JOSHUA FANNING
Discovers an artist who works in New York, L.A. and Tokyo all without leaving home

Sitting in a sun-drenched lounge room, I squint as the sun momentarily bursts through the clouds. My host sets down a coffee in front of me and slides a thick-spined art book under my mug while muttering an apology about not having any coasters. The room we sit in is dotted with beautiful pieces of furniture; a lamp, designed and manufactured in 1972, sits on the coffee table. A B&O sound system plays an unfamiliar brand of ethereal electronica and a wall stacked with vinyl records sets the backdrop for our conversation. My mouth has been flapping for ten minutes already but I don’t believe I’ve actually said anything. Everything seems to have its place and some sort of significance here, except me.

I first heard about the artist Dan McPharlin while visiting a design firm in town. The director asked me whether I’d heard of this guy who makes paper miniatures of synthesizers, of this guy who’d done a cover for international design and culture magazine Wallpaper. I hadn’t. Now, without any real idea of what I wanted to get out of it, I was interviewing him. Why? Well, because he lives in a teeny coastal town in South Australia I guess.

“Is it Josh or Joshua?” Dan asks me, as he takes up a seat on a dimpled leather couch opposite.

“I don’t really mind,” I reply.

“Well I thought I’d check, because my contact at the New York Times always signs off in her emails as Elizabeth but when we talk on the phone I tend to call her Liz and I’m not sure if she likes that or not.”

My eyes widen as Dan goes on to tell me about working for the New York Times. How, Liz had seen the spread he did for Wallpaper and that basically she wanted a similar sort of thing, and commissioned him to complete four illustrations in three days. The images were for a feature on the Bahamas that was going into the Times’ travel supplement. Dan explained that he actually adopted New York’s business hours, getting up in the middle of the night so he could liaise with New York on their time.

“Actually, I’ve had to really take a firm stand with most of my clients about that,” he said, referring to his practice of working the hours of whichever city in the world had contracted him this week.

“I try not to do it anymore, but when I first started out, I was just working ‘round the clock sometimes.”

Dan shared with me his client list which spreads around the world, from Japan to England, Europe, LA and New York. We discussed Melbourne as a creative city and that he’d lived there for a time until he got entirely underwhelmed by the “scene” and decided that he preferred Adelaide’s more laid-back lifestyle. And all the while, he was apologising. I couldn’t work out what for and so I asked him.

“I really worry that I’m kind of boring,” he confessed.

I was astounded by this admission. Not knowing what to say, I reached for my coffee and drained the last dregs. Setting the mug down I remained at a loss. For the past hour Dan had been explaining passionately his motivation and influences, ranging from the art of Roger Dean and Syd Mead, the films of Stanley Kubrick and the creations of Jim Henson to the record covers of George Hardie. Dan was quite candid about his distrust of so much modern design, the homogenisation of style with its fad cycles and accompanying magazine tutorials. I couldn’t believe that anyone who got a bee in their bonnet over designers being responsible for creating a more sustainable future and making sure they create products, whether televisions or teapots, which are “worth their existence” could be in any danger of being considered boring. But he felt he was.

“I haven’t done that whole travelling thing. I’ve just done my own thing and it’s kind of worked out,” he finished. And it clicks. Every time Dan gets a call from a company in some far off mega-city to do their next album cover or magazine lift out, they ask him where he’s from. And, without fail, Dan ends up having to explain where Adelaide is in relation to Sydney, if they even know where that is. But 800 miles from anywhere remotely important Dan is content simply doing what he feels compelled to, irrespective of his surrounds. People from all over the world want to know him because of that fact. Now I was here, another person searching for something as solid as Dan has found, not in this teeny coastal town in SA, but within himself.