Damian Synadinos speaks for a living. For twenty-five years, he built and tested software, but now, he “helps build better people.” At least he did before a pandemic hit. The large conferences and corporate meetings he had been used to were brought to a grinding halt. On top of that, he found himself in the role of stay-at-home dad, helping his children navigate online school, especially his son, who is now in third grade. “I took second grade over,” Damian told me, as he recounted the hours sitting with Zachary, making sure he could find his way through Zoom classes. While he was doing that, it was a lifelong love of drawing that helped him to maintain his sanity. With iPad in hand, he started sketching, especially portraits. In fact, it was this project that Damian recently completed – that of drawing 100 portraits of strangers – that piqued my interest when I read about it on The Art and Artists of 614, but more about that later.
Damian remembers loving drawing as a child. His mother, a seamstress, took a series of Damian’s images (along with his inventive spelling), and embroidered a large quilt of them for him. Beyond that, he didn’t receive much encouragement to draw, with the exception of one important series of summer classes when he was about fifteen. It quickly became apparent to the teacher that his skills stood out from the rest—instead of a simple drawing for a final project, Damian created a seven-second animation using drawings and a snap camera, titled, “Swimming in a Latex Pool.” His father, a Greek immigrant who studied electrical engineering at OSU, gave Damian a TRS-80 instead of a football, and he began to combine his love for computers and art into animation and digital art projects.
For many years, the focus of Damian’s artistic endeavors has mostly centered around his friends and family. At large family gatherings, Damian would take white shirts brought by some of the children, and create drawings that the kids could enjoy, or even fill in with color on their own. Damian has Illustrated two children’s books. The first one was specifically written by Damian with his own two children in mind, and teaches about Improv (a practice of his for at least fifteen years). The two main characters of the story are his children’s favorite stuffed animals: Hank the Dog, and Stella the Bunny. Through their exploration of Improv, they indirectly teach the reader important life skills such as diversity, practice, collaboration, teamwork, imagination, and creativity. Damian’s illustration of a second book was written by local musician Charlie Flowers, and is based on Charlie’s song, “You Can’t Play Guitar in Pajamas.” Damian has a third book in the works which aims to teach children the scientific method, and is titled, “Hank and Stella in How Do You Know?”
By the end of 2020, Damian felt pretty worn out (as did many of us). On New Year’s Eve, he created this piece, called, “The Handoff.” At about the same time, a friend of his on social media had shared with everyone a selfie that he liked in particular. Damian had been sitting next to his son Zachary, assisting him with online school, and sketching on his iPad, so he thought he would try drawing his friend’s selfie, and sent it back to him. Much to his delight, the friend’s response was enthusiastic, and Damian started thinking about how to turn this idea into an act of kindness. A quick search on Twitter for “favorite photo of myself” revealed more material than he needed to get started, so he decided to narrow down choices by reading people’s tweets. The first one he completed was a picture of a woman standing in front of a barn. Damian later found out that her partner had taken the picture, and not long after that, he died from cancer. To this day, she still has Damian’s drawing as her avatar.
Not all of the responses from people whose portraits Damian has drawn were favorable— he says about 50% expressed gratitude, while the other half were largely silent. A few people responded negatively, even irately, in spite of the fact that they had shared their image on a public forum. With the completion of the 100th portrait, Damian decided to stop the project. He switched to a group on Reddit called, “Reddit Gets Drawn,” which has established etiquette, but also has the downside of taking away some of the surprise and spontaneity.
At the end of our time together, I asked digital artist Damian Synadinos if there was anything he wanted to make sure everyone knew, or heard from him. “Be kind” was his reply. We talked about recent events in regards to the misuse and abuse of social media, and how important it is to remember that tools can be used to help, as well as to harm—it just depends on the person using the tool, and how they use it.
I’ll end by recounting a story Damian shared with me about an important influence in his life: cartoon artist Ken Muse (you probably know his work on Tom and Jerry best). As a teenager, Damian sent him a custom birthday card, with a drawing of Ken on the cover, decked in traditional Greek garb, and containing the following caption: “Throughout history there have been traditionally seven muses, but I propose an eighth muse: Ken, the Muse of Cartooning.”
Thank you, Damian. May we all remember to use our tools so wisely.