Actor/artist Dan Snow shapes urban clutter and natural materials to reflect passions and peeves.
By: Kristin Boyd
Artist Dan Snow is an avid reader, professional actor and, for the past three years, expert junk collector.
He hunts for urban clutter and natural materials throughout New York, pouncing when he finds useful pieces driftwood and seashells, strings and batteries, old car parts and broken toys.
Inside his studio, he gives the discarded items both a new home and a second life, shaping them into assemblages that reflect his point of view, pet peeves and passions.
"It’s a way of looking at things differently," says Mr. Snow, who will exhibit his work at the E.M. Adams Gallery in New Hope, Pa., April 13 to 22. "I see the pieces as something other than what they were designed to do. I can look at them and see a face or see that they have another spirit in them."
Mr. Snow is a newbie artist. Born and raised in Erie, Pa., he graduated from Edinboro University in the Keystone State and moved to New York City in the 1970s to pursue acting. "I was chasing that dream," he says.
During his 30-year career, he has performed in numerous stage productions, including playing the Persian in Phantom of the Opera, Lt. Shrank in West Side Story, King Duncan in Macbeth, Polonius in Hamlet and Lord Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. In addition, he has toured with the National Shakespeare Company and appeared as Cigar Face in The Toxic Avenger film series in the ’80s.
Three years ago, Mr. Snow immersed himself in art and sculpture after visiting a friend’s home on Long Island, N.Y. While smoking cigars in the adjoining garage, the only place he was allowed to do so, he became intrigued with a collection of antique tools. He admired their distinct shapes and coloring between puffs.
"I started finding things, and those things started to fall together," he says. He soon began making sculptures and collages as a hobby. "It was very therapeutic, very relaxing and very habit forming."
Mr. Snow has since collected items including wires, dolls, skateboards and plastic shovels from street corners and scenic beachfronts. "There is no end to what you can find," he says. "Eventually, everything I pick up, I use."
His first piece, "The Hunter," was modeled after a New York Times photo of a bushman with a bow. "His wiry frame struck me for some reason," he says, adding that he sold the sculpture to an East Village gallery. "He had the look of someone who hunts to eat. It was survival."
As Mr. Snow continued exploring art, he realized his pieces could be more than eye catching. They could also tackle global concerns and his pet peeves, including cell-phone abuse, drug addiction, war for profit, immigration, environmental vandalism, civil rights and teenage illiteracy.
In "Bite Me," a yellow plastic bucket, holding a small flashlight, sits at the edge of pile of sand, littered with driftwood, a plastic fork and a plastic bottle.
In "(Number) 19," Mr. Snow uses plaster, wire, plastic and batteries to create a human forearm with a colorful cell phone bolted to the hand. "Mr. Hide," a sculpture whose all-over-the-place hair resembles Albert Einstein’s, illustrates the danger of sudden fame and money on the human psyche.
"My form of protest is art. The things that bug me, the social ills, I make a part of my work," he says, adding he recently donated his "Blind Bird of Bourbon Street" sculpture to the From the Art of New York auction, which benefited Hurricane Katrina victims and evacuees.
"My personal creative process is similar to the acorn-to-oak tree found in nature," he says. "Just as the tiny acorn lodged in nurturing soil can produce a giant tree, so can an idea, a newspaper article, or an object."
W.E.B. DuBois, one of Mr. Snow’s role models, would be proud. Mr. Snow has admired DuBois’ work since watching a biography about him a few years ago. "He looked exactly like my father," he says. "The light bulb kind of went off, and the idea grew from that."
Mr. Snow, who also wrote and performed in W.E.B. Dubois: Prophet in Limbo, will read from the scholar’s Criteria of Black Art and The Death of the First Born during two appearances at the E.M. Adams Gallery.
DuBois’ essays are apropos, Mr. Snow says, because, much like his artwork, they are thought provoking and ahead of their time.
"Hopefully, people come away better, or at least more knowledgeable, after having seen my artwork," he says. "Hopefully, it can affect people, whether they like it or not. I like the idea that art is not so much a mirror, but it’s a hammer, a tool to change society."
Dan Snow’s exhibit will be on view at the E.M. Adams Gallery, 19 N. Main St., New Hope, Pa., April 13-22. An opening reception will be held April 14, 6-9 p.m. Mr. Snow also will read from Criteria of Black Art by W.E.B DuBois April 14, 7 p.m., and from The Death of the First Born, also by Mr. DuBois, April 22, 3 p.m. Gallery hours: Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m., and by appointment. For information, call (215) 862-5667. Dan Snow on the Web: www.dansnowartist.com