Inspiration Point: Collected Perspectives

Arizona artist Daniel Mayer will share insights into his interdisciplinary studio work with exploratory and creative processes in artist’s books, experimental printmaking, collaborations, and gateway public art. Mayer’s ongoing series Field Studies responds to purpose and place, collecting, archiving, and inquiry. Altered topo maps with atmospheric rivers are captured in reductive charcoal drawings, shaped letterpress text represents mud cracks, and surface-oriented relief printmaking mirrors landforms. In Mayer’s gateway public art, the natural world is integrated for a sense of calm and reflection. Real, imagined and invented perceptions are variable constructs in Mayer’s studio explorations.

Doors open at 6:30pm. The presentation starts at 7:00pm.

*The event is free, but space is limited, and registration is required. For those unable to attend in person, the talk will be live-streamed on our YouTube Channel.

Daniel Mayer is an Arizona artist/educator who investigates the intersection of language and art resulting in artist’s books, experimental printmaking, and gateway public art. Mayer’s commissioned transportation public art projects integrate the natural world into the built environment. Mayer’s award-winning PHX Sky Train’s architectural glass murals incorporate Arizona nature prints collected from different elevations; the terrazzo platform design has multi-colored blue aggregates representing the passage of time; rivers of metal letters provide wayfinding; and the freeway overpass design at I-17 and Happy Valley Rd. merges land and sky into a uniform pattern at the Sonoran Foothills.

Mayer exhibits national and internationally and has work in numerous private and public rare book collections such as the UC-Berkeley Environmental Library, Getty, Wellesley, Yale, Klingspor Stadt Museum, Bibliotheek-Hague, and others. Artist residencies have informed Mayer’s work at the Ucross Foundation, PLAYA Arts and Science Residency, and the Glasgow Print Workshop. Mayer established his Tempe studio in 1983 for generating new work.

Daniel Mayer is the Director of the Pyracantha Press, ASU School of Art, for interdisciplinary creative research in artist’s books and letterpress printmaking. Collaborative projects include Eco Songs, a song-cycle based on earth and ecology, and Individualocracy, a study on urban sprawl. Since 1986, Mayer has managed an active historical movable type collection for creative research, outreach, and education.

Host or Publisher Natural History Institute