other artists on this site
looking at my early favs, i think the influences from there are clear
i don't exactly know what grabbed me about these street found abstracts

street


abstract
:thumb25774495: :thumb45020181: :thumb39349967: :thumb48228012:
:thumb35870783: :thumb44116747:
:thumb42307145:

texture
:thumb39110669: :thumb43396254:


number



i think that we can discover the styles of abstract painters like rothko, mondrian, malevich, kandinsky, pollock… etc
in the work of our contemporaries whom we admire

I like this phenomena around inspiration.. it reminds me a bit of a chain reaction.

inspiration...it is a chain reaction, a revolution


#5 How long have you been into photography? Have you gone the self-trained route, have anyone watched your first steps?   

no one has ever showed me anything in the 10 years or so since i've been taking photographs.
i like to figure things out for myself and have developed my own techniques

but i don't think of myself as a photographer
i like to think that i'm an artist
a lazy painter

i honestly just let my images create themselves, my process is to recognise what i like
lose myself in it..... it's not about getting what i want
i don't feel like i own these images, i just found them


For ten years? Jesus. I see now, it's quite enough time to discover everything by yourself You don't feel you own your images? I like this humble attitude..

#6 Is that why you don't sell any?

no one knows everything
unless it's though the collective unconcious
in which case we all do

i don't like consumerism
that's why all the things we need get more expensive, and the things we don't need get cheaper

Cheaper? As for me those things (we don't actually need) cost 2 or 3 times more expensive than their worth.  

Art should be the scene where people could get away from this spoilt, commercialised world.. it should exist for its own sake.
I am always disappointed when I see an artwork along with a harsh marketing promotion.. (it's like standing up on a stage and shouting that I am very unique, so come on everybody.. buy me) Even price tags confuse me.. how can anyone judge how much art is worth? Who is to determine the value.. the artist or the audience?
(And what if nobody wants to buy my pictures.. does that mean I asked too much for their value? What is too much? Why do we value things (which is subjective).. in order to place them somewhere on the price scale and stamp them with a price tag?
I am not against people who sell artworks though.. artists have to make their living too. But I would feel embarrassed if I was asked to sell my photos..
What would you do?  

#7 Let's say I love some of your photos, I would like to hang them on my wall!

thanks

i am not sure that what i do is photography
photography is that pre and post art of film and photographic paper
it has a chemistry
digital art is different, it still has pre and post stages, but the chemistry is gone
i create images and they are created for screen
some of them don't have the resolution and size for print
some are cropped out of larger images and will only ever be small images

computer screens are like digital picture screens
except if the same image stays for too long, it buns itself into the screen
hence the need for screensavers, but soon they will overcome that
i imagine they will invent a kind of digital paper

we generate millions and millions of photos
i never print mine
but at some time i will
i would love to do some really large scale images
but i am really careful about being wasteful of resources
i know i will have to waste some to get it right

for me, working for print would mean working in a different way
and i would like to do that, but for the moment, i am just experimenting with other stuff

i don't like the word 'work'
i won't describe what i do as my work, it is my art
work should be something physical that people do together, to get things done
i think that we have lost something by losing the art of working together as a community
so people become increasingly overweight and isolated, community is dying

perhaps that is why i like abstract art, the stuff we find in streets
because it is so accessible, anyone can do it, and maybe that brings us closer, more like a community
i don't much like the elitist arts, those that say, i can do something that you can't do
mostly because i don't think it is what we need as a society right now

i don't think there is a future for the hierarchical system of elite power and privileged
people will abandon it, and leave those crazy climbers stuck, like a cat up a tree

i have no space on my walls, and no real desire to see my art on any wall
because it all seems so temporary, hang it up, rip it down and throw it away - disposable
we are creators of rubbish, no disrespect to artists, just to mankind for being consumers of plastic containers
until we move out of that culture
digital is suitable enough


This was veeery davespertinish! You know how to lead the way to positive thinking.. very impressive!
I always wonder where you get all the power and insight to your artist's comments..

#8 What do you feed your mind with?

i just write
it just comes from somewhere
and writes itself

it has become easier to do
especially avoiding all formal rules
like punctuation and grammar

i believe in the collective unconscious
i has occurred to me, that the overbearing complexity
of law, taxation and bureaucracy in general
is designed to stop people from thriving on pure common sense

it seems as though government strives to undermine simplicity
either that, or the greatest minds that our establishment nurtures
are woefully inadequate
but no one can be that stupid
therefore it has to be a conspiracy
either that or it is a strange nightmare that i am having

informal simplicity rules!
less is more


You are very conscious of the community – society –  glitches in the ”system”..
I have a feeling that you dare to face something we don't
or simply we don't care to face the truth
are we blindfolded, lazy or… what do you think we are?

#9 How could (should?) the overall blur around people be cleared?

the answer is a blur... it is an ideal... something that only exists in the imagination of idealists
any new set of ideas tends to bring up a whole set of new problems
ideals for society are probably impossible because everyone has their own set of ideals

i believe in empowerment of individuals and the end of hierachical power structures
i don't think that the greatest minds are that great, no greater than anyone elses... just different
we all have valuable insights and perspectives... many of those perspectives are excluded from influence and we pay the price for that

people change when others listen to them, respect their views.. from when they are ignored, put down and ridiculed
respect is hard to come by in society, it has to be earned, possibly because too many of our leaders are not so trustworthy
i think everyone deserves respect and people are wrong to maintain their own status by stifling the opportunities of others who may propose a threat
but then people don't trust each other anyway.... respect and trust, the lack of is probably the biggest blur that exists for us
and they go together hand in hand

if we all had nothing, nothing to lose... then we would realise how much we had to gain from trust in others
and we would respect others for different reasons that their status and what they had achieved

there are many who are not respected simply because they have no aspirations for personal status or the accumulation of wealth and success
we are driven into the blur... one day the mist will clear and we will see that our greed had been masquarading as necessity
hopefully that day will not be the end of us


I agree with you except I don't believe the time will come to clear the mist. I mean there will always be people who will prefer living in the blur than living in the reality.. (the government has done a good job brainwashing,  otherwise living in the mist is just a choice.. blur is all around us but you can always choose to see out of it)
In order to clear the overall mist, the whole system has to be radically changed. This might be the end of the world

#10 Taking a closer look at individuals and the everyday life.. what do you think of living life to it's full potential? Could it be achieved?

it's a very difficult question
truth is i have no answer
no one has the answer
everyone has an answer
that is my answer
what is the next question that everyone should answer?


Hehe (I wouldn't like to ask questions everyone could answer)

#11 Are you happy with your life? (if you could rate your satisfaction/happiness with your life on a scale of 1-10, what would it be?)

sometimes i am happy sometimes i am not
i could not rate it because it changes all the time
it would be: 8, no5, no 3, no 6, no 1, oh no 0, 9!, 4........

i think if you have ups, you have downs
you can level it out, but who would want to do that?

if someone says "my life is a constant 10".... they probably mean it is a constant 5


I would like to know how do you balance this "hapiness index" in practice..

#12 What does your daily routine look like?

the 'happiness index' as you call it balances itself
i accept the fact that there are ups and downs

i don't like routine
i avoid having one as much as possible
some routine is unavoidable though, mostly for financial reasons
but i keep that to a minimum so i have time for spontaneity

there are always things which become habits and while they are desirable they are worth persuing
but i think it is important to break the habits and find new ones
i have a routine for breaking habits


I believe routine is pretty needful in our life, however it has some negative consequences.  All routines are about following a pattern, which balance the weekdays well and also brings some rhythm in life.. I imagine what life would be like without routine and I see a huge mess

#13 Apart from your "routine of breaking habits", what do you do for a living?

i am a musician
i think music brings more rhythm to life than routine
however, the rigidity of routine is doing its best to end any form of spontaneity
this forces musicians like me towards teaching rather than performance
less routine would make for a more musical place


#14 What instrument(s) do you teach?

i teach guitar, bass guitar and composition
but i can teach anyone something about music
i can do workshops, develop bands and i can help musicians with their creative ruts and droughts
i also sometimes help people develop a positive approach to what they strive to do

but i am still a performing musician above being a teacher
although i seem to be obsessed with the visual arts at the moment


I wonder if you play with the strings as good as you play with the words?

#15 How much time do you spend editing pictures amidst teaching?

i don't spend a lot of time on my images
i have a process, almost a routine
probably takes a few minutes per image

i used to work on images for hours in editing programs
but i am convinced now that less is more

i have realised that if i put a lot of work into an image
it seems to take more work to appreciate it
they can become contrived very easily

i have a large stock of images that i've taken over the last few years
as i'm not really inspired to go out and take photos that much at this time of year
i go through my stock
i keep everything and although it is largely rubbish
it is amazing how useful that rubbish can be

i have recently become a better at spotting areas to crop
and i think the square format really helps with that

so all in all, i spend more time going through images to find which to use at the moment


#16 What are your plans for the future? Have you ever thought about your own website? Would you showcase your art somewhere (e.g. exhibition, art institution/ anywhere else)? Collaboration, charitable contribution.. is there anything you would be open to?

i will make a website for my artworks at some point

i'm starting to collaborate more on dA
which is great... it is important to take it away from yourself
and share in the joys of creating something

my images are mostly created for the 'small screen'
some are suitable for a small book i guess
but i've actually never seen them printed in any form
i would like to do something really big at some point
i mean make a massive image, just to experience the large scale

but mostly, i don't feel the need to create a physical copy
of what is essentially a digital thing

however, that could well change
i am open... to anything


Finally, tell me 5 facts about youself!

i am allergic to mornings - they make me sneeze violently
i don't have a TV because i find all sorts of rubbish interesting
i like to drink with older men and sleep with younger women
i need a certain amount of time to myslelf
i am going to have a cup of tea now
i sometimes don't know when to stop


I pretty much see that Leave it to me then!

Enjoy the tea!