2026 Artist: Dane Kuttler
As Arts Marathon artists we will send a different example of our creative process and work to everyone who sponsors us, 3-5 days per week during April. We invite our friends, family, colleagues and anyone else who cares about art and wants to support Bridge to Rutland’s important work to sponsor us. Together we will help welcome new Americans who, in turn, will add immeasurably to our communities.
Dane‘s Arts Marathon Goal
I'll be doing a series of watercolor and ink paintings called "Make it make sense: finding our way through chaos."Dane‘s Background
I used to feel embarrassed for grownups who did things.
Community theater productions. Synagogue choirs. Softball leagues. Art exhibits at the library. I looked at all of it cringing and wondering why they did it.
Didn't they know they weren't...good?
I attended high school in a wealthy area surrounded by kids whose riches in education would be the envy of Alexandria.
Every single musician in our high school orchestra took private lessons. Some kids went to Julliard in the summer for dance or music. With a full hour a day of class time to devote to their portfolios, the studio art students at my high school painted, sculpted, drew and forged pieces that got them into college but could've held their own among the lesser greats.
We were GOOD, some of us. Really good. We had time, resources, energy, stamina, support and pressure. We had potential and promise and we were judged at the highest levels in our fields - professional auditions, all-star sports teams, college, college, always colleges.
If you weren't good - at least better than average - then what was the point?
I will add that I was not particularly good at most things, except writing, and I still got support and resources and piano lessons that long outlasted my talent or drive.
I didn't dare play piano in public. I ran the school literary magazine, because that's what I was best at. I couldn't fathom why adults would show their mediocre selves to the world.
Sure, I understood that they had jobs and couldn't be expected to devote the time and dedication to their community shows that we had. I understood that their bodies physically couldn't do the kinds of things my peers could in gymnastics or dance.
There was no shame in being mediocre unless you FLAUNTED it.
And it baffled me for years. I grew up, grew into adulthood, and carefully made sure that the only things I did in public were things I was still good at. Which meant writing. Sometimes performing poems. Singing, but only in choirs, never solos. Organizing. Cooking.
I finally got it late one spring, at a community talent show. The list of performers was agonizingly long. I'd signed up to perform a poem. Comfortably exceptional.
The show started with the littlest kids, singing, dancing clumsily, learning how to be on stage. We clapped and whistled and cheered them on as they stammered and beamed their way on and off the stage, offering them the warmest welcome we could.
That's what mattered, you know? Making the kids feel seen. Beaming, "You are a delight and I love to see you in the throes of what you love, in the very joy of your becoming" with every round of applause, as my parents and grandparents once did at my kindergarten piano recitals.
We did that through the youngest kids. And then the middle and high school kids came on. The exceptional ones. The seventh grader already writing her own songs and singing with a force that shook me. The high schooler whose dance routine had won prizes at state competitions. The audience shifted from encouragement to awe.
My performance, right after the high school kids, was fine. A few other younger adults followed with solid renditions of well-practiced routines or songs.
And then came the adult-adults. They got up on stage with the confidence of people who know they're being held in loving regard and with being old enough to have shed ANY hoot they might've given about other people's opinions. They played instruments mediocrely, sang slightly off key, did comedy acts that were only sort of coherent.
And the audience shifted from awe back to encouragement. They applauded and beamed and whistled and cheered. These were THEIR grownups. The ones who'd either put aside their years of dedication to serve their families and community, or the ones who'd dared to pick up a flute in middle age.
It broke through me so clearly I felt almost stupid. Of course. Of course this was the point the whole time. The beauty of doing things mediocrely was that you could ONLY be doing them for the joy. Dedication without time or resources, maybe, but also without PRESSURE.
The pressure of my and my peers' adolescence had shaped us. Sometimes horribly, sometimes into something magnificent. Often both.
Dedication absent pressure looks like mediocrity. It looks like community choirs full of exhausted middle aged singers. It looks like forgettable watercolor paintings. It looks like softball teams with exactly four intact knees among the players.
So when I started doing art - "sticking with something I suck at" - it was the first time I'd ever tried to learn a brand new skill without any pressure to guide me. No goals. No ambitions. Just, "Do this. Because you want to. Somehow."
And I accepted it because no one would ever have to see anything I made.
But that's not really how I roll. I'm a showman at heart. I live for a good public speaking opportunity. And when I do make things, even mediocrely, even things I suck at, I want to share them.
So after this year and a half of dedicating myself to learning how to make art without any pressure whatsoever, I entered two pieces into a little art show in my neighborhood. It is the very essence of the thing that once made me cringe: the tiniest, most stake-free opportunity to share things we've made in the moments between the rest of our lives. There's neither prestige nor prize involved.
Just joy. And some maybe-good-but-likely-unexceptional art.
And now I'm sharing it with you.
Find Dane online
Art Samples
