California native Dan Rider recently fulfilled his dream of constructing and opening an art studio in Nipomo to showcase his distinctive work made from one of the strongest materials: concrete.
Rider’s 1,000-square-foot studio, located on Country Hill Road, sits in his backyard on a 1-acre property. His new space will be open for visitors during SLO County’s 2024 Open Studios Art Tour, alongside 150 other artists, their studios, and galleries, including Art Center Morro Bay, Studios on the Park in Paso Robles, EDNA Contemporary in SLO, and DANA Adobe in Nipomo.
Residents can visit Rider’s studio on Oct. 12, 13, 19, and 20, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and check out his 150-pound New Wave Totems made of concrete.
“My interest went from bronze mixed-media pieces, then I moved into concrete because it’s just a little bit cheaper to buy and cheaper to make,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s been fun for all these years working with that.”
To get the wave effect, Rider said he starts by making his own concrete from scratch by mixing sand with other “secret additives.” He then creates specific rubber molds for each shape that he needs and gives the rubber a few days to stiffen up before pouring his concrete in and letting it harden.
“Painters have a special way of mixing certain things to work for themselves, and arts have the same way. Sculptures have the same way; everybody makes this plaster a different way. We have our own formulas for that,” he said. “So, all my totems are usually a mix of mixed-media pieces.”
After molding the concrete into geometric shapes, Rider usually adds in elements of steel, wood, or stone and runs a wire through the shapes to hold them together in just the right curvy position.
The full process tends to take him a few weeks to a couple of months to complete depending on how tall the totem is.
“Sometimes I only have to mold for one of those shapes … so that takes maybe a week to do, but if I need three or four concrete pieces of the same size then I have to wait three almost four weeks to be able to make sure I have enough pieces for that totem,” he said.
He said his New Wave Totems are ideal pieces to keep in either the front or backyard, as concrete, wood, steel, and stone don’t weather away easily and can blend into already existing decor.
Large totems aren’t Rider’s only creations. He also crafts whimsical garden statuary, wall sculptures such as fractals, and bronze sculptures that have been featured in television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, Castle, The Mentalist, and more.
“I’m really pleased with the fractals that we have—that’s one of the walling pieces, and they’re cool. They can be a bunch of pieces together, and they just go together in different ways on the walls,” he said. “A lot of those have been featured on a lot of sets. There’s one set that the directors of Grey’s Anatomy kept renting … and putting in their sets.”
Residents who visit the studio during its opening will get to view a newly constructed fountain made with a mix of materials. It’s slim, tall, and appears balanced on a medium-sized cylinder.
“It’s a stackable kind of fountain, and I’m going to put it on the patio between the studio and the house,” he said. “It looks really cool.”
Reach New Times Staff Writer Samantha Herrera, from the Sun’s sister paper, at sherrera@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 3-13, 2024.