Draw Your Town
A Bill Russell Project
An Introduction
Smalltown America is being challenged. But there is hope for these places from being abandoned.
Draw your Town is a creative revitalization project created by illustrator Bill Russell to bring art and artists to these places…to bring communities together, to promote places in an artful, musical, and technological way. Every town has its interesting and positive sights, sounds and stories….and that’s worth depicting and sharing.
Read about how rural communities are challenging the national narrative of declining arts funding.
Draw Your Town Projects
Santa Cruz
The surroundings of Santa Cruz provide an endless source of natural beauty for solace, reflection and inspiration. As part of their Wine Country Tales project, musician Brian Gore and illustrator Bill Russell tapped into those sensibilities by using the ocean vistas and redwood-studded mountains one-of-a-kind musical map of the area. Brian performed his unique music live in concert live at Kuumbwa Jazz Center while Bill projected his live digital drawings and the animations he created. read more about Wine Country Tales
Upper Lake
Musician Brian Gore and illustrator Bill Russell discover unique towns and then perform multi-media concerts there. Each performance blends Bill’s live digital drawings with music, integrating visual inspirations that capture what’s special about these places. It’s a way of connecting to the people and stories in each locale. The town of Upper Lake, California their show was inspired by the scenery and interesting characters they found. While somewhat remote and prone to problems facing any small town, it also has a rich history, and is surrounded by a unique wine-producing region. Bill’s drawings were exhibited at the Lake County Wine Studio. read more
San Luis Obispo
Primarily known as a college town (California Polytechnic State University), SLO has a rich history going back to the founding of the California Missions and further.
animation | more info
Livermore
To prepare for a show in Livermore, California, Bill Russell researched the town, the ranchers and the fruit orchards. He learned about the trains that carried huge barrels of wine from the area and admired the architectural restorations found in the downtown, like the Schenone Building above circa 1931 and 2018. “I found out it was a movie theater for years,” Bill says. “Now there’s a Quiznos in it. I’m going to draw it because I appreciate people preserving the past in unique and new ways, despite our throwaway culture.”
Some Resources:
- The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America by Michelle Wilde Anderson
About Bill
Bill Russell is a versatile visual artist working in a wide range of styles and skills, as an illustrator, visual journalist, educator and designer. He pushes the creative envelope by incorporating a variety of new multimedia technologies, such as live digital drawing, for use in performance and on the web. He has designed over 60 websites for creative clients. Born and raised in Canada, he earned his degree at Parsons School of Design in New York.