Transcript
Chris Nelson: Chances are you've seen his art on a billboard advertising Utah's beauty or in an ad for the U’s GO LEARN! program or even in Wes Anderson's most recent film, “Asteroid City.”
My guest today on U Rising is award-winning artist Dave Meikle and, yes, he designed the U Rising podcast cover art, too. I'm really excited to share more about Dave's career with our listeners. Dave, welcome to U Rising!
Dave Meikle: Thank you very much. I'm really excited to be here.
Chris Nelson: So, Dave, I know you as the art director for University Marketing & Communications, but that's just one of three possible ways to describe you. You're also a freelance illustrator and you paint fine art landscapes. Were you born with this amazing talent? Tell me about how you came to be so good at what you do.
Dave Meikle is the U's artistic director.
Dave Meikle: Well, I've always wanted to do art. Even at a young age, I was always drawing, I was always looking at paintings. I always kind of knew that I wanted to paint. I learned at a very young age, I used to try and get my dad to draw things for me. My dad was a doctor, and so he was very left-brained. He didn't really draw, but he would try and draw me a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but it wouldn't look very good and I'd say, “That doesn't look right.” And he'd say, “Well, you draw it yourself.” And so, I learned that he couldn't draw it. Then I'd say, ‘Well, that's really nice,” and I'd go away and I’d erase it and draw it again myself. And so, it's always been this process of trying to draw or paint the way I want to see things.
Chris Nelson: Yeah. So what age was that?
Dave Meikle: Oh, this was probably about four or five.
Chris Nelson: Yeah, you know, I knew your dad a little bit from my time in health sciences so did you ever consider medicine or were you always going to be on the track for being an artist?
Dave Meikle: Well, I always consider myself very lucky because my dad, he was a top-flight researcher, a research doctor, very successful at what he did, but he never pushed me into medicine. I think I was a good student in high school. I kind of pulled things together and I was able to get good grades. I think I probably could have gone to medical school, but I was really glad that he never pushed me because I always wanted to do art.
And I think a lot of times you come across people that go into other professions because either their parents push them into it or they think that a career like art isn't viable and so it's just more of like a hobby and so they don't ever really pursue it and then they always wonder if they could have done it. So, I always feel lucky that I was never pushed in another direction, but I was allowed to follow my passion.
Chris Nelson: Nice. So where did you study and who influenced your style?
Dave Meikle: Well, I was very lucky in high school. I went to Highland High School and we had an art teacher named Harold Peterson who had taught for about 30 years there when I came along. And I was lucky to get four years of his instruction, but he really geared students to be ready if they wanted to go into art at a university level. And we had a very good art program and then I was lucky enough to win the state Sterling Scholar Competition. And that kind of, I think, was a big confidence boost in me to think, well, if I pursue this, I can do it. Then I was very fortunate to get a four-year scholarship to the University of Utah so I came up here in the fall of 1987, back when we were on quarters, and I've never left the campus since.
Chris Nelson: So, you started drawing dinosaurs, obviously. What drew you to landscapes eventually? What was that transition?
Dave Meikle: Well, I always liked environments. I think growing up here in Utah, you're always looking at the mountains. We had a good view of Mount Olympus out of our kitchen window, and so I would always look at the mountain every day, and there was a different scene every day, depending on the time of year, that the way the lights were hitting the mountain.
And I loved clouds. And so, I love landscapes and so I actually, I painted landscapes when I was in high school. I remember when I was a freshman, I spent in between my freshman and sophomore years, I spent the summer painting a big Grand Canyon painting. And in a lot of ways, I still haven't changed from that. I'm still trying to find those grand vistas and landscapes that are inspiring.
Chris Nelson: Talk about your time at the University of Utah. What was your first job here? What was that process? I suspect knowing you and how talented you are, you could have done a lot of things. How did you land at the University of Utah as an employee after you graduated?
Dave Meikle: I decided I wanted to be an illustrator. I always liked commercial art, too. I mean, I liked fine art, what you see in museums, but I loved, and funny enough with some of my movie experience, in high school I really studied “Star Wars,” the art of “Star Wars” and what the art that goes behind some of those movies. And I was really interested in either being like a matte painter or a conceptual artist where you visualize things.
So, I went into illustration and then it was recommended for the students in illustration, well, you had to take the first year of graphic design and after the first year of graphic design, which was a very difficult program, that graphic design year was one of the hardest years I've ever had in school. But they recommended that I finished the design program in addition to the illustration program so we could have that commercial experience and get a job.
And so in 1992, I saw a job posting for a student artist at DCE Design, and that was the Division of Continuing Education. And they had a design studio that was an in-house design studio for continuing education. There was a guy named Scott Greer who was the art director. And I actually applied and didn't get the, well, I don't think they filled the position. This was around the New Year's. And then in spring they posted it again and I applied again. And then I was lucky enough to get that job in the summer of 1992. And it's interesting because that's sort of where I still am today. Our office has changed hugely, but that was my start at the U as a student designer. Then in 1994, I was able to get a full-time position. And so, if you do the math, this is my 30th year full-time at the university.
Chris Nelson: So, chances are our listeners have seen the illustrations you've done for the GO Learn! program, and I should say that's “GO Learn!” with a giant exclamation mark at the end and they're really terrific. And one of my questions is, first off, difference between an illustrator and a graphic artist. Are they synonymous? Are they different? And then how did you, with the GO Learn! program in particular, how did you come up with that particular style?
Dave Meikle: Okay, yeah. Well, there actually are, the three things that I do are actually kind of distinct, and I think it's sort of unusual that somebody does all three. I feel lucky to be able to do it. But a graphic designer is somebody who takes elements and composes things like a magazine or you're dealing with layouts and typography and then photography, and then you hire illustrators, you kind of pull everything together. Another word for them is an art director, and that's what we do. And most graphic designers and art directors don't necessarily draw.
So I'm different in that I do draw and then I have an illustration degree and background. Now illustration is different than fine art in that with illustration, you're creating art for a specific client or purpose and usually for a commercial situation, whereas with fine art, you are the one who was kind of thinking of the problem to solve. You create without a client. And so, whatever you come up with, in the case of if you're in a gallery, you're just coming up with a body of work and then you sell that work, but you don't have somebody who's saying, “Hey, I need something created to help sell this idea or product.”
Chris Nelson: Interesting. That actually helps. That helps me understand because in our jobs, we work with all three and it's actually helped really understand that. Talk about your style, though, for those posters and I think it's the same style you used for the “Welcome to Utah” billboards.
Dave Meikle: Yeah. So, in the first few years after I started here, I tried to illustrate as much as I could. We were very limited actually with our budget in printing. We did a lot of one-color flyers and brochures. And so I developed a woodcut style so that you could print in one color. Every so often we would have a job that could come along where I could paint. So, I had an illustration portfolio of kind of tightly rendered acrylic illustrations, but I kind of wasn't getting the work that I wanted from that. And I realized that I really needed a digital style or something that was flexible, that was distinctive. And one thing that kind of stood out for me was I was able to get a package of posters from the old WPA, Works Progress Administration, where they did posters for the national parks.
And these were done in silkscreen. So, they were selling Zion National Park or Arches National Park but using a limited and flat colors. And I was familiar with Adobe Illustrator where it's kind of the same thing, but in a digital environment where you would create shapes and you could use flat colors. And so, I remember the university was going to a bowl game, I think the Las Vegas Bowl. We were going to play USC and I was asked to create a postcard that was going to be sent out to help advertise this to try and sell tickets to this game. [Utah played USC in the 2001 Las Vegas Bowl.]
And so I did this illustration of a Las Vegas, one of those casino signs, but it was advertising the bowl game, but I did it in this what I call a graphic style. So, I had flat colors and kind of bold shapes and things that were done digitally.
So it wasn't a painting using traditional oil or acrylic. This was a digital piece of art, but it was done with a drawing that I had drawn the shapes, but then used the computer to color it. Sometimes people will think that I've taken a photograph and then in Photoshop you can just push a button and it posterizes everything.
And that's not what these are. Every shape is individually drawn and crafted and layered to get exactly how I want. I'm not using the computer to make those decisions for me. So anyway, we did this postcard and I liked how it looked, and I started doing that style for different university clients. We were doing work for the athletics department for several years, and I did some football posters and some basketball posters and so I started really developing this style. And then probably about 2000, there was a program that Laura Snow actually was running when she was working at continuing education that was selling these trips that the university sponsored.
The name of the program at the time was called Wingspan, but this style seemed like a natural fit that we would use to make these look like old travel posters. And so we did about six illustrations for this Wingspan program. And then September 11 happened and travel became hard and the program kind of disappeared.
But then fast forward about 10 years later, somebody I think saw one of those posters that I did, and they had the 
thought of bringing the program back, and this is for continuing education, and they rebranded it as GO Learn! And my wife, who works for continuing education, her name's Lacy Egbert, and she's worked at the university for over 25 years, and she was working for their marketing office and she coined that term GO Learn. And then they came to me and asked if I would want to do these illustrations. And, of course, I jumped at the chance. I had a lot of fun with that style. And then I created the logo for GO Learn! and that was probably about 2011, and it just started from there. And I recently counted how many that I've done and I counted up 50 illustrations for this program. And then I've done three since, and then I'm working on one right now, so it's about 54 for GO Learn! since 2011.
Chris Nelson: So, a dumb question, but every entry point to the state has a Welcome to Utah. Are those all Dave Meikle?
Dave Meikle: Yeah. So before that, probably about 2006, 2007, I was approached by the, I think it was the ad agency who was working on the Life Elevated campaign. They were going to upgrade the billboards because the billboards were Olympic-themed and the Olympics were past. But they had seen, I think, some of these illustrations I had done in this style, and they liked the style, and so they asked if I would create.
And so there were seven different designs, depending on where you come into the state, in the style. So that was a lot of fun to do. And the fun thing about billboards is you have to get your idea across, you've got about six seconds. People will usually read about six words. But the style I think lends itself really well to sort of capture what Utah is about really quickly. And that's what’s fun about working in this graphic style is you do have to, everything is edited, you're sort of forced to simplify your shapes and your colors, but it sort of allows you to play with the emotion that you feel, I think, when you see some of these places, especially like Utah, when you see some beautiful scenery . . .
Chris Nelson: Yeah, that's worth a thousand words. That is powerful. Do you have family photos in front of all the Utah signs? Do you do the typical thing where you drive out there and take a picture, but it's actually dad's artwork?
Dave Meikle: Yeah, yeah. We've actually stopped whenever we can. We'll get out and take a picture. I think there are several that I haven't seen, and I know there's a train for the Golden Spike, and I haven't been to that location yet, although I think they did put a train up on I-84. It used to be the city skyline, but I think a year or two ago they replaced it with the train. But I haven't been on I-84 since they put that up.
But I actually, a few years ago, this is during the pandemic and in the summer we were just trying to figure out what to do with the family. We drove out to Vernal and going back to the dinosaurs, one of the billboards was of a dinosaur. So we drove to Vernal, went to get our picture in front of the dinosaur billboard that I did, but then I took a photo of just the billboard and the landscape around it, and I did a painting of the billboard in the environment. That was something that Lacy, my wife, had suggested would be a fun painting to do. And that actually, jumping ahead to the Wes Anderson movie, I sent that to Wes, and he really liked that idea. And I think some of that idea showed up in the movie with the billboards, and so that an image of a billboard or a painting of a billboard.
Chris Nelson: Yeah. Well, what a fantastic transition. That's my next question. So, talk about Wes Anderson, how that relationship evolved and the work you've done for him. I have to clarify, Wes Anderson’s a famous film director, for those of you who don't know, and his latest film, again, “Asteroid City,” that they did a lot of work. So, talk about that relationship and that history and that evolution.
Dave Meikle: Yeah, so that really felt like it came out of the blue. I was actually working on a really large mural project, and I had about a year to paint this room-size mural. I had 12 sections to do and I figured it would take one month to do each section. And the first section took about a month and a half, and the second took about another month and a half. So, I was already a month behind. And I got this email through my website from a movie producer saying the director really likes your work. Could you give me a call and we can talk about this? And I remember thinking, oh, I've got this big mural I'm doing and I don't have time to do this. And I figured it might be just a local film and maybe they needed some kind of painting to put on a wall, but I had to follow through.
And so I called the producer up and he said, well, I need you to sign an NDA and then I can tell you more about the project. So, I signed it and called him back. And then he said, well, the director is Wes Anderson. And I was like, whoa! Now, I was familiar with his movies. I'd seen “The Life Aquatic,” but I had a friend who was a filmmaker, and I remember a few years ago he had had a party or he threw a party for his wife, and we all had to come dressed as a Wes Anderson character. And so, I knew that there was sort of a cult following behind this person, that he was significant. And so, of course, I had to say yes, and I knew that this was going to push things with the mural I was working on, but you just don't say no to working with director of this caliber.
And so yeah, it ended up being a bill. The first one was a billboard, and it ended up, I did the painting of it, and then we got a scan made and then we sent it to him, and then it was printed out and put on the set in Spain. And so there's several pictures that went out when the movie came out of Tom Hanks standing in front of this billboard. And I think I was lucky enough that the process was really nice. The producer said, “Well, you're going to work directly with Wes” because I thought maybe I would work with the production designer or an art director or somebody. But he said, “Wes likes to work with these artists directly.” He said, “Now, there's going to be a lot of notes. Are you going to be okay with that?” And I think, well, I work for the U, I'm used to making a lot of revisions and changes, and last minute there's a . . .
Chris Nelson: Lot of micromanagement for people . . . yeah, you’re welcome!
Dave Meikle: This is right up my alley. But he was really, really nice to work with. I remember, when I did the first color sketch, being really nervous sending it off, because here I am sending it to this person who works with Tom Hanks or Margot Robbie or all these other people that if he called them, they would be excited to get his call. And here I'm sending him this email and just thinking, I hope he likes what I've done. He was very nice and he had a lot of changes and suggestions, and we went through several rounds, but got what he wanted. And then they came back after I was done and said, “Well, he wants to do a couple more paintings. We've found some money and let's do these.” So, I did another billboard and then I did another particular painting that ended up in the movie next to Scarlett Johansson.
And then several months later they came back and said, “Well, we need four more.” But this had a much tighter turnaround, so it ended up being seven paintings that ended up in the movie. And then about a year later, as the movie was getting close to being released, they came back again and said, “We'd like you to do a painting that we could use on some marketing materials.” And I figured that sounds like the movie poster, and it ended up being the teaser poster. So, when they released the teaser poster, it went out all over the world and that was my painting on this poster. And it had an all-star cast of people.
Chris Nelson: Did you go to the premiere, the screening of it?
Dave Meikle: No, no, I didn't. But it was funny seeing on the Today show, they had the artwork up on the screen and they took different elements of my painting, too, and they would use it. So, the teaser poster ended up being a landscape with another billboard in front. So again, it was that idea of the painting of a billboard or a painting of a painting. And then they used that billboard on quite a few elements in marketing the movie. It was exciting to see.
Chris Nelson: Yeah. Any other TV shows, films your artwork has appeared in?
Dave Meikle: Yeah, I remember a few years ago there was a movie called “The Last Man on Earth” and it was, I can't remember the network it was on, but they had seen the Welcome to Utah billboards and they really liked him. And so, they got permission, I think, from the state, but we didn't use the Life Elevated, which is copyright protected. But I gave them the artwork and then they created their own Utah billboard. And then one of the stills that they kind of used for publicity was, I think the guy wrote on the billboard ‘Alive in Tucson,’ and I'm in a gallery in Tucson, and they were kind of thrilled to see that “Alive in Tucson” on that.
Chris Nelson: Yeah, back to the Wes Anderson, just out of curiosity, where does that original artwork live now? Is that property of him or the studio?
Dave Meikle: Yeah, I think the first two, well, I had one that I actually had to send a physical painting to go to the set in Spain. There was a painting that was going to be behind Scarlett Johansson, they needed that painting to be on the set. So, we FedExed it to Spain and they had a frame ready for it, and they put it up on the set. The other two we sent to Wes Anderson directly, and then the other four paintings we sent to him directly, too. So, yeah, he ended up with all those paintings.
Chris Nelson: So somewhere in Wes Anderson's home or office, there's a bunch of Dave Meikle work.
Dave Meikle: Yeah, somewhere!
Chris Nelson: I mean, out of curiosity, I don't know how this process works. Does he own those paintings then?
Dave Meikle: I think when we set up the contract, he can keep the paintings and can have unlimited usage of the images. So, I'm not getting a royalty off of anytime it's shown. It's just we agreed on a fee and just went from there.
Chris Nelson: And I just think of where your paintings probably have ended up in the world. It is kind of fun to think about where they would be. I know there's not a standard answer to this question, but I have to ask, how long does it take to do one of these paintings? I'm sure you get asked that question a lot. How do you answer that? What's your process?
Dave Meikle: Well, it depends on how much time I've got, too. I do like to have, I can usually block in a fairly large painting in one sitting, so blocking in, meaning I'm putting all of the big colors, but I'm not necessarily making it tight or looking finished, but I'm just getting the correct colors and shapes in. But then it can take, depending on the size of the painting, it can take days to weeks to pull it all together. So maybe like a big painting, like a 48 by 48 square or a 36 by 48 might take two or three weeks, whereas maybe an 11 by 14 I could do in two or three days.
Chris Nelson: What's the length of time for a sitting? I mean, when I sit down to write, I can go for like 45 minutes and then I have to go get a snack. What's your process like?
Dave Meikle: Well, everybody always asks me how I find time with working and I have a big family and there's a lot going on, but I always say the key to getting anything done is working consistently. And if you can find time to paint every day for just an hour, you'd be surprised at how much you get done. And it's more important to just do it rather than necessarily maybe for the quality of what you're doing, you just need to do it. So, if you paint for an hour every day for a week, that's seven hours of work, and you can get quite a lot done in seven hours. So, I find two or three hours, if I'm lucky. I'd love to be able to do five or six, but at my stage of life, there's still a lot going on, but I spend a lot of time on weekends and for me probably the most productive time is from 10 to midnight.
Chris Nelson: I can't even get myself to find 30 minutes to exercise so you are a man of great discipline, I'm getting the sense. That is amazing.
Alright, so that ties to my next question, which was going to be, do you have more hours in the day but you've answered that pretty effectively. But in addition to Wes Anderson, the University of Utah, the entrances to all the points of the State of Utah, you've got art and landscape paintings in amazing places. I mean, the State Department’s Art in Embassies program, LDS Temples, being The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you got corporate collections, the Salt Lake International Airport, the Springville Museum of Art, City Creek Center.
So, let's start with the State Department. Do you know which embassies you're in worldwide?
Dave Meikle: Well, so that was a traveling program and actually it was a painting that I did for one of our clients here. So, the painting is actually in where we're located, the UMC House. It's the Rio Mesa landscape. So, we sent that to the, I think it was the consulate in Taipei, and that was on display there for a year or two. And they had a nice little booklet that was done for that. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been very generous over the years with hiring me to do paintings for their temples. I've painted a couple of room murals, one in Meridian, Idaho. The most recent one was in the St. George Temple that was been recently renovated.
And then I've got paintings that are, there's one that's in Africa, several in Europe.
Chris Nelson: So you paint them and then they're installed, you're not actually painting these . . .
Dave Meikle: Yeah, yeah, we send them there. Sometimes the paintings, I mean they're large, but maybe, I think the one in Africa was about five feet by seven feet.
Chris Nelson: Have you been to all the temples where your paintings are or not?
Dave Meikle: Oh, no, no.
Chris Nelson: Is that a goal or is that not important to you?
Dave Meikle: I go to the open houses when I can.
Chris Nelson: This is probably an unfair question to ask. Do you have a favorite? Is there one that you just look at and think that is my best work? Or maybe you haven't painted it yet. I don't know.
Dave Meikle: Well, I think for a lot of artists their favorite is maybe what they're working on right now. And with landscapes, you're always looking for something new.
But to go back to your other question about where you can see my artwork, actually, I do have quite a few paintings around on campus that people can see and some that I feel like are some of my best, especially in, so we're continuing education now it's University Connected Learning in Research Park Building 540. They had me do, I think, it's six feet by seven feet, a painting of Bryce Canyon that's in a stairwell in that building. And I feel like that's probably one of the better ones I've done. In the Garff Executive Education building, I have quite a few paintings in there. You've got a Mount Olympus on the, I think it's the fourth floor.
And then they've got a banquet room on the other side of the wall where the Mount Olympus is and they had me do a 19-foot, it's in three pieces, but I have a landscape of Salt Lake Valley looking west. It's sort of like a Salt Lake sunset. And to me that is Salt Lake, that is the Salt Lake I love, when you can see the lights coming on, you can see downtown, you can see the Oquirrhs, the clouds. I've got one of my graphic illustrations of one of the Garff dealerships, and then it's actually outside of one of the rooms where we've had our communications council meeting but I've got eight of my big graphic illustrations in that hallway there. So that building has quite a few. And then probably one of my favorites is in your conference room there, that Dead Horse Point painting that kind of has everything that I love about Utah landscapes.
Chris Nelson: Dave, that is one of my favorites of yours as well. And thank you so much for doing that for us. That is such a great illustration of, I think, the challenge of communication and marketing. We talk about that it doesn't matter how you get across the river in that scenario. There's a lot of ways to do it and it illustrates so much.
I got to say, one of my personal favorites I'm looking at right now in my office. It's actually a smaller version of it, but it's University Hospital with Mount Olympus in the background. And we used it when I was at the Hospital Foundation as a thank you gift to our board members. And I mean, I stared at it every day because I think it just captures how beautiful this campus is and how beautiful this city is. We will have to, I don't know if we've ever done this, but we need to create the Dave Meikle art map for the University of Utah. I come across your paintings all the time and they just hit me. They're just so striking and they just show up in a stairwell or they show up outside of a classroom, like you said. It's really cool.
Alright, I know you have a special interest in aviation and I think in the office at UMC House, you've got a painting of a vintage aircraft. Where did this interest come from?
Dave Meikle: Well, I've always been fascinated by history and I always kind of grew up reading about World War II. I have always been really interested in World War II aircraft and so I have too many books about markings. I can tell you probably the year the aircraft was and if the markings are correct or not. I'm one of those guys that are kind of like in a movie when they get it wrong and I'm like, oh, how did they make that mistake? The insignia shouldn't be like that! But I've just always been interested in that. And I look at aviation artists or maritime artists, and those people are usually at the top of their game. They paint really amazing clouds and landscapes. And so I have to say, I'm really inspired by a lot of that artwork, too. There was a while where I was really seriously thinking about, well, do I want to be an aviation artist?
But I've always been more drawn, I think, to landscapes, Utah landscapes, because that's what I can relate to and I'm here and I feel like that's part of me. But I certainly love the storytelling aspect of that. And then going to a few years ago when the football team, when they played in the USS Salt Lake City uniforms and our office was kind of tasked with helping to tell the story of the USS Salt Lake City. And that was just a thrill to be a part of that project. I knew enough about the history of it that I kind of helped craft that story of the ship that we were celebrating. But I think people didn't necessarily make the connection that the ship had actually participated in what was known as the Doolittle Raid, which is the very famous and important part of World War II.
But it had gone all the way through and was there when the flag was raised at Iwo Jima. And to be able to tell that story, that's where an illustrator can really come in because there's no photographs of the USS Salt Lake City in some of these events. Or if they are, they're very grainy, you can't tell what's going on. So, the painting that's in our offices of the USS Salt Lake City that we used for the website and the video, but then I was able to do six smaller paintings that told sort of like a chapter of the story. And then we had that on the website and then as part of the video, too. So, it was just sort of like being able to tell this story visually was a lot of fun.
Chris Nelson: I had not heard that background. That's really interesting. And we had the director of the Veterans Center on campus, and I know that will be very special for our veterans who are on campus to hear as well.
Dave Meikle: And so those paintings actually are in, the smaller ones, are in the Veterans Support Center.
Chris Nelson: Oh, wonderful.
Dave Meikle: And so, I work on the Veterans Day celebration. I've been doing that for probably 15 or 16 years. I do the artwork for that. And again, going back to what we do here at the U, that's one of those things where you're just proud to be a part of where we can do stuff to help and honor veterans.
Chris Nelson: So, we've talked a lot using an audio podcast about this really cool visual medium. For listeners, if they want to see your paintings, what's the best way -- online, local gallery? How can they experience your artwork?
Dave Meikle: Well, if you Google my name, you can find my website pretty easily. It's davidmeikleart.com. And so it's M-E-I-K-L-E, that's my last name. Nobody knows how to pronounce it or spell it, but davidmeikleart.com.
But probably the better way to see what's more current is to look me up on Instagram or Facebook. If you do want to go into a gallery, I'm in two galleries in Salt Lake--David Ericson Fine Art, which is in the Avenues or Evergreen Gallery, which is on 20th East and almost to 33rd South. Evergreen was the first gallery that took me on over 20 years ago, and they've been great. Dave Ericson's been great. I've been in some other really good galleries around. And then I'm also in, if you're in Tucson, Medicine Man Gallery. It's run by a guy named Mark Sublette, who's a world-famous Maynard Dixon expert.
He's very knowledgeable about Native American artifacts and rugs and baskets and all of that. So, he's an expert on the West, and I'm very lucky to be in his gallery. I had a solo show there last year about this time, and another person came up to me who was another artist who had tried to get into the gallery. She went up to him and said, “How do you get into your gallery?” And he said to her, “Well, to get into my gallery, you either need to be famous or dead.” And so I feel really lucky to be in his gallery.
And that actually, going back to the Wes Anderson movie, I think Mark had taken out an ad of my artwork. It was in, I think, one of the magazines that goes out nationally. And I think Wes had seen my image in one of these magazines, and that's how I kind of got on his radar. So, advertising does work!
Chris Nelson: Excellent. Well, that's amazing stuff. Well, as Dr. Meikle once said, “Chris, it's ‘Meikle’ like ‘nickel,’” and I've always remembered that. It was a very easy way to remember your last name. Dave, Dave Meikle, thanks for being our guest on U Rising.
Dave Meikle: Thank you very much.
Chris Nelson: Listeners, that's it for today's episode. Our executive producer is Brooke Adams and our technical producer is Robert Nelson.
I hope you'll tune in next time. I'm Chris Nelson. Thanks for listening.