Born in Nebraska City, Garringer’s parents and his two brothers moved to Kearney in 1968. Growing up they always had materials to draw and create with. Often times the paper supply came from discarded mimeograph assignments their mother had brought home from the school where she was teaching. Attending Kenwood Elementary, Daniel recalls looking forward to having teachers read to the class because often The students were allowed to draw, illustrating the story being read in class.
Several Principals served at Kenwood, but Mr. Leonard McCarville played a big part of starting Daniel’s journey in the Visual Arts. On Friday’s Mr. McCarville would have some type of Art project or assignment for students. It was the only formal Art instruction Daniel recalls having in Elementary School, and Mr. McCarville always seemed to be encouraging of Daniel’s efforts.
By the time he arrived at Kearney High School, Daniel was developing a greater appreciation for the Visual Arts and creating was becoming an increasing part of his person. During High School, because of some similarities with his style, the instructor, Mr. Jack Shofstall introduced him to the works of Andrew Wyeth. Mr. Shofstall was always referred to as just Jack by his students. Even today, individuals will comment on the similarities of Garringer’s and Wyeth’s styles.
In the Spring of his Senior year, he submitted samples of his work to the Art Department at Kearney State College, earning him a Tuition Waiver for his freshman year of classes. He put his education on hold for a time period after getting married and beginning to farm with his in-laws, but he returned to then Kearney State College to finish out a Bachelor of Arts in K-12 Art Education.
The Art Department at Kearney State was staffed with outstanding professors such as John Dinsmore, Elmer Holzrichter, Keith Lowry, Larry Peterson, and Ray Schultz. This group was critical in Garringer’s formation as an Artist and Educator.
Upon graduation in May, Garringer started teaching Art in the Public School System the following Fall, something he would continue for the next 30 years, teaching at both Amherst Public and Kearney Public Schools. During his teaching career, Garringer had the privilege to serve students at all grade levels and abilities. It also allowed him to develop lessons and experiment with a variety of mediums. Connecting lessons with historical and current artists furthered his appreciation of diverse artistic styles.
In the middle of his teaching career, Garringer completed his Master’s Degree. Although Garringer enjoyed creating hand-built works in ceramic, or using a floor loom or home-made loom for weaving, and he was very drawn to the various possibilities printing techniques would provide. In the end, Acrylic painting was his choice to pursue his Master’s Thesis.
Teaching often allowed only a limited amount of time for Garringer to paint and his large format paintings were very time consuming. As time became critical, he discovered that colored pencils were a Medium that could be quickly utilized with limited prep and clean-up plus they could be transported for working outside of his studio space. Working in colored pencil soon became a medium that dominated many of his works.
Included in the mid-point of Garringer’s teaching career was a decision to step into the director’s position for one of the Kearney’s signature events, Art in the Park, an event that had a long history of being directed by the community’s own Dr. Larry Peterson. This decision gave him the benefit of becoming more knowledgeable regarding numerous regional artists and their works. The choice also led to requests for him to jurying art exhibits.
Currently, Garringer has retired from teaching Art. He works out of his Seven Hills Studio northwest of Kearney, Nebraska, continuing to work in both Colored Pencil and Acrylics. He also maintains his danielgarringer.com website and exhibits his work in Nebraska and surrounding states. Kearney’s Brickwalk Gallery-2008 Avenue A-recently presented a show of Garringer’s work titled Sweating the Small Things.
Bound: This work is an acrylic painting 60″W x 26″H. I was one of the paintings from my Masters Thesis show that I completed around 2002. Once I was done with my Thesis Exhibit I determined that I was going to start showing my work and entering into juried competitions. This piece along with two others were the first works that I entered into a show in Hastings. Hoping that one of the paintings would get in, I was thrilled when I was notified that all three works had been accepted. I was even more surprised when this work was awarded the best of show and I was handed a cash prize.
Authority: This painting. 48″W x 30″H was also a part of my Master’s Thesis. I had gotten the idea for this painting while driving a group of youth across some low maintenance roads in the Sandhills on the way to a canoe trip. I had done a number of sketches for the concept, but final settle on this composition. In my creating, I decided that I really needed a reference sign to work from. In my scouring the country roads of Buffalo County I came up empty handed. No such metal sign was still posted anywhere as they had all been replaced with fiberglass type signs. I did happen to have another sign image from a much earlier photo I had taken that I used as a reference for the holes shot in the sign. The upside was having happened onto a cemetery towards the Ravenna area that ended up being the subject for another painting I did later.
Storage Containers: This is a small 4″H x 4″W acrylic painting that I did around 2014 or so. It speaks of my sarcasm and frustration with food storage containers. I’m sure my experience with mismatched containers that never seem to fit together and take up more space that tolerable is not unique, falling out of the cabinet each time it’s opened.
Rarity: This Acrylic painting 21″ H x 21″W is one of my recent works. I was privileged to have a friend take us to a relative’s abandon home because she felt the site was indicative of some of my works. She was right. I was struck by the number of objects that were strewn across the property that many would see as valuable based on the age and rarity of the item. The image of the boot on a post is not rare in our area, but this was not a cowboy style boot. I took artistic liberties and added in other items into the composition that some categorize as being rare yet others completely discard these things. The overall them of the works speaks to the subjectivity of rarity and how personal and debatable that opinion can be.
External Storage: This Colored Pencil Drawing 19″W x 4.25″ H was created around 2017-18. It was part of what would be the first intentional series I created titled “Tech Series.” I again was being a bit sarcastic-the term bit might itself be sarcastic-regarding the overwhelming onslaught of new tech terms being thrown at us in the education profession. This started a series of 13-even the number was intentional-drawings in which the titles and images were common such as External Storage. Barn and Pole Shed now had become a tech term to identify something tech related. The series includes titles such as History, System Output, Firewall & Off Line, to name a few.
Cal#6 2023: This is a Colored Pencil drawing 2.5″ H x 2.5″ W that in a way was inspired by the Covid shutdown. As our culture shutdown, I decided that the downtime was going to be utilized to start a group of drawings that I titled the Covid Series which consisted of 19 miniature 2.5″ square colored pencil drawings. This led to a continued process of each year creating a series of these small colored pencil drawings. The subject matter is always from a photo that I have taken somewhere around the area. Individuals will often see the drawings and comment, thinking they know the location of the depicted place. The image in this drawing is from a photo taken on my phone as we drove home from Patriot Park after watching a grandson playing baseball.