Today we welcome multidisciplinary artist David Schwartz, AKA DVS to talk about his most recent foray into physical art, his memories of working with Prince, and the fruits of never giving up on a creative vision. David is a singer, songwriter, graphic designer, art director, and visual artist, and while he was sleeping in his car after he got out of college he also started hanging out with Prince and ended up collaborating on Daisy Chain. Since his youth days, David has been pursuing a career in graphic design and art direction, with a resume that includes websites for Zoolander 2 and The Office, and album artwork for 2 Chainz, Paris Hilton and a slew of Gucci Mane covers. After a long list of challenges, David recently realized his latest artistic ambition, a 1200 pound sculpture called Rhyme Capsule consisting of a marble hooded figure holding up a cut crystal boombox encapsulating 180 authentic Hip Hop tapes released between 1980-2000. Davis tells us how he got the idea for such an ambitious piece, how the project evolved from an initial concept involving a plinth and lucite embedment, and some of the many struggles he underwent while creating it. David also takes us back to his memories of hanging out with Kip Blackshire and developing a working relationship with Prince, and the lessons about bravery and commitment he learned along the way. Tune in for a fantastic episode.

Key Points From This Episode:

• The hustle of making art and how David lived in his car partially after finishing art school.
• Balancing commercial work and his personal art: An ongoing theme in David’s life.
• David’s love of old school hip hop album covers and how that got him into design.
• How David drew inspiration from LA Art Week, hip hop tapes, and a lucite embedment for his art project, Rhyme Capsule.
• The evolution of Rhyme Capsule and how the planned materials changed while working out how to accomplish it.
• Arriving at embedding hip hop tapes into crystal after many different iterations.
• Calling different people who embed objects into crystal and finally finding somebody in NYC.
• Meticulously designing the sculpture digitally before sending the designs to be cut.
• Trouble around contractors taking creative liberty on the implementation of David’s design.
• The boombox aspect of the sculpture and how David added its coolest features as an afterthought.
• Timelines for cutting the crystal and how David flew to NYC to do the finishing touches.
• How David got the idea to mount the sculpture on a Greek-style marble statue.
• The challenges involved in outsourcing the cutting of the statue and transporting it.
• David’s thinking behind the embedded tapes in the sculpture and how he got the rare ones.
• How Prince might react to David’s sculpture and how he made Dave a better artist.
• How David met Prince and ended up working with him after jamming at a rehearsal.
• Commercializing Rhyme Capsule: Opportunities, pricing, and when to cut friends deals.
• How people have responded to Rhyme Capsule and David’s plans to show it.
• David’s plans to make more versions of Rhyme Capsule and lessons he’ll apply.
• Lessons David learned about the hidden successes in failure through this process.
• The challenges of COVID and the fires, and some hidden blessing in between.
• What is going on with David’s music pursuits and some recent gigs he has played for Prince.

For more information and photos, visit here: https://notrealart.com/david-schwartz

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