MAVERICK VISIONS : DANIEL MARTINEZ--A BLUE-COLLAR VIRTUOSO

“I’ve only worked my whole life,” related Daniel Martinez in the downtown studio he shares with artist Diane Gamboa. “That’s all I know--working to make a living in order to have just enough money to do something artistic.

“I’ve never been able to just go buy the materials I need and my ideas all revolved around things that cost money. . . . My mind tends to take me to all the paths I get pushed away from due to the realities of everyday life.”

Those realities, however, haven’t been enough to snuff out the aesthetic passion driving the 28-year-old artist. Like so many others, he must divide his time and energy between working (as a free-lance photographer) and pursuing his artistic career as an “installationist.”

Although Martinez may be no more or less pure or passionate about his type of art than other more commercial or critically successful artists, he’s a part of the creative scene that is seldom seen or written about.

The blue-collar attitude forged by the pressures of making ends meet has left him with an active disdain for artists who spend more time theorizing about art than actually making it.

“You have to push,” he insisted. “A pianist will practice 16 hours a day to be a virtuoso. A good friend of mine is a bassoonist for the L.A. Philharmonic and the guy plays bassoon like he’s dying tomorrow.

“In order to be an artist, you have to be the same way. You need to work on your ideas every day. When you’re tired or sick, you need to put in the hours. . . . Every show is like your last show.”

Martinez is so full of nervous energy his ideas tumble out in a headlong rush that occasionally derails his train of thought. The plethora of creative ideas may be one reason he was drawn toward what he calls installation art--where an artist is commissioned to fill a gallery space using whatever media he or she chooses.

Martinez’s works have employed everything from mannequins with his photographs inside them to playful, phantasmagorical creatures. He often forces audience participation through devices like surrounding his work with 2 1/2 tons of sand. The anything-goes, no-second-chance aspect of creating installations also appeals to him.

“Every time I do a show, I do completely new work, and I like it better that way because there’s more of an edge,” he explained. “It makes it as fresh a thought as it can be, and that’s very important. It’s almost like it’s bleeding or throbbing in the gallery.

“There’s definitely a set idea, a tone for the way it’s going to feel, but you never know the problems that are going to happen or the kinds of tools you’re gonna need. It’s contemporary urban warfare: You plan, figure it out, do whatever you need to do and then go hit it.”

Martinez seems like an unlikely candidate for an art career. His father worked in research and development for Hughes Aircraft and Martinez grew up between a science-oriented home life and street-life survival in Inglewood.

A grade-school teacher sparked an interest in photography that Martinez pursued. He was an indifferent student in high school and bounced out of college after a brief stint at Loyola Marymount.

He wound up at CalArts on a partial scholarship to art school. “Someone said, ‘Go to art school,’ and I’d never even heard of one,” Martinez recalled. He earned his bachelor’s, but walked out in the middle of a master’s program there in 1979.

“It’s never made a difference because I’ve been self-employed my whole life and I’ve developed my art career independent of institutions,” he claimed. “If I have an idea and want to do it, I just generate it myself.”

A prime example of his determination and do-it-yourself ethic was his prominent role in creating the “People of Los Angeles” exhibit sponsored by USC to coincide with the 1984 Olympic Games. Martinez established a nonprofit corporation that raised $100,000 in private and corporate funding.

The 2 1/2-year project required the development of new technology to bring Martinez’s concepts of holographic films and sound to fruition. He also needed a thick skin to shrug off the skeptics.

“The first year and a half it was just me,” Martinez remembered. “Once everybody realized that I had hooked it, I was able to entice everybody else to jump on because they saw I had an idea and a project that was really going to work.

“I had to put up with years of people laughing at me before I started, because how does a person with no money and no ‘in’ to society put together a $100,000 exhibition with ideas I have no training in, about things I know nothing about? Nonetheless, it happened.”

The project also reflected the high-tech direction he hopes to take in his career. Martinez has worked frequently with 3-D photography and his long-range goals include making holographic films.

But mundane realities dictate that he’ll continue to scour salvage yards and suppliers of science lab equipment for the raw materials of his installations. As a self-described “baby artist,” he must rely on commissions by patrons or be prepared to foot the bills himself to expose his work. But Martinez still dreams of the time when he can enjoy the luxury of concentrating full time on his artistic vision without the physical and mental strain of working 18-hour days.

“Four hours of sleep a night is OK, but not every day for years and years. Your body starts collapsing and your mind gets frazzled,” he said.

“The greatest thing would be to just work on your art. It’s an absolute, total fantasy because I don’t foresee it ever existing in my life. I don’t know how you do that.”