Studio visit with Daren Todd
Designing a user experience with impact—and a fulfilling life—through art
Happy Friday! I’m back with another edition of STUDIO VISITS, a very special series featuring Portland artists in their studios. Interviews are edited and condensed for clarity by me, and all photos are by Lauren Beane. You can find previous editions here. Support this series by liking it, forwarding it, or upgrading to a paid subscription. —Amelia
We’re barely over the threshold of Daren Todd’s Milwaukie home and he’s already blowing our minds. I can tell this interview is going to have many delightful tangents. First he says he’s glad we’re documenting Portland artists because there are so many, and especially since, like him, they found their voices through isolation during the pandemic. Back then, he was making music and followed his curiosity in painting and other forms of creating. Then, Daren calls this moment a post-pandemic renaissance; he says we’re each part of making history. We all get goosebumps from that.
Sunlight pours into the living room, which is filled with stacks of artwork, a piano painted with squiggly lines, and a pyramid of cardboard boxes filled with paint by numbers kits for a kids camp (you can also order your own from his shop). His studio in the basement has even more evidence that this is the home of an artist—canvases of all sizes, a bookshelf stacked with paint cans, buckets of supplies.
“I’m fully an artist in all senses of the word,” he says. “I make things with my hands. I paint and draw and teach and show. What a weird way to sum it up.”
Soon after our visit, Daren and his partner packed up their belongings and moved to another home in the same neighborhood. This home, they bought. We were there just before the packing madness, allowing Daren to reflect on how his space for the last seven years has held his practice—and what’s to come in the new spot.
How do you describe yourself as an artist?
I’m a muralist and a painter, but I’m also an illustrator. I do some logo designs. And I teach kids, 6th to 12th grade, just four hours a week at a private school. It’s like, 90 kids and a lot of them are on the spectrum or have a reading or learning disability or have medical problems where they would just fall through the cracks at a public school. I really enjoy so many aspects of it. There are a lot of aspects about teaching that are really challenging, like personalities, patience, and planning. But the students make it worth it by what I get back from them.
How does your art ebb and flow based on these built-in structures like seasons and classes? But also based on your energy and interests?
It’s different every year. It’s different every month. I’ve started to realize, as I’m thinking of the answer to this question in this moment, that I’ve been thinking of my practice as having time for this specific thing and putting your energy into it. But don’t you ever find that when you have the time for the thing, that’s the last thing you want to do and you actually want to do this other thing? Then when you get to the other thing, then you want to do another thing? I’m realizing maybe most of my practice is actually gravitational pull away from what I have to do towards what I want to do. That’s really what it’s been this whole time. That kind of lets me know what I really want to be doing. I need that pull, that resistance.
What were your early struggles establishing yourself as an artist, and how did you get more work? What was going on for you and then in the world?
I think that it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t note that starting my practice during Black Lives Matter was a perfect storm of a time because people were looking to support people like me. You really can’t orchestrate that. That could’ve also been any movement. I was also ready. Does that make sense? People happened to be wanting art from me, but I also happened to be wanting to make art. As an artist, whatever you’re doing, be consistently doing it, and eventually people will come. But that’s hard when you’re not making money. I really get it. I got really, I won’t say lucky, but I do think I spent so much time doing it anyway. Hours and hours and hours of just painting and practicing. Someone had told me, ‘Make the project that you want to be hired to make. But make it for yourself.’ I was like, I’m going to paint on giant wood panels and that will show people that I want to paint murals. Essentially that’s what happened. It’s almost like I had to prove it to myself.
I saw a big pink number 17 in one of your larger paintings. What is the significance of the number?
Seventeen has always been my favorite number, since I was 17. I have tattoos of it, and it’s on my keychain. Last year, my younger sibling sadly took their own life on April 17. I don’t think they knew the number’s significance, which makes it even more ugh. I got this tattoo two or three months before they died. Then I just kept seeing 17s everywhere for months and months and months. The series downstairs is very much about grief and mourning. The pain of it. The soul split of it. The brain reshuffling. The big pink 17 was the first one I painted after they died. Their death also really changed my practice. It made me realize not only do I not want to run myself into the ground to pay the bills, but also my life is short and what is the point of any of this if I don’t feel good while I’m doing it? I think we’re just here to feel our best so we can interface with others and put our best foot forward. They really taught me to just slow down and ask myself what I need before anything else.
Were they creative too?
Insanely creative. But a different style. Very inwardly pointed and focused. They were very content to never show anyone their work. They liked to make functional tables and little gadgets. They would draw these really scientific outer space worlds with watercolor and pencil. When you look at it, you’re like, is that the inside of a cell or is it a galaxy? That reminds me now that I bring it up. I’m just gonna grab this one thing because it’s the best way to show. They left this here with me a few years back.
A note from Amelia: At this point, Daren retrieves a large folder of his sibling’s artwork from behind the piano, then shows us pages and pages of their stunning drawings.
They spent years just on this one piece. I remember when they started it and then years later when they finished it. This one too. In here, they created this story that as you turn the pages, you fall into this world. See how each page adds something? It’s layered. They were so incredibly talented and didn’t believe that they were. If anything, I try to remember that when I doubt myself. You can see where their art and my art converge. They’re definitely my sibling.
Artists you admire: “Mark Bradford for the materials. Lisa Congdon on leaning into the simplicity and believing in the abstraction you create as being valuable. Raul Urias, a Hispanic illustrator, for layering shapes. Kerry James Marshall on always holding true to the Black experience, inspiring me to hold true to my own queer and trans experiences.”
Jobs you’ve had: Christian bookshop cashier, Starbucks barista, bank call center agent, personal banker, casino money counter, fast food, Marshalls, waiter, bartender.
Simple pleasures: “Warm water. Baths, sauna, steam. Hot yoga. Bike riding. Running. Exercise. Time with friends. I just became a person who phone calls. Chocolate. I really like Hu at New Seasons. It is the best $4 you will ever spend. And making stuff.”
Usually listening to: “80% audiobooks and podcasts, mostly self help and personal development books. Atomic Habits. The Creative Spark. The Artist’s Way. Any type of those affirmations. I just finished a book called the slight edge by Jeff Olson. Then for music, I like niche hip hop jazz.”
Go-to Portland spot: “Any park in Portland when the weather is good. I think that’s my most grounded place. After my sibling died, I was in the park almost every day because it just felt like the most attached to the earth I could be.”
Favorite coffee shop: “Right now it’s Dear Sandy.”
You’ve been in this house for seven years off and on, but you just bought a house with your partner. How does it feel?
This is a really cool time. It’s not often you get to see the page of life turn. Usually that shit is like—bah! Then you’re like, I guess here we go. I’m just watching my life flip to the next phase, and I’m excited. There’s new energy. It’s very reaffirming to own my house as an artist. My partner is an occupational therapist. To be able to keep up with her—I never would’ve thought that.
So it feels like the right time. How has this space been conducive to your practices over the years?
It’s been a good container for experimenting in order to find out what I really love to do. I’ve tried so many things. Having this upstairs room is great because it’s light and it’s big. I’ve rolled out canvases and painted on the floor, and I’ve hung things from the ceiling and done projector things. In the studio, there’s woodworking stuff. I’ve figured out I love framing and building things and sculpting with wood. There’s so many different niches in this house that I’ve gotten to use. Now I can go to the next space and know I need these five stations with these things. I really want to use this year to focus and hone down. Because as much as I want to do all of the things, I want to do five things really well and just be known for those things. Then I can just create and explore not for a job.
What are those things you want to hone in on?
I’ll always do murals, so I’ll always need a space for supplies and the churn that murals do on your life. I’ll always be doing illustration and design and drawing. I always want to paint and make commissions and artwork for public spaces and people. A huge goal is to get into galleries this year. Then I’d love to just make things, like sew pockets on a shirt from fabric that I dyed. I need the crafting aspect of making art, which is a little bit innocuous. That’s where I start to have a glue gun and a router. But I love projects where I’ll build it, paint it, draw on it, and then it’ll move and I’ll photograph it. Then it’ll all go into a book, but you can’t buy the book unless you find a QR code at a show. We build worlds for ourselves, and it would be really cool to build a world that I see. Mostly, I just need to make sure I leave myself space to explore.
What does that world building fulfill for you?
I just never feel more alive than when I’m crafting user experiences through art. I almost feel like that’s what I do more than all these other things. Yeah, I’m painting and making art, but the reason is to impact, even if it’s just to impact me. Music is the same. I’m crafting my experience of the world through these chords.
Where you can find Daren | Website | Instagram | Newsletter
Amelia Arvesen (she/her) is the creator of Honing Her Craft and a freelance journalist who integrates her artistic side into her every day. The STUDIO VISITS series merges her curiosity as an interviewer with her admiration of creative practices and people.
Lauren Beane (she/her) is a freelance photographer specializing in film. She values a life centered around art, nature, community, and little pleasures. This series allows her to expand her definition of what it means to live a creative, artful life while providing others a window to do the same.
this was a fantastic read, seeing inside artists homes is always so fascinating and inspiring!