June 2022, English, 5.5 x 8.5 inches, softcover
Design: Jack Burnside
Illustration: Yerrie Choo
Driving by Dead Reckoning is a collection of short stories spawned from a lack of a father figure. If there was enough time in life to figure out everything, and please everyone, only then, would it make sense to ask: did I do enough? Have I accomplished enough? Was I good enough?
The clarity of the ageless metaphor ‘life is short’ makes holding on to all the things that slow you down that much more important. One can only live, and if you’d like to, live as long as you can, and if possible, be as good as you can to others along the way. If you still want to give it your all, try not to be so hard on yourself as you grow older; thus far, father time is undefeated.
Dav L. Bell is an artist and independent arts organizer who founded the Los Angeles-based art gallery Visitor Welcome Center, in 2016. Much of his work and collaborative projects are inspired by his upbringing on a southern California ecological preserve, where he was raised in a family of environmentalists. He is interested in storytelling, lyricism, and craft, and works with artists to cultivate tangible and creative possibilities of lifelong artistic and soulful connections. In the past, Bell worked both as a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and as a park ranger at Upper Tampa Bay State Park, he studied visual art at Metafora School of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Spain, and at the University of California, Los Angeles. Currently, he is an M.F.A candidate in Environmental Art and Social Practice at the University of California, Santa Cruz.