Summary
Dan Edwards joins us on The Official Stuck On An Eyeland Podcast. Dan is a traditional portrait sculptor that uses his talent to reflect the times. You may have seen some of his work on artists such as Nipsey Hussle, Denzel Curry, and George Floyd. In this episode, Dan talks about the difference between when to profit off of art and when to create something for the people that’s accessible to all.
Notable Time Stamps:
Background:
10:22-10:36 “I’m old school, I was trained old school. I was trained by The New York Academy of Art in figure and portrait. We used clay and wax, and made brass and bronze molds, it’s old school.”
Work History:
7:24-7:29 “I was a public sculptor back in most of the 90’s”
7:50-8:28 “I did a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert Kennedy back in 1995. From that point, I started working closely with the King Family, Isaac Farris at The King Center in Atlanta for another project that ended up in the Olympic Village in 1996. That project was a series of portraits of Olympic gold medalists from 1920 to people in the 80’s.”
8:51- 9:05 “The next series was of Negro League Baseball players. So, what I would do with all these people, prominent people, noteworthy people, historic people is I would travel to their home and sculpt”
9:07-9:21 “Then I moved to sculpting Blues performers that were still around and they were harder to get in contact with, the managers wouldn’t allow that so I would just show up to shows and sculpt at shows”
What made you want to do this type of work?
7:34-7:48 “I do agree that if it’s not right for the time, it needs to be taken down, just like buildings do. Architects don’t have a hard time putting their building up in a new place where an old one used to stand”
“There’s a lot against you but that’s really the fun of it all”
“If you had something that you could add to help people move through this, then do it. That was like a no brainer.”
Sculpting artists at hip hop shows with his son:
23:45-24:01 “And so what you do is you learn how to be very efficient and make the right observations. And so going with my son, we push each other. So, you glance over at the other persons work and say “oh man, he’s nailing it. I better bring it”
43:28-44:07 “We put up sculptures and statues of congressman, you know so for me that’s a paid gig potentially…. but a bust of George Floyd, that belongs to the people. That’s how you do a sculpture of George Floyd is make it accessible to people and take into their communities. “
106:57- 107:08 “You have to want to do it, even if the encouragement is there a person has to want to do that thing.”
109:08- 109:30 “I’m a traditional portrait scultpter and so what’s needed in my time period? We don’t need anymore white male politician busts, we don’t need that. You want your work to be relevant to the time that you live in”
110:22-1:10:45 “People question why we do this all the time and it’s like obviously it depends on the time, the landscape, what’s going on, that you can find the answer for or not find the answer for. I think that people actually revolting and taking down the statues, I find that to be a very helpful thing.”
Key Links:
Website: https://hiphopallstars.art/about/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialdanieledwards/
Sketchfab: https://sketchfab.com/dedwards2
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