David Orr
Los Angeles, CA
Age 61
What keeps you excited in the studio?
Doing the work. I very much enjoy the feeling of being ‘lost’ in the process, while I’m working toward a solution. That sense of losing time appealed to me as a kid, and has never gone away.
Looking back at your trajectory as an artist, how would you say your work has developed?
What I’ve noticed is less how the work has developed — although it certainly has — and more that works which might have seemed disparate at the time I made them are in fact clearly following a discernible throughline. That feels amazing.
What role do you think the artist has in today’s society?
To change the way people see. And hopefully, the way they think.
What’s the most important advice you could give to an aspiring artist?
Think about it for the long haul. Make sure you get a lot of satisfaction from the making of work. If that isn’t satisfying as an end in itself, get out of it. It’s a commitment, and can be heartbreaking otherwise.
Does age matter in art? Why or why not?
I can’t speak for others, but I feel I had less to say — and less of a vocabulary to say it with — when I was younger. I started my art practice in my 40s. I had always wanted to mature a bit before embarking, to make sure I had something to add to the conversation. That part has felt satisfying.
The downside of starting late is that as you get older there’s less time to lay groundwork. There is no luxury of time. You begin to really feel that there are only a finite number of years left in which to produce things and reach milestones — so, really, groundwork is the work. There’s not a lot of “well, hopefully in ten years I can…” In ten years, there’s a decent chance I’ll be dead.
The upside of doing work as you get older, is that the process of art making feeds both your intellect and your soul. So many people wonder what to do with themselves as they get older, and that’s not something I fear.
What can we look forward to from you next?
Time-based pieces. I recently did video works with musicians Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, John Cale, and the poet Jorie Graham, and that has led to me investigating a whole new genre.
Is there anything else you would like to share about being an artist later in life?
It can feel great to have a solo show the same year as a big birthday. That takes the sting off it!
http://www.david-orr.com
@davidorrart
