Artist A Big Draw Ex-Monk Makes Waves In Spokane Art World

The Spokane art world is delirious about a former Army man turned war protester turned Buddhist monk, who gives his work away.

David Wagner is one of the few new faces allowed into Artfest this year, the prestigious June gathering on the lawn of the Cheney Cowles Museum.

The entrance into that show followed his first place in the amateur division at the Spokane Art School annual contest earlier this year.

“His work just knocked me out,” one judge said.

Wagner, 52, has produced his finely detailed pencil drawings for more than a quarter century. Only friends and family got to see his work.

It takes him up to five years to complete one piece, then he gives it away.

Because of the time commitment, Wagner said it would be impossible to put a price on the dozen or so originals. At Artfest, he will sell lithographed copies.

“Until recently it never really occurred to me to sell them,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t. Because then I’d never see them again.”

Not interested - until now - in making money, Wagner has basked in the luxury of spending as much time as he wants on each piece. Most drawings have been loose interpretations of classic fiction. J.R.R. Tolkien is one of his favorite authors.

The drawings are sectioned off into a dozen or so panels. Each panel contains a scene. Often there are more than a thousand characters per scene.

When it came time to assemble his work for the Spokane Art School contest, Wagner simply borrowed his drawings back from friends.

According to his resume, after graduating from Rogers High School, Wagner did a stint in the Army, joined the anti-war movement, lived in an artists’ colony in Seattle and took up Buddhism to get out from under a “witch” he was dating.

“I met her in my apartment building,” Wagner said. “It was a stormy year. Buddhism was my escape from her. It wasn’t just Buddhism. It was the Hobbit books (by Tolkien) too. It seems this witch woman couldn’t touch any of the Hobbit books without burning her hand.”

Buddhism, as it turned out, was the stabilizing force in Wagner’s life.

He embraced the principles of self-improvement, simplicity and excellence in martial arts and fine art. He moved back in with his parents, took a $150-a-week job as a dishwasher and began a routine of working and drawing.

“Mostly, I think about my artwork,” he said. “It occupies most of my time.”

Part of Wagner’s philosophy is owning as little as possible. Living with his parents gave him that luxury.

Recently Wagner’s aging parents made out their will, leaving their modest North Side home to all five of their children to sell and split the profits.

That prompted him to venture into the art world with his work.

“I feel it’s something I really can’t avoid,” he said. “It’s like having to choose between living in a mansion or a cardboard box. There’s no in between.”

Wagner never received formal art training, so he enrolled in a class at the Spokane Art School. That made him eligible to enter the contest in February.

“I could tell (his artwork) was being done in private with great conviction and passion,” said Maxine Martell, a Seattle artist who judged the contest. “Mind you, I never met him.”

Martell knew immediately the artist was one who works outside the art world. “It’s unusual to find someone working that way now,” she said.

It’s unusual to find someone like Wagner. Except for gray hair, his appearance hasn’t changed much since his days as an “off-campus agitator” at the University of Washington.

During the very first anti-war protest in Seattle, Wagner’s image was captured by a Seattle Times photographer and pasted on the front page of the newspaper.

“For some reason (the photographer) zeroed in on me,” he said. “Probably because I was the most radical looking of the bunch.”

The only thing close to formal art training Wagner ever received was the nine months he spent living in the Frye Hotel, an artist commune on Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

“I met a lot of really good artists there,” he said. “I messed around with oil paints and acrylics and I was never all that good. So I decided to drop the paints and concentrate on drawing until I had mastered that medium.

“That’s when I realized I was a lot better at drawing than painting.”

Wagner has compensated for his lack of formal training by studying art history on his own. A ravenous reader, he pillages library shelves and book stores for art texts.

“That was the great thing about the Army, they have good libraries,” he said.

When he first got out of the military, Wagner said, he spent a lot of time copying Michelangelo’s work.

“And then of course, my style was very much influenced by Leonardo (da Vinci),” he said. “You notice the dark areas are what gives the light areas their contrast. It’s the brilliance.”

So goes the Tao of David Wagner, a Buddhist monk stepping out into the world at age 52.