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Daniel Velasquez | Episode 776
Daniel Velasquez is a professional artist, muralist, and founder of Hydralas Designs. Daniel uses art to create a dialogue with diverse environments and their inhabitants in order to create a sense of community and wonder to public spaces. Daniel has a passion for nature, environmental design, health, and community which he seeks to promote with his work.
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Do you see your work as a from of communication?
I think my work is really…it’s funny, I view it for myself as a form of listening. And it’s listening to a part of my thought processes, belief systems, and ideologies that are not at surface level and aren’t always accessible. And I view it for others as themselves communicating to themselves through either memories or past experiences. I think most of the time that’s what art is and I think when you are a creator by nature you are ultimately just a really good listener to yourself.
So is that why it’s okay if your viewer has a different interpretation of your work, because you are listening to your muse and they are listening to their muse?
Yeah, I think that my role as an artist is more to figure out the deepest sense of myself and my humanity that I possibly can in order to have every thing that I bring to art a pure self-reflection based on experiences that I have been a part of. And if somebody else doesn’t pick up the message it’s good because they are ultimately coming from a completely different set of experiences that have shaped them and therefore they are communicating with the artwork in a completely different way that I probably couldn’t understand.
Was there intentionality with ancient forms and modern street art?
Well I think people when they look at it…I think graffiti is looked to as almost a lower form of art and when it’s elevated on something elegant that you consider like pottery reminiscent of museums you look to it more and it has a more elevated place at that point. So it’s almost like you’ve been able to take an art form that is not really considered fine art and put it in a place where it is just by the form.
You said you had to take a break from letting your artwork support you. What did you end up going for for a day job?
You know I was sitting for awhile and nothing seemed like it could beat the freedom of just doing whatever I wanted creatively and nothing really could. And I was pretty much just traveling and it didn’t feel like traveling it felt like I was just aimlessly wandering and then I started having these dreams where I was building these inhabitable sculptures. I have had minor fabrication experience from when I was in high school and I just decided, Well, this is a good place to start I am just going to figure out how to build. So I started doing construction and that has blossomed for me recently and in addition to that I work at SF State doing a class on muralism and public arts.
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