Erin Shafkind’s Illustrated Studio Tours: Part 1, Warren Dykeman

It’s always a treat to see how people really work. Follow artist-spy Erin Shafkind and her camera into the lofts, living rooms and breakfast nooks where you can see how some of Seattle’s most interesting visual art is being created.

text and photos by Erin Shafkind

If you have never met Warren Dykeman, I hope you get to. He’s a gentle, unassuming person who loves to draw.

For the summer of 2009, Warren created the Bumbershoot poster and just recently he showed work at Grey Gallery in Seattle.

He lives and works out of his Ballard townhouse, into which he invited me to meet Halo — the biggest cat I have ever seen — and to see his work, talk about his process and sip tea.

On a table in the living room lies a pile of pencils. But not just any pencils; he likes the General Carbo Weld Supreme #3 (not #2). If you didn’t know, the Supreme 550 is made by the General Pencil Co. of New Jersey and General is the oldest independent American pencil company.

In addition to being impressed by his preferred brand of pencils, I discovered Warren is a rather prolific artist. He showed me scores of drawings, paintings and collages stored in his spare room and basement/studio/garage. He draws in his living room and paints mostly in the basement-garage where he also uses stencils, silk-screens, projects images and traces with an old overhead projector. We discussed a variety of topics related to his workbut mostly, our time was spent looking and appreciating his love of making.

Warren is as a graphic designer by day, and stylistically, I can see this in his work. I enjoy seeing his transitions from modeling dimensional shapes to embracing a flatter aesthetic. Looking at the older work it’s clear that he used to try and create 3-D shapes with modeled light and in the last few years embraced a flatter aesthetic with his forms.

You can follow his work on his Web site. But first, enjoy this slideshow of photos I took during my visit to his workspace.

Erin Shafkind is earning an MFA in Visual in Art in a low residency graduate program through AIB at Lesley University. She teaches art full-time in Seattle Public Schools and pursues her own art work in Seattle, creating performances, installations and doing photography. Follow her other work on her blog, Poor Worm and her and her Web site, erinshafkind.com.