BIO
I was born in Monterey California to artist parents, Judith Deim and Ellwood Graham. Both were strong and extremely committed to their art so they received the respect and support from people like John Steinbeck who befriended them and sponsored their first painting trips to Mexico. The traveling never stopped, even with four of us children, life became a series of two years in different artist colonies around the world.
My mother, my two sisters Lissa and Juli, my brother Benji, and myself (with the cap}
Judith Deim
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Ellwood Graham
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Old Man Selling Charcoal
I didn't get much of an academic education, instead my mother believed in apprenticing me with different artists and artisans. Weaving in Mexico, metal engraving and mosaics in Spain and finally art school in Paris and Belgium. Not much of my learning came from the teachers but more from my frequenting the great museums where I was able to assimilate the great art of the past and the modern art that was emerging. In Morocco I began experimenting with semi-abstraction by going out in the streets, finding an image that appealed to me, for instance an old man selling charcoal, and I learned to make a strong mental picture, go back to my studio, make a drawing and a painting while it was still fresh in my mind.
It was during my fourteen years in Europe that I developed and matured as an artist.I found the freedom to use the language of painting and sculpture in my own personal way.
I returned to the U.S. in the 70s and after a period in New York and Jamaica I built a homestead in Northern California. Since I had very little money I put together a primitive sawmill with the junk that I found on the property, sawed the wood from the trees on the land and built a house much in the same way my father had done in the 1930s. I made my life there with a Chilean woman poet, Sari Segale, who was to become my life companion and we created a family; we lived between California and Mexico with many trips to South America, Chile and Peru.
It was in Cusco and Machu Picchu Peru that I really received my vision for creating sculpture which has become more abstract in the recent years.
My studio gallery is here in Santa Rosa California and we live between here and our homestead in the hills of Mendocino County.
All my siblings followed the arts, my brother Benji became a flamenco guitarist, my sister Juli a flaminco dancer, my sister Lissa a painter and sculptor. Also many of our children are artists, Juli's daughter Tania is a flamenco dancer, Benji's daughter Tiffany is a painter, my daughter Taira is a painter and sculptor, Lissa’s daughter Lila is a painter.
It was during my fourteen years in Europe that I developed and matured as an artist.I found the freedom to use the language of painting and sculpture in my own personal way.
I returned to the U.S. in the 70s and after a period in New York and Jamaica I built a homestead in Northern California. Since I had very little money I put together a primitive sawmill with the junk that I found on the property, sawed the wood from the trees on the land and built a house much in the same way my father had done in the 1930s. I made my life there with a Chilean woman poet, Sari Segale, who was to become my life companion and we created a family; we lived between California and Mexico with many trips to South America, Chile and Peru.
It was in Cusco and Machu Picchu Peru that I really received my vision for creating sculpture which has become more abstract in the recent years.
My studio gallery is here in Santa Rosa California and we live between here and our homestead in the hills of Mendocino County.
All my siblings followed the arts, my brother Benji became a flamenco guitarist, my sister Juli a flaminco dancer, my sister Lissa a painter and sculptor. Also many of our children are artists, Juli's daughter Tania is a flamenco dancer, Benji's daughter Tiffany is a painter, my daughter Taira is a painter and sculptor, Lissa’s daughter Lila is a painter.
Daniel Graham Sculpture Studio
Willits, CA 95490
[email protected]
