Grain | Devon Cardamone
With my analog cameras, I capture the Pacific Ocean and the people drawn to it. Stories emerge from within moments and light frames them forever on film’s emulsion layer. Where photography’s toil ends, I embellish and fill scenes with loose watercolor paint, messy oil pastels, ink and whatever I can get my hands on. I go out in the world and surf, winding through countless rolls of Kodak as I amble up and down Highway 1 in an old manual BMW. At home, I’m curating and applying what I find out there. Photographic prints, ideas, a refurbished flat bed scanner, paint stains, and an archaic scale that doesn’t work lay about my dining room table. If you step somewhere less recently trodden in my home, you’ll pick up a forgotten chunk of color and leave a trail of Phthalo Blue wherever you go next. You’re likely headed towards the sink to rid yourself of a now empty cortado glass lined with remnants of golden brown.
I create with the belief that others should get to see what I see. The photos are what’s real and the embellishments guide towards what’s implied. My work is a cohesive coverage of a time and place: the 2020s along the California coast and what it feels like to really be here. To be offline, refusing automation, doing things with our hands and feet. An invitation for coffee, made along that very same principle, is what makes it matter.
I have no problem making things. I am driven to do so and will not stop. However, as many art-world writers dictate and creatives on the street tend to agree with, art can’t sustain itself in isolation. It needs to find people, matter to them, and eventually earn a place in their lives.
Where I find myself is somewhere below the threshold for invitation to art’s highest circles, but striving to stay far above the line for the simple cost of decoration. I don’t say no to sales in big-name galleries, numbers carrying far too many digits on art-fair walls, but that’s not a call I’ve yet received.
I find myself in local showings, events near to the water. Whether it’s my own work or that of others, this is where local culture thrives. Places for conversation between people who live and experience the world the art on the walls seeks to define. Between odd events here and there, you can find incredible art curated by members of the attending community. I’m not saying that there is no space for this in the world currently. What I have uncovered through experience is that if given a single go, nothing really sells or is appreciated as valuable art. Trust takes repetition, buyers need familiarity.
So my question becomes: where is the space in this modern world between art and real culture, in avoidance of stuffy high end galleries. A space where the spirit of the art is not lost, but enables true likelihood for the work to find its way to serious collectors?
I often talk about the concept of a coffee shop, somewhere for community to continuously show up, but that’s as much a metaphor as a realistic endeavor. Social media driven events tend to attract loosely affiliated individuals seeking to enjoy an evening appreciating a vibe, not so much people who truly resonate with it. Your pop-up art fair which eschews gallery norms in favor of a fun setting only matters if you can repeat it. If those who show up continue to do so.
You see someone in passing once, you might smile. You see them a second time, maybe you say hi and introduce yourself. After weeks and months occupying similar spaces, that’s where real connection and meaning are made. Whether the coffee shop I allude to is a metaphor or a practice, or something I can someday put together brick-and-mortar, I believe that artists need to build a recurring experience. It’s a paradox that I seek to break, because very few align their idea of fine art with a casual space, but the high end stuff just doesn’t seem to work for everyone. People need somewhere they know they can find you, get to know you, and watch the work evolve, becoming a patron of the coffee shop gallery itself.
For now, in search of this ideal, I continue my art practice with my own two hands. I’m working on perfecting the flat white and the cortado in my own kitchen, and I will never put the camera and paintbrush down. I extend an open offer if you’re willing to stop by for some espresso, and like any good barista, I’ll make sure to remember your name and your story for the next time if you’ll do the same.
Devon Cardamone is a photographer and artist who works entirely with film. He learned to focus on a medium format Pentax, judging distances on a Rollei rangefinder, and exposure on his Leica M3, a camera that has no light meter. Now, it's all feel and intention on old cameras, capturing moments in coastal California and dipping into mixed media and watercolor works. He'd probably be a surf photographer if he didn't spend so much time in the ocean himself, but feels that a focus on life and culture around the water and in Los Angeles can be more impactful.
Written by Devon Cardamone | Photography and mixed media artwork by Devon Cardamone