By Luke Dangler ‘09

I was only sure about one thing as I began my freshman year at Naz: I wanted to make stuff. In high school I had become obsessed with both drawing pictures and playing guitar, so some sort of a creative path seemed inevitable. At Naz, I enrolled as a studio art major and eventually adopted a music minor.

During college, I spent most of my energy in the art studio painting, with any additional time reserved for blasting heavy metal guitar riffs down the hallways of my dorm via the amplifier that I was somehow allowed to keep. This behavior probably wasn’t academically productive, especially considering one of my music teachers told me he didn’t even know what metal music was. Art remained my priority but I enjoyed messing around with music — which was pretty fun. I found music a bit more challenging to conquer than art, which made it alluring. Frequent conversations with my advisor usually centered around my career plans after graduation, and whether I was going to choose between guitar playing and painting. She seemed to think that would be advisable.

I chose not choosing

After graduation, I essentially followed the same trajectory that I laid out for myself during school: More painting and more guitar playing.

My first big art project was actually commissioned by Naz itself. It was a series of giant paintings presented as a graduation gift for the class of 2010. You might have seen the finished product hanging in the hallway on the second floor of GAC. You’ll notice that there is only one painting here, as it ended up taking so much time that I never was able to finish the full spread I had envisioned. Back then I tended to bite off more than I could chew when it came to art projects. Actually, I still find myself having to spit things out pretty frequently.

Nazareth College 2010 class gift - 4’ x 5’ acrylic on canvas

I kept on developing my painting practice for years after graduation, but I couldn’t avoid scratching my sonic itch more and more. I joined a band and began playing live shows and taking them seriously. Painting was pretty straightforward it seemed, but being a musician was a whole different animal. The performance aspect of musicianship offers a sort of instant feedback and potential gratification for your work, but it also comes with the risk of dramatic failure in front of a crowd of strangers. How terrifyingly exciting. Sign me up for that, I thought.

An oil painting completed in 2014. In retrospect it seems like the floating acorn might have been a subconscious allusion to my artistic goals not yet achieved. I’m not saying I think of myself as a squirrel necessarily.

Rockin’ role

I found myself lucky enough to be in a band with a great group of people whom I enjoyed playing music with, and who were as dedicated and as focused as I was. We practiced constantly and played countless local shows. We eventually were given opportunities to open up for dozens of bigger acts as they came through Rochester, which was really exciting.

Although playing the local scene was fun, we wanted to reach new audiences and put ourselves to the test on the road. In 2015, the next logical step was a national tour as the supporting act for a headlining band playing 30 shows across the U.S. and Canada.

Myself and Derek Walkborn of Ghostfeeder. Testing gear and winding cables is 90% of being a musician.

Our touring experience was definitely rough, with cramped travel conditions and sleepless nights, but the excitement of musical possibility provided the steady stream of adrenaline I needed to stay positive and push forward. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case for everyone, as after about a week of travel the headliner’s guitarist apparently reached his limit. About an hour before our fifth show, we all watched him jump into a taxi cab and head off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

As the only other guitarist on board, I inherited his performance responsibilities, lest the tour be cancelled. We missed a few gigs but fortunately during the time traveling between cities I was able to learn all of the other guitar player’s stuff, and just like that I had joined another band. I played two shows back to back each night for the rest of the tour.

On stage in Houston Texas with En Esch.

Exploring the neighborhood around the venue in Houston before the show. For some reason I thought it was funny that it said “cat house” and wondered what was in there.

The lucky happenstance of my tourmate suddenly quitting eventually led to independent gigs and two more tours across the U.S. and Canada as a touring guitarist for a series of bands. I definitely couldn't have planned for it, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity and experiences it provided. I met some great people and shared awesome moments. including playing a particularly memorable sold out show with Stabbing Westward in celebration of their 30th anniversary.

Opening up for Stabbing Westward in Chicago in 2016.

Looking dramatic at the beginning of a show. I was probably wondering if my amp was plugged in.

Even while traveling, I still managed to find some time between cities to keep up with the artwork. I brought a tablet along on the second tour and created a few digital paintings while bumping along on the road.

I call this one “Canadian Landscape,” painted on a tablet while we were somewhere between Toronto and Calgary.

Despite all of the travel opportunities, I still found myself without a gig most of the year. The downside of being a touring musician is that you are beholden to, well, touring. It can be hard to know what the future holds sometimes.

Stretching our legs on the road with PIG in 2017. The cactus in El Paso are freaking huge by the way.

Touring takeaways

After more than 100 shows on the road, any stage fright was squished by brute force repetition. Eventually I had messed up in every conceivable way and been forced to recover, leaving nothing left to worry about. A mantra I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing is "practice makes perfect," but I can tell you that for me this applies even to the most seemingly daunting of tasks. I remember clearly how simple it seemed to learn a song on guitar in my bedroom alone, only to have my fingers embarrassingly turn into mush whenever I tried to perform it in front of my high school friends. You just gotta get out there and do it. I basically stole that from Nike.

Standing awkwardly in front of the salt flats in Utah.

Painting takes center stage

As my last tour ended in 2017, it seemed like I might not have any musical opportunities lined up for the near future. I thought this would be a good chance to see if I could apply what I've learned from being a musician to the fine art world. I still didn't want to give up on either pursuit. But where could I find an audience? What am I going to paint? Did I know myself well enough to portray an authentic artistic vision on canvas that people will relate to? What is the meaning of life? Does anything matter? Does everything matter? I would have to shift gears from performance to creation ± or so I thought.

Yes, this is a painting of the actor Nicolas Cage as a duck. Clearly I still have a lot of questions to answer.

Enter the art festival. At this point in my painting career, I had a body of work that was barely big enough to fill up a booth. There was no consistency, theme, or stylistic vision, but I knew I needed to get out there and just do it, right? The consequences of my divided attention between art and music both in college and after graduation became apparent as I tried to put together a show. Clearly my artistic development had taken a backseat to guitar playing.

Showing my work at the Lilac Festival in Rochester.

I enjoyed the art festival experience, as it allowed me to get that personal feedback from an audience I once thought was only possible on stage. Paintings can become performance pieces in the context of a festival. For several years, I displayed my work at every festival within driving distance, and eventually became just as excited for the next painting as I had been for the next show on the road.

People seemed to like the duck, so I figured I shouldn’t stop there. 

Never stop never stopping

One day as I was 70 hours deep into a painting project, it occurred to me that I might not be making the best use of my time. I don't mean that I should have been doing something else, or painting faster (that's actually probably true) but that the time I was spending painting wasn't being used to its fullest potential.

For years I had been recording myself while painting for the purpose of making time lapse videos. It was pretty cool to see a painting that took weeks to paint, come together in an instant. The videos are fun, but short and fleeting. With livestreaming becoming more and more accessible these days, I now have the ability to broadcast everything in real time.

“Boop” - 11”x14” - Watercolor on paper

Broadcasting the painting process live adds a layer of accountability and motivation, lets me get immediate and perpetual feedback from an audience, and keeps me from getting bored of monotonous or repetitive painting tasks. I play music, ramble about whatever is on my mind, and engage with anyone interested in hanging out in the chat room — all while being productive and working on artwork (in theory).

“The Dungeon” - 18” x 24” - Oil on Canvas. A collaboration with The Perry Bible Fellowship in celebration of their 20th anniversary.

The artwork livestream is another fork in the road that I didn’t see coming, but has allowed me to continue to tow the line between music performance and fine art. Without all of my experience on stage, I might not have had the inclination or confidence to open myself up to such a thing.

“Beeard” - 11” x 14” - Watercolor on Paper

Back when I was studying at Naz, I was trying to imagine a way to blend art and music — to do both without compromising one or the other. The only thing I could picture was an art show in a gallery with a live band in the corner. I still hope someday to realize that fantasy, but until then, I feel like there is plenty of opportunity to explore the terrain ahead. The next time I get to play guitar in front of an audience, maybe I’ll be able to convince the band to hang some paintings in the background and the circle will be complete.

Rock on

If you’d like to check out more of my stuff, you can visit my website at lukedangler.com or view my newest works on Instagram, YouTube, and across socials @lukedangler.art.

I host a painting livestream 4 - 5 days a week at lukedangler.com/live where you can watch me work on the latest project and send me questions or comments. I’d love to see you there!