I met Baxter when I was a senior in High school and I was taking a speech class at Indiana Wesleyan where he was a freshman. Our senses of humor clicked pretty quickly. We also had an insanely close appreciation in music and art. His inspiration shaped part of my passion for portraiture. There is something so emotional about a face and making eye contact. Baxter truly has an inspiring grasp of reducing shapes to their simplest form. Check out his website ///here///
Tell us a little about yourself and what steps you took to get here.
I am an artist/designer living in Austin, TX. I kind of just do what I feel like, I tend to fixate on specific things, and when I do something I do my best to make it as good (and as simple) as I possibly can.
What are your steps for starting a portrait? Talk us through your processes.
You know when something catches your eye? A “shiny object” an attractive girl, a charismatic pop star, you just have a natural inkling toward it, that is how it usually starts, it’s somewhat fickle. I usually do some research on that person, find images to use as references, and then try to capture their “essence” in a minimalistic but engaging way.
What’s your go-to source of inspiration outside of art or music?
I love good conversation, I love just chatting with other people who are the thinking type. Also I love listening to stories in radio form, its hard to find interesting stuff but television is so dumbed down and books are so detached, radio has an intimacy involved with it, its mentally engaging but also can be very heartfelt if done well.
What’s your personal favorite piece of work you’ve created?
It seems like its always the last one you create, right now I am pretty happy with my self portrait, I feel like it pushed me a little further into my own style and captured my overall playful jadedness.
What blogs or magazines do you turn to for creative inspiration.
I look at quite a few, but I have to say if I could only go to one ffffound.com is absolute gold when it comes to inspiration and creativity. Its like going into every antique store, art gallery, design agency and taking a look around every time you go to that site.
What’s your all-time favorite piece of art or design. (*not created by you)
It would definitely be something by my favorite artist Jonathan Viner, his paintings are unbelievable but its very difficult to pick just one cause I love most of what he creates. I own “Eye for an Eye” so that is definitely one of my favorite pieces of art, it still moves me every time I walk by it. I’d probably sell my bed before I parted with that painting.
What’s your current creative obsession.
I’ve always been really into social experiments, I cant really explain it but its more or less about what happens as a result of what you do instead of what you did. I’m really trying to get better at it so I don’t alienate the masses.