Dayton Castleman is an unlicensed artist and arts professional.
His focus on art in public spaces has been shaped by a preference for the “messy vitality” of places and contexts outside of traditional museums and galleries.[1] His focus on having a steady job has been shaped by sharing his journey as an artist with his wife of 23 years and their three extraordinary kids (9,11,19).
As a part of Rogers-based Verdant Studio, a woman-founded and owned full-service architecture firm, Dayton’s job title is “Director of Creative Placemaking + Artist Lead.” He has spent the last four years trying to understand what that means, asking questions about acronyms, and concocting how an artist operates within architecture and its associated industries.
Dayton’s cultural, and geographic exposure is eclectic. Growing up as a pastor’s kid on the disappearing, refinery-punctuated ribbon of soil downriver from New Orleans, he has also called Mississippi, Philadelphia, and Chicago home. He moved to Bentonville in 2012 and thinks there are very few urban/cultural utopian experiments in history comparable to present day Northwest Arkansas. He intends to ride it out as a willing participant.
[1] Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (The Museum of Modern Art, 1977)