We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ethan Riddle. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ethan below.
Hi Ethan, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
As a counter-balance to my social anxiety and the occasional bouts of depression, the crutch of my existence has been the act of creating. There are no alternate worlds where I can imagine myself not being an artist. Spending time to work on various projects of differing complexities imbues within me a sense of accomplishment, enjoyment, and purpose. The worries of everyday life appear to slip away when I am focussed on my work, however, they manage to seep into my art unintentionally or act as the inspirations for the artworks themselves. I began creating art through the collage medium because of my love for Winston Hacking’s music videos, in which creativity found me at a time when I had moved homes and was about to start high school with very few friends and a schedule at home full of boredom. My Freshman and early Sophomore years at college were also very lonely times, in which I was in a desperate situation of finding friends and always falling short of this goal. To keep myself busy and to express my emotional pain, I found myself working on art as a form of therapy. I felt very isolated and viewed myself as being very strange, taking these feelings as a sign to make incredibly bizarre and often complex artworks. The start of my Junior year was a time where I found myself having a stable friend group and creating a name for myself in the art department on campus. The most enjoyment that I have ever received from my creative endeavors are when I include my friends; either artist themselves or just enjoyers of art, within my projects. Despite helping to build their portfolios, the process of including their ideas within a song, video, or visual artwork is a memorable experience and a lot of fun. Works from other creatives and my own creative aspirations lead me to believe that art has had the most important influence on my life and therefore I owe an unending sense of gratitude towards it.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Beginning sometime in 2017, my artistic career has been ever-present within my life, shaping the enjoyment of each year through the successes found within them. I began my creative boom with drawing and the collage medium, however, I did not like the drawings and therefore focused solely on collage; the act of cutting images and piecing them together into an artwork. I owe many thanks to my parents for always supporting my efforts regardless of how weird or off-putting my art can be at times. Visiting thrift shops and bookstores became an obsession and often drained my wallet, but it resulted in a mass accumulation of random books that I still use today for the collage-making process. My interest in collage was spawned by my admiration for Winston Hacking who is an artist that creates music videos with collage animation. I completed a few binders of collage art and the works themselves appeared complex, random, and/or very silly in their presentation and often depicted natural elements of the world. Many of my favorite collages were created towards the end of my high school years, resulting in the creation of a self-produced book titled “Earwig: A 2019-2021 Collage Archive,” which features what I’d consider my best collages of this time period within my art career. The collages created after this achievement became grander and increasingly more time-consuming, allowing me to turn to other mediums of art. A few of my larger works were included in a couple different gallery settings, specifically through the Pocono Arts Council’s monthly themed exhibitions which were so much fun because they allowed me to meet other artists within my local area. Around the same time that I had considered myself a collage artist, I would occasionally draw and add paint within my works, springing to life an interest in mixed media art, inspired by the works of David Firth and Stanley Donwood. In the summer before college started, I bought a new computer which allowed me to download Photoshop, resulting in photo edits that often depicted surreal landscapes and the inhabitants within them. Having a computer allowed me to create 3D models using Microsoft 3D Builder, drawings and basic edits through MS Paint, and music on the BandLab website. As the confidence in my work steadily increased, I began posting my art to social media and sending them to magazines in the hopes of being featured. This all accumulated in the greatest day of my life when I got featured in /Carpazine Magazine/, opening the floodgates for future publication features such as /Visio Magazine/. /Rambler Magazine/, /Wrongdoing Magazine/, and /Skyie Magazine/ to name a few. I also owe many thanks to Jeannie Tyrrel who invited me to talk about my art on “The Brain Drops Podcast.” Although these are all positive experiences for me, my social life was often nonexistent and I frequently became overwhelmed with trying to finish or start the many creative ideas that I could not find the time or energy to work on. As a result of my efforts to make art friends through social media, I created a visual art magazine in 2022 titled /The Melon Factory/ as a way of featuring work from artists who found it and wanted to submit their work, or artists that I contacted because of my interest in their discography. This endeavor provided me with an exposure to graphic design and an ability to work on long-term projects, in which the layout design and the additional artworks were completed in a span of four to five months. Having been exposed to the joy of being featured in a few magazines, I wanted to provide that feeling to any artist interested in my publication, therefore I accepted anyone who submitted their work, releasing the volume for free after its release as a downloadable PDF. This endeavor marked my first year of college as a memorable experience, despite my personal life being underwhelming. Additionally, it opened the door to my position as an editor of /The Marquis Literary Magazine/; an annual publication of student art and writing at Lafayette College, which I have been operating for the last three years of my college experience.
Sometimes I have an unhealthy relationship with my art because I am capable of finding myself in situations where I neglect my own personal health for the act of creating. This became evident in my creation of a collage for the musician Volk who commissioned me to create a collage for him. I was told that the artwork would be featured on a social media post and therefore I wanted to give the work all of my time and effort. This resulted in a poster sized collage that I finished within a week, but at the cost of little sunlight, missing classes, intense isolation, and very little sleep. It was one of the few times that I found art to be a detriment to my health and therefore I have been careful ever since to not fall into the same situation within my work ethic.
As an art major at Lafayette College, I became experienced in various mediums that I may not have tried otherwise. These are primarily sculpture, photography, painting, and printmaking. Currently, I am an assistant for my painting professor Sun You and have worked at the Experimental Printmaking Studio on campus throughout the summer of 2023. My interest in various mediums resulted in an ability to add my style to any creative endeavor that I wish to undertake. I was starting to make a name for myself as an artist throughout my campus, since I was in almost every art class, knew all of the art teachers very well, was a member of the Arts Society on campus, and was accepted into Arts Housing; living with creatives and using the additional space as a studio. The highlight of this time period was the creation of a stop motion animation that took an entire semester to create and was titled ” Ars Moriendi” for its depiction of tableware springing to life and falling to pieces. Its creation, like many of the works around its time, was a result of depression, in which my art often undertook themes of isolation, decay, and disregard for one’s physical or mental well-being.
My Junior year at Lafayette College; roughly the later half of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, was when I started to collaborate with the friends who I have been fortunate to meet. The focus within my art career turned towards my creation of music inspired by electronic artists like Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and Locust Toybox; finding enjoyment in acquiring various random samples, and video edits that appear very Lynchian in their dream-like themes. For a few weeks, I would participate in Arts Society events such as the Art Jams which were workshops where I was able to create collages around people interested in collaborating or simply viewing my work. My turn to creating music was the highlight of 2024 since it was a new experience for me and offered so much potential in the processes to be discovered. I became friendly with many of the music majors on campus and enjoyed collaborating with them. Additionally, it became a form of socializing when I would meet with my other friends who were not studying music, but simply enjoyed the same genres that I was interested in, as well as the act of creating itself. Despite having no musical background, I recorded random sounds and instrumental samples on piano and guitar. These efforts resulted in the release of a forty-one minute album titled “Let’s Be No One” by the project name Future Transport. The album was separated into various parts, featuring tracks that get progressively stranger and darker throughout its duration. After a few months of working on this project, it became accessible through Bandcamp, YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify, and I even burned a few CDs of it for those involved in its creation. This process was repeated with the release of an EP titled “Lemon Hours” which was a moodier follow-up that expressed the negative feelings that I had experienced at the time of its creation. Coinciding with my creating of music and the art that promoted it, I enjoyed drinking too often and my creative energy became strained, making me feel as if I was no longer the artist that I used to be. While I enjoyed the music-making process, I tuned out my passion for visual art, and often felt very nervous to return to my roots. After much consideration in regards to a second album that I began but never finished, I realized that I shouldn’t hold myself to one specific medium at a time, and therefore I returned to visual art with great enthusiasm. I turn to art whenever events within my life upset or cause me distress, making it a consistent factor within my day to day activity. Overall, I want my work to embody my feelings and my personality because it helps me escape reality, often times helping me embrace it.
As of now, I am creating artworks of various mediums and anticipating the final year of my college experience. Because of my influence in the Arts Society at my campus, I have started a gallery space for student artists to display and sell their art at SmARTivities in Downtown Easton, with much credit to the store’s owner April Khalil. I plan to work on whatever interests me the most and to continue hoping to inspire other creative individuals, whether through my art, music, video edits, and etc. I have created a website titled “”Ethan Riddle – Creative Endeavors” to share my favorite works and I am looking forward to trying mediums that I have not experienced and to continue building onto the skills that I owe my previous successes to.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Reflecting on my art career, I must clarify that I am frequently burnt out due to the overwhelming sense of having too many ideas rather than having none at all for long periods of time. It seems as if I could never catch-up with the projects that I’d wish to finish or start, however, it is important for me to remember that the process of creating should be tied to the motivation behind its creation. If you are within a similar situation, the act of creating art should be enjoyable rather than being a mechanical process with an end-goal. You shouldn’t force yourself to create something that you momentarily do not have the passion for, because the work will reflect your indifference towards the endeavor of its creation. As someone who intends to create art as their livelihood, I have found that switching mediums for short amounts of time can offer a fresh perspective on the act of creating, in which newer avenues of creativity will open as you try to understand the processes involved in a different field of art. The more often you experience different mediums, your acquired skills will certainly influence your newer works, while also adding to a diverse portfolio. The standards for your work within a newer medium will begin at a lowered state and therefore you should feel less pressure to overwhelm yourself with grandiose creations. Additionally, there is no reason to avoid the medium that you have made the jump from, instead, return to it whenever there is a drive to do so. My experiences in collage, digital art, photography, video edits, and music all blend together when working on a project such as an animation, which require various elements from each practice, so trying different mediums can make larger projects appear less intimidating. Waiting for the perfect time to create will lead to an endless pursuit of acquiring skills that may never lead to the actual creation of the projects you intend to create. By this statement, I do not mean that acquiring any prior knowledge before starting a creative project is a negative, but if the act of learning is prolonged and does not result in any attempt of creative output for a long amount of time, the skills become at risk of being forgotten if never used. Through my own experience, I have tried to learn Blender; a 3D model software, through various tutorials prior to my attempts at using the program itself, in which I have forgotten the skills that I had spent man hours learning because I never applied them to my work. I countered this issue when I began creating music because I jumped right into the field with no prior experience or knowledge of music theory. While I felt incredible degrees of imposter syndrome, the result of jumping into an unknown field was a satisfying progression of slowly discovering processes that enhanced my experience of creating music while actually creating it, not prior to it. Overall, if you want to draw, paint, film, etc. and you have the access to act on these interests, begin creating as soon as you are able to and build upon your skills when you find hiccups in the way.
Lastly, if you are inspired by an artist, try to emulate their work until you find your own style within the field that you are creating in. I began my artist career trying to copy Winston Hacking, David Firth, Stanley Donwood, and many other artists who I greatly admired. Despite my efforts to be like them, I am me, and therefore my own personal inputs became increasingly evident within the artworks that I created. Your style, regardless of your skills within a medium, reflects who you are as a person and that gift cannot be taken away. These statements are all based on my experiences, so I do not wish to declare any of these as definite claims on how artists should or shouldn’t act, however, I hope that they are useful to anyone who finds them helpful.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
I often find myself feeling stressed from the worry of trying to stay productive. I often set a high expectation for my creative endeavors and I pressure myself into accomplishing many art-related tasks within each day. This often results in a lack of socializing or an unproductive feeling if I am distracted by social media or decide to go for a walk instead of creating art. The downside of this kind of thinking is the sense of failure that I place upon myself if I am incapable of reaching my daily goals. I find this situation to be ironic because I enjoy creating art but I always wish to create more. To overcome this feeling, I have been reminding myself that my creativity is never going to run away and that I shouldn’t try to recreate the successes of the previous day because each day is its own. The quick satisfaction of finishing multiple smaller projects at once should never seem preferable to that of finishing a longer project, simply because of the time limitations I choose to place upon myself. Overall, I am going to create something as a way of simply enjoying the moment and whether or not I finish the project before the night arrives, I’ll always have the next day to work on it. When I begin any project of various size, I mostly listen to music and have a cup of coffee. I look forward to working on art after I have finished writing this, but I feel no sense of immediacy in this decision. Thank you for your time!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ethanriddle-creativeendeavors.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ethanriddle87/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ethanriddle9872?si=bxtzjWX75DiXo37w
- Other: Bandcamp Account: https://futuretransport.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Art and Photography by Ethan Riddle
