The following first appeared in the student-run USV Chronicle and was written by Kalyn Farmer. It has been lightly edited.
Disciplined, focused, and goofy: these are the three self-proclaimed descriptors of USV’s very own Dennis Sopczynski. Many know him from 2D Design or Color Theory. Others know him by reputation only, as the teacher who assigns projects that have students working overtime. Or perhaps you know Dennis through his association with the square or the cube. Like the cube, he has a multitude of intriguing sides. “It was purely experimental.” It was 1996 when the process started to surface. Seven years after Dennis had graduated from the California Institute of Arts (“CalArts”), he dedicated his time to designing the “Carnavale Delight” font, which was originally his graduation thesis. The font was entirely designed by hand, including every letter, number, and basic punctuation mark. At the time, type-design software existed; but Dennis pursued his curiosity for typography in traditional, hand-drawn style. After his proposal to publish Carnavale Delight was declined by Émigré Magazine, he decided to bring it to another digital type foundry in Chicago. T.26 agreed to publish and distribute his font with the caveat that he finished a complete keyboard set. It took an entire year to design all of the symbols and characters that this addition required. To this day, you can find “Carnavale Delight” on the digital foundry for purchase.
“So even at a young age I, I had aesthetic, a sensibility I did not quite recognize…”
As a child, Dennis sketched detailed drawings of houses, brick by brick. The square may have been present then, but in later years he lost touch with its geometric simplicity. Since then, “the square found its way back into my vocab,” Dennis recalls.
Many have heard the phrase “Dare to be Square.” This slogan was coined by a group of Dennis’ students for an independent t-shirt project. In his eyes, daring to be square can mean a number of things: risking failure, challenging established ideas, paying the price for the freedom of being an artist. “Dare yourself to not be as obvious and conventional,” Dennis says proudly. But it can also mean going with what you know, being confident, and sticking with it.
“Being honest with oneself requires an artist to say, ‘I am good, but I can do better,’” Dennis says.
When swimming entered Dennis’ life in 1993, he believed it would be a passing interest. The actual impact swimming had on his creativity would remain unknown to him until 2001. It began with a simple set of colored pencils and a pad of gridded paper.
“It remains with me to this day.”
440 pool drawings later, the hobby would continue to inform his best work. To this very day, he still explores the theme in a variety of different media including Photoshop. “I’ve never done anything so minimal in style,” Dennis says.
While some of his work is literal, much of it is evocative of Dennis’ personal experience. He designs aspects of the piece around details: weather, time of day, reflections, counting, pool activities, and even references to historical art.
So why does he persist with these pool drawings?
Dennis focuses on process, stating “this is what we do as artists.” Most of his work isn’t high tech, but when it is, some creative decisions stem from technical errors. These “errors” have expanded his ideas in ways that he couldn’t have foreseen. This process has furthered his work – his expression – in different ways. “[One] could fail for the right reasons,” he says.
“A liability could be turned into an asset.”
Dennis’ teaching style is somewhat unique. “They think that I’m throwing them into a pool to drown, but it’s only two feet deep,” he says. Dennis firmly believes that his classes are transitioning students from being artists to becoming designers: a major distinction given the nature of today’s industry. The idea that fine arts and design are able to coexist works well within his classroom. Given his BA in Fine Arts and work as a museum coordinator, his classes reflect a traditionally-rooted style.
Dennis believes it is important that he is an artist for an audience of one: himself.
His pool drawings are purely for his own benefit and of his own will. Although he is a designer (where a creative direction is determined by a client) his artistic process is still his own, even when teaching at USV.“I didn’t know that was part of the process,” Dennis says about his experience at USV, which has shown him the will of young artists.
As a professor and designer, he helps students understand that he supports them within their individual processes. He believes that an academic environment is the best place for young artists to try out new ideas and find their individual processes before moving on with their careers. The Self Portrait project assigned in his classes is one of the strongest assignments he offers.Through this project, he helps students understand their ideas of themselves, which forces them to find their own artistic processes from within.
“…I thought I knew a few things about design. When it turned out… I knew less than I thought I did… By the time I was close to graduation, I thought “I think I finally got this figured out.’”
“Outside looking into the inside on the inside.”
Dennis has had a handful of memorable experiences with students at USV. One that stood out to him was complex by nature and wholly unexpected: In his 2D Design course, he consistently included projects that as part of the curriculum – “staple” projects. One year, he combined a couple of those projects, like the Surrealism Narrative and the Song Lyric Poster, to create the Topical Song Lyric Poster. He gave the students two different songs to work with and freedom of choice when it came to picking a theme (excluding religion, politics, and sex). The students handled these heavy topics with a degree of maturity that was surprising to him. They were working with complex issues, yet it seemed they had found a way to use this project as a form of self-expression. Each student submitted a completely unique project, which added to the collective experience overall. Dennis was “taken aback,” saying that the pieces were “some of the strongest work by USV students.” Throughout the project, he saw the potential of his students. Watching them apply their design processes to these projects was a highlight of that year.
“In a different direction.”
While Dennis is known by most for his love for squares, his favorite ‘non-square’ shape is quite surprising: the Biomorphic Shape – a shape that is organic and ever-changing by nature. This is the shape of the water that is within the square pool. This shape is important to him because of its ability to change.
“You might have career ambitions, but there are options and things can change.”
Dennis believes in taking opportunities wherever they may be, even if they are unexpected. “Let’s say you want to work for the factory that makes blue squares,” he explains: “the same factory also makes red circles. You apply for a job and you get placed making red circles. Although it may not be what you exactly wanted, you still have a foot in that might lead you to eventually working with the blue squares…You would never have had that opportunity to do what you want to do if you didn’t take that chance.”
“This is what they were after….”
Looking back on his impact at USV and his life since grad school, Dennis realizes that he has finally found what CalArts was looking for within him. His experiences at USV have modified his artistic and design processes. The very idea of a USV Chronicle highlight about him took him by surprise. He was flattered by the idea but wasn’t looking for praise. He likes the thought of supporting students through projects but does not want them to be admirers or copies of his own unique creative mind.
“The square did not necessarily take me back to my childhood where I drew things so precisely. What it did was to introduce me to something I had never previously considered to be an integral part of my life, which was the swimming pool.”
Dennis’ inspired work and experiences with his students are what makes Dennis who he is as an artist. He is not just a square, but a pool of biomorphic water contained within a square outline.
