3. Dani Alvarez
DANI ALVAREZ’S ART HAS A HUMBLE UNIQUENESS TO IT THAT INVITES YOU TO SEE YOURSELF IN HER WORK.
I first heard about Dani when she hosted a hang of ladies coloring their feelings after the 2016 election. She had illustrated a bunch of influential women like Angela Davis and Lucy Stone and had people over to color them. I loved the concept, and as a friend was showing me Dani’s illustrations, I was so inspired and the wheels began turning for my own efforts to incorporate art into my music to heal and empower. Dani designed the artwork for my “Listening Ladies” t-shirt, and it has been an absolute joy to get to know her personally and through her art. She is a wonderful human to be around, and we have a mutual admiration for (read: obsession with) Harry Potter.
Illustration by Emily Ohlrich (Ink+Oil)
This interview has been edited and condensed.
What is your name?
Dani Alvarez
What would you say you do?
I would say first that I am an artist. I am a maker. I am a teacher, and I used to be an architect. Sometimes designer.
How long have you been doing it for?
Let’s see… I would say that I’ve been drawing since I was very little, but only recently I allowed myself to call myself an artist. It’s still kind of difficult.
What was the specific moment that you made you that change
It was just over time, realizing I create things all the time, so I should be allowed to call myself an artist. Why not? I would never call myself a professional artist, though, because I feel like that’s like a little weird. But yeah, I’m an artist. I do like sometimes to just say that I’m a creator or a maker because that feels a little more open.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
How does that influence your work?
It’s so different than [New York]. I call upon the landscape of New Mexico a lot, open, big sky, big mountains, a lot of space. I think that even affects my personality. I’ve met other people from the southwest, and there’s like a weird kinship there that I didn’t know existed until I left.
What brought you to NYC?
I went to school in Arizona, got my degree in architecture. After graduation, I pretty much just went through like a little bit of a heartbreak, reacted very poorly and decided I wanted to move as far away as humanly possible. I moved to Singapore, and worked for a year and a half there in architecture. It was great. I mean, I hated Singapore. It was bizarre and just a bunch of finance bros on an island, but I traveled around a lot so that was cool. Then when I decided to leave, I thought I would come to New York for a year. A lot of my friends were living here, and I’m still here. They’re all gone now. I had always thought New York was cool to visit, but I’ll never live here. And now I can’t leave. I’ve tried, but I get really sad.
I actually first saw your work through a friend who attended your coloring night after the 2016 election. Tell me about that.
Yeah, after the election, I was like, I feel like I just needed some good time to decompress with some women that I like. I was looking for an art activity, so I made all these pages that everyone could just color their feelings. They were of strong women and their quotes. Coloring all your feelings out. I mean, that’s what I want to do for a living.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I think it’s having something to do that you actually enjoy doing. Sadness and ennui develop when you have nothing purposeful.
Who is a living woman you most admire and why?
bell hooks is an author and used to be a teacher. She writes a lot about feminism, and has published an insane amount of books. I watched an interview with her, and she said she reads a book a day—a non-fiction book a day, and then maybe more.
What is your greatest extravagance or indulgence?
I love cookies so much. I’ll eat so many to the point of sickness because I don’t know how to chill.
What’s the last thing you searched for on Google?
Ooh! Oh, you know what it is? (laughs) Marxism. I needed a refresher for the reading I’m doing is on heavy Marxism, neo-Marxism. Just to be clear, it wasn’t my first introduction to Marxism! We’re talking about how curriculum is political. Even trying to be neutral is taking a political stand because of this system it exists in. It’s already steeped in so much policy that was created by people in power, so they talk about like hidden curriculum in school—not what you’re teaching kids in class, but things like when you tell them to be on time for class, or they get punished for it. That’s a hidden agenda.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A white male. No, just kidding. In reality, I mean, I’m not sure I would come back as a person. I would wanna be an animal or something that lives in the mountains all the time. Or, if possible, the mountain itself. I would come back as the mountain.
What is one hope and dream you have for the next year?
I’ve been saying this for almost my whole life, but I really wanna like jumpstart my Spanish. It’s something that I’ve always wished that I was fluent in, but I’ve never really had the time or the energy to pursue it. Now I think there’s a little bit of a deadline because I definitely want to be able to speak Spanish in classes. My problem is that I’m just too afraid. It’s also very weirdly emotional and like, tied to my family, so I always get very touchy about it.
What is your greatest fear?
The deep depths of the ocean. But at the same time, I love the ocean and get a lot of inspiration from it, so it’s sort of a weird dichotomy. I guess fear and inspiration all rolled into one.
Dani Alvarez is an artist and illustrator based in New York City. After leaving a career in architecture, Dani is currently in graduate school for art education, passionate about encouraging the next generation of artists to use their voice through artistic expression. Her design for the Listening Ladies T-shirt won the 2018 Independent Music Swag Award.