• Aprill Brandon •
• Originally published January 8, 2009 at 2:23 p.m., updated January 8, 2009 at 2:23 p.m.

Since he was in high school, 23-year-old Daniel Kuykendall has been hearing the same old rant from his peers.

They're bored. There's nothing to do. Nothing ever happens in this town.

It's a mind set the budding artist has never quite understood.

"You hear kids talk about that all the time. They just don't know how to make their own fun," he said. "You can't just expect entertainment to be handed out to you. You get out what you put into life."

Kuykendall, who paints under the name of Edwin, is a bit of what you would call a Renaissance man. In addition to his colorful paintings, he also, as he puts it, dabbles in writing and music. He's currently playing with two local bands, Gusto Pan and Love Letter and laughs as he tells the story of a rejection letter he received from The New Yorker for one of his poems.

But it's his art that has been getting the most attention lately. Back in the fall, Jeffrey Di Leo, the publisher and editor of the American Book Review, noticed one of Kuykendall's paintings hanging at a restaurant downtown. Di Leo was so taken by the image, that it became the cover of the September/October issue of the review, which has a circulation of 8,000.

"We were struggling to find an image for the cover that went with the theme of the issue, which was emotions. Then one day, I'm eating at the Taqueria (Victoria) and suddenly there it is, the perfect image," Di Leo said. "Daniel has a good aesthetic; he has some real talent."

Kuykendall's love of art began when he was young. Whether it was drawing on the programs during church or doodling on school worksheets, he was always creating something whenever there was a pen in his hand, he said. With little formal training, the self-taught artist developed his own distinct style.

"My paintings are colorful and a bit what you might call cartoonish. I suppose I had to embrace the fact that I'd never be that great at painting things," he laughed. "There is this Picasso quote that I really took to heart that goes something like 'when I was 13 I could paint like Michelangelo, but it took me 40 years to learn to paint like a child again.'"

Although he has a day job working at Rosebud Fountain & Grill, Kuykendall has managed to make some money on the side selling his paintings.

Currently using his kitchen as his studio, he added that although he would one day love to be able to live just off his art, for now he paints simply because he enjoys it.

"It's a nice escape to go to my little imagination fantasy world and a great way to procrastinate," he laughed. "And when there's nothing to do, you might as well make something because in the end, isn't that all we can do? Leave something behind?"

• Daniel Kuykendall's paintings are currently on display and for sale at Taqueria Victoria, 209 S. Main St.

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