musetouch_issue_24

Dorian Vallejo
Who are you Dorian?
I’m an American born artist.
When did you realize that you are an artist?
That’s sort of a convoluted question or rather the thoughts encompassing my answer are. The
short and somewhat romantic but true answer is, that I began drawing so early that it has always
been a part of me. My earliest memories are of drawing on pieces of paper, on the floor,
by the foot of my father’s easel while he painted. When my mother was cooking dinner he
would sit me on his lap and we’d draw together.
At a certain point I entertained ambitions of being a professional athlete, but by the time I
was serious about a career, I knew exactly how I wanted to spend the hours of my life and to
what purpose I was devoted. I’ve been tweaking, an exploring the definition of the word and
concept of “artist”, ever since.
How do you see? What is it about the scene or subject that speaks to you, makes you feel and
causes you to create a painting or drawing?
There are variations but for the most part, I’m searching for a representation of the heroic
or the ideal in a poetic sense. One of my favorite philosophers says something like, art is the
representation of life as it might be or ought to be. Through me, that manifests itself in an attempt
to create something beautiful in a symbolic sense. Not meticulously copying what’s in
front of me but instead, using it as point of departure.
From where is your inspiration coming?
Ah, the famous question. Over the years, having gone to lectures given by the many artists
I’ve admired, invariably some version of that question comes up. Usually it takes the form of,
“where do you get your ideas?”. For some reason, it’s always amused me. Honestly, I’ve always
felt there are so many tangents of creative inspiration in the air, one need only to reach out to
grab hold and go for a ride. That said, I have many ways of accessing sources that inspire me,
and do my best to be open to new avenues of stimulus, as I become aware of them. I sketch
from imagination, I hire models to work from life, I make time to draw the people I love, I
have an ever growing collection of art books, I study photography and film and try my best to
look at the mountain of art that has been and continues to be created in the areas of art that
interest me, I read and write; all, on a fairly consistent basis. From this pool, images and particular
streams of thought begin to rise and take shape.
musetouch 372