Out Of The Box

Artist and PSU art professor, David Powell

Tucked away at the end of a cement corridor, housed in the Fine Arts building of Plattsburgh State University (PSU), is a room that, in itself, could be considered a piece of art. The cell-like space, boxed in pale white, had its sides covered with various surfaces – a desk, a filing cabinet, a couple tables – all gray and dark metal. A rubber tire rests against one of the walls, it’s inner circle defined by a thick white line, underneath one of the tables. It catches your eye, but other than that, everything from the waist-level down is nothing extraordinary.

Above waist-level is where the character of the room grabs you. Never mind the thought-provoking paintings and photographs, but it’s much more interesting to focus on the simple bookshelf pressed against the wall lying opposite the room’s entrance way. Books of different hues lined its three tiers, some bursting of bright reds and blues, while others resemble a pale yellow and rusty brown. Objects placed in their midst - a compact disc, a small metal tin, different-sized paintbrushes fanning out of a small container, an old-fashioned shampoo bottle -obstructed many of the titles. No matter, because the general view of the shelf filled with various colors and shapes, was interesting on it’s own.

The desk, the shelf, the books, and the tire all belong to the office of PSU-art professor David Powell. He sits in front of his desk, facing outward and crossing-legged. The green shirt Powell was wearing clashed with the neutral colors behind him. It was like looking at a collage, which is Powell’s desired method of artistic expression. “It’s become more photomontage than collage because now I compose primarily in the computer rather than the traditional cut-and-paste method,” he said. “It’s still the same concept that collage employs.”

Technology has played a big part in Powell’s work, both in his personally and professionally, as a graphic designer. He has been using computers for his pieces since the advent of Macs in 1984. “I have more control over the various parts when using digital methods,” he said. Way before scanners began finding a place in everyone’s home computer space, Powell was already using a digital photography method. With a device that, nowadays, would seem primitive, he could scan through video footage and freeze frame what he wanted using computer software. “It sort of opened me up to a whole new way of making art that I found very exciting,” he said.

Powell’s way of doing business has also been influenced by technological advances. He was a freelance graphics designer, as well as doing work for several advertising agencies, and spending five years designing the look of Computer Games magazine. “It was very demanding,” he said.

Teaching was a welcome change for Powell. “I had considered it actually many years ago when I was an undergrad, and then I got turned down from all three graduate schools that I applied to,” he said. I thought to myself ‘Okay, I’ll just go to Europe and be an artist’, and that’s what I did for about a year.” After moving back to stateside to Burlington, his wife, a published poet and college professor, encouraged him to get a masters degree. While going back to work with a few different agencies, that is exactly what he did. “I taught several computer-based art courses at Champlain College,” he said. “I realized that I did like teaching and it would be a nice career change for me after years in the industry.”

Powell started out as a part-time lecturer at PSU, and after securing his masters degree; he became an assistant professor in the art department. “I’m ready to pass the gauntlet on,” he said. “I prefer the human contact that you get with teaching rather than working with a computer all day.” He has found it challenging to create a curriculum for students that are just starting out in the field, making sure to remember not to assume they know what he knows, but it’s been fulfilling. The tough part, Powell finds, is getting time to do his own work. “I have managed to find some time, but it’s difficult,” he said.

Powell describes his own work as “thought-provoking with an element of cultural criticism to it, but is not didactic or overtly-political.” He strives to create work that somehow corners people into making connection that perhaps they never did before. He wants people to look at things from a different perspective in a different way, without the work coming across as being overly preachy. “I think that’s the fine line I tread with the work that I often do,” he said “It criticizes the culture of consumerism and attempts to subvert the concept that through technology and science we will all reach some form of nirvana or happiness. It’s not real.”

This is a message he embraces, as evidence from his surroundings. Among a cluster of photographs and pictures resting in the frame of the wall painting, there was one that stood out. It was a light yellow rectangle, about the size of full-page magazine advertisement, and on the bottom in bold type it states, “Think different”. That seems to be Powell’s personal slogan. When he spoke of an experience he had in seventh grade, when assigned to draw a picture of a barn on a road. “My [seventh grade] art teacher was a total wack-job,” he said. “She did not like the fact that I put lots of colors in my dirt road.”

Think different, indeed.

Do you like to think outside the box? Tell us about it!