Real Change News | Vendor of the Week

February 3, 2010
Vol: 17 No: 6

Vendor of the Week

Vendor of the Week - John O’Donnell

by: Jane Austin

Photo by: Jane Austin , None

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Five thousand eight hundred feet underground he maintained the ventilation system to ensure the miners could breathe. With 10 engines operating at 1500 horsepower to maintain adequate air supply, this was no small feat. “You have to know what you’re doing and it’s a dangerous job,” says John O’Donnell

O’Donnell’s memory of Montana is of snow and hills “a mile high and a mile deep.” From an old mining town called Butte he came, 30 years ago, to seek employment in Seattle. After working for the city for 10 years, he quit to pursue his passion for art.

Commercial art school was followed by a project called “My Back Door.” “I would draw the house and yard from the back door and then give it to them [the customer] then and there.”

His art currently focuses on portraits of homeless people. “I go around taking pictures of homeless people then draw them on 22 by 19 inch canvas papers.” He uses pastels, which he considers a good medium although somewhat challenging. “You can only change a color three times, after that it looks like mud.”

O’Donnell has experienced homelessness firsthand. “I made some bad choices in my life and I became on the streets and stayed on the streets for 10 years, trying to make ends meet…working for Labor Ready and other temporary agencies like that.”

Now he sells Real Change, which he appreciates for its flexibility and the “opportunity to meet different people.” This opportunity enriches his art: “I kind of study people in a way… the clothes they’re wearing and how they act… so I can incorporate that into other artwork I do.”

To his customers he says thank you, for their purchase of the paper “makes it possible for me to have a roof over my head.” “I appreciate the customers that buy the paper and that they’re interested in reading it. It’s a good paper, an honest paper, and its worthwhile reading.”

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