David Tripp shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi David, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
It’s called Executive Time. Though retired now, I still keep a habit learned from my freshman year of college, what we then called Quiet Time. It means reserving the first hours of each day for being alone with your thoughts. I’ve kept a journal since 1985, now over 300 volumes in my personal library. This is not a “Dear Diary”; it is a record of my ideas from reading and memories from life experience. My journal begins with a collage, so I can spot the beginning of each day when I flip back through my journals. After recording time and date, I write in a two-stage process: 1) flushing out the bad thoughts, in order to 2) clear a path for creative, free-flowing thought and association of ideas. Once my own writing has reached an ebb, I then open the book I’m currently reading, and frequently record ideas spurred from what I read now. This Executive Time (over 3 cups of coffee) can run anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. Then I turn to the day’s work . . .
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am a retired educator, having taught 28 years full-time in high school (art history, philosophy, humanities) and over the same period taught 35 years as an adjunct in the university (religion and philosophy). Earning my Bachelors Degree in Art, I then spent the following 10 years in graduate school, earning a Masters and Ph.D. Once graduate school was completed (1987) I returned to art and honed my skills as a watercolorist. Retiring 8 years ago, I have since given my full time to teaching watercolor classes and workshops, doing public demonstrations and lectures, showing in galleries, and keeping an art festival calendar year-round. My company, a sole proprietorship, is called Recollections 54. That is my birth year, and my signature work consists of 1950’s American nostalgia. Having learned Greek in graduate school, I was touched to learn that “nostalgia” is a Greek compound of the ideas of “return” and “pain.” The full meaning of nostalgia is that we long to return to memories that matter, and the pain consists in knowing we can no longer recapture them fully. Yet there is a residual comfort in that sense of presence, and those memories cannot be taken away. My watercolors feature scenes from our past that now only exist in husks and fragments, monuments of an era erased from our presence, but not our memories.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Thank you for asking that. From childhood I was a dreamer, a visionary. My imagination always took me far beyond the horizons I stretched to see. It was not until I was in my thirties that I heard the concept Life of the Mind. I had been living it before I was told what it is. That is why I am an artist. The visionary always has ideas racing through the mind seeking clarity and organization.
Do you remember a time someone truly listened to you?
Yes. 1987 was the most painful year of my life, and a listener facilitated the transition. He was a professional counselor, a therapist. I had completed my Ph.D. and was pursuing a career of a tenured university professor. A divorce shattered everything. It was in therapy that I discovered I had buried my artistic identity for a decade of graduate school to become an intellectual in a very narrow field. My therapist said, “Well, what do you know? Beneath that shattered ego of a critical scholar beats the heart of an authentic artist.” I still cannot believe how things turned out. I signed a contract to teach public school art, and in the decades following blossomed into a teacher of art history, philosophy, humanities and literature. And I picked up the brush and resumed my art. This opened more doors for exhibitions, publications, travel, as well as university teaching in philosophy, religion, humanities and logic. Had I become a tenured professor, I would have taught one subject. Intead, I was allowed to map the landscape of life and express it in lecturing, writing, publishing, and visual art. My only regret is recently learning that my therapist died over ten years ago. I wish I could have told him things turned out alright, and that his listening to me is what helped facilitate the change.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What’s a cultural value you protect at all costs?
Education. I am a descendant of Midwestern tenant farmers educated in one-room rural schoolhouses. The only member of my family to attend college, I was fortunate to pursue graduate work and finish with a Ph.D. In three decades of teaching, I steadfastly defended old-school values of blood, sweat and tears academics. The shortcuts I found offensive while growing up were speed reading, sharing homework, Cliff Notes, Spark Notes, Internet research, online coursework, and now AI, As an artist, I will use technology as an aid, but I still love the analog lifestyle. And as a scholar, I prefer reading books and turning pages rather than staring into lit screens. I’m proud to be a creative and seek to apply genuine scholarship to my art work. I want to be known as a Thinking Artist rather than just a talented craftsman.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I am doing what I was born to do, to explore. My life has not lost interest in ideas and art. Now retired, I’m delighted that I can pursue what I wish, when I wish, for as long as I wish. My studio is my favorite room in the world, my sanctuary of dreams. No longer bedeviled by deadlines, I can spend as much time as I need to bring a single painting to fruition. And in addition to painting, I have all the time in the world to read books, to journal, to write page after page after page of theories. All my life, I have simply wished for ample time to pursue these matters.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://davidtrippart.com
- Instagram: dmtripp2000
- Facebook: david.tripp and davidtrippart
- Youtube: @davidtripp7412
- Other: blog: davidtripp.wordpress.com
