| I'm a long-ish time fan of Dave's. I've been following his work on and off for the past ~decade or so. I've bought a number of his prints and have visited his shop in Asakusa. I've been thinking about this for some time now, but I think the key to a number of artists successes has been the ability to combine what you've laid out here. Long term dedication to the work & with expressing the passion for that work — through a popular medium. Having watched Dave's streams on Twitch, it seems to me that he has been able to adapt to the medium as they've come along through his career. Originally he appeared on broadcasts on Canadian television, moving on to YouTube in more recent times, and now has been consistently streaming on Twitch for a couple of years. In all his output, you can see so clearly how passionate he is about Japanese printmaking. It's incredibly infectious. Commenters on his stream take on and share that passion, especially in his show-and-tell sections where you wait to see him reveal, discuss, and get very excited about new prints he has purchased (usually off of Yahoo). Having recently read Van Gogh's letters, I saw a similar thing. His popularity really stems from his sister in law, Johanna, making them available after his death. He exuded passion (to the extreme!) about art and was tenacious in expressing that to his Brother in letters. However, he also made a clear decision point in his life (At ~27/28 years old) that art was going to be his primary focus. I think that dedication combined with sharing that passion with others is what really makes some artists stand out. Ideally, doing both while still alive so you don't have to depend on your brother the whole time! I think that's what make's Dave special. He has certainly mastered this. (I'm sure he would hate being compared to Van Gogh though, so I apologise to him for that) |
Why? I'd bet most people wouldn't mind at all.