Today we’d like to introduce you to Dana Younger.
Hi Dana, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I have a B.A. in theater from UT Austin. While at the university, I studied mask making with an excellent professor, James Glaven, and got really excited about sculpting, mold-making, and casting. After college, I started a business called Black Mountain Art, selling plaster gargoyles at street fairs with my friend and business partner, Kevin Collins. We made some money from our gargoyles but realized we needed an additional income source from the business. So we started offering mold-making and casting services. That part of the business grew, and we were soon doing more service work and less productive work.
We met Rory Skagen because he had a shop down the street. He was making notable murals and styrofoam sculptures. We merged our businesses and formed Blue Genie Art Industries, which specialized in all manner of art fabrication. We added Chris Coakley as a partner and ran that business together from 1999 – 2008. Lots of notable Austin landmarks passed through our shop. Many are gone but some remain, including the 6 giant, concrete bas relief panels on the front of the Bob Bullock Texas State History museum. In the early 2000s, I got interested in 3D scanning and digital fabrication, bringing that equipment to the shop facilities. This remains a key area of investigation for me. We also founded the Blue Genie Art Bazaar, an annual holiday gift show, in 2000.
The Blue Genie Art Bazaar is now entering its 22 season, showing and selling the work of nearly 200 local artists and craftspeople. The show has become a tradition for many families and artists in the Austin community. Caretaking this intersection between creativity, community and commerce is a privilege and we enjoy the heck out of it every year. This business remains a partnership between the 4 founding members.
In 2008 I left the Blue Genie Art Industries fabrication business and started a new career as the exhibits manager for Texas Parks and Wildlife. I supervise a creative team of writers, researchers, designers, fabricators and installers with a mission to provide interpretive exhibits for the Texas Sate Parks.
My personal work lives at the intersection of art and technology. I explore various themes using a variety of technologies and materials. Figurative, political satire and the art of caring all are interesting to me. Most recently, I’ve been creating works in wood using scanned natural elements output through my CNC machine.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I love a challenge. The pursuit of mastery is very motivating to me while still being slow and frustrating at times. I’ve worked for years to increase my skill in sculpting the human figure. It is a slow and challenging road and I’m not always moving forward. But there is fun in the struggle.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We live in a remarkable era when technological advances seem to arrive almost daily. I believe these advances create opportunities for new creativity. My personal interest is in looking back and ahead at the same time. For example, I’m interested in classical realism and using digital fabrication techniques to express the human figure in new ways.
As a teenager, my family moved to northern Idaho to homestead. We built a log cabin with no electricity or running water. In summer, I chopped wood. In winter, I cross-country skied to school. Grounded by this experience, I have one foot solidly in the world of tradition. My other foot is always advancing further into technology. I developed a taste for the edge of technology as an early adopter of digital fabrication equipment and still love the pursuit of new possibilities for sculpture through the technological lens.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.danayounger.com
- Instagram: danayounger_sculptor
- Youtube: danayounger_sculptor
Image Credits
Dana Younger
