Conversations with Scott McDuffee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott McDuffee. 

Hi Scott, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Scribbling and splashing, pushing and pulling, spreading paint across a canvas in continuous discovery. Although an avid student of Abstract Expressionism; I just let go of certainty and stop focusing on trying to get it “right.” 

My motto is, “be bold, keep learning.” It’s all about transformation and reinvention. 

From humble beginnings as a trailer park teen, destined for a life of conformity and lack of expression, I began working at the factory at age 17. But then, I discovered Kaizen, an innovative continuous improvement methodology. It’s been the catalyst to reinvent my career trajectory and become an executive coach for organizational transformation. 

Embracing the Kaizen mindset of suspended judgment, purposeful disruption, and rapid experimentation, I approach blank canvases with a similar exuberance. Each step informs the next. Curiosity and openness, doodles and random gestures provoke me to make moves outside my comfort zone. I remain in the moment, trusting intuition and taking risks, all with a sense of play. 

Flipping the canvas to gain a new perspective. Dancing around the painting, unchoreographed but certainly musical. Making messes and taking risks. Keeping what works and covering what doesn’t. Trying not to intellectualize, I stay in Flow, embracing the bold and disruptive. 

Unconventional tools and household items, from kitchen spatulas to grade-school protractors, are all in my painting arsenal. Applying multiple layers, I seldom erase the previous. Like my life, I build one layer’s story upon the story before, always trying to improve. The end result incorporates industrial, urban, and travel themes – glimpses of my life. Expressing emotions through motion. 

Trailer-park teen. Factory worker. Corporate executive. Now Artist. My corporate and creative experiences have allowed me to create art that encourages reinvention and innovation. My bold art, placed in a collector’s dynamic space, inspires transformation for others! 

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Scott McDuffee’s journey toward becoming an abstract painter started in his early years. 

As a latch-key trailer park teen (from Southwest Michigan; not 8-mile), art was never considered an option. Lacking direction and finances, while his peers headed off for college, he juggled odd jobs and ended up in the factory. An industrial athlete, he was rewarded for his brawn and not his brains. 

However, a reinvention was imminent. Although he seemed destined for the grueling conformity, and lack of expression, required for repetitive factory work, Scott developed a hunger for something better. This led him to embrace a team-based, continuous improvement approach called Kaizen. 

Using Kaizen methods, which promote rapid innovation through collaboration, he began to transform the factory’s processes. Realizing his gift for creative leadership, he began to facilitate cultural and organizational reinventions. This exuberance created a career ladder, elevating him from factory worker to leader of large-scale corporate transformations across America, Europe, and Asia. 

But then Art! 

It’s impossible to describe the artist’s work without describing the first five decades without a paintbrush. Scott’s industrial and urban influences have shaped his approach, and philosophy, to art. The lessons from his personal reinvention allow a unique bridge between corporate and creative spaces. 

To move forward, one must be bold. Personal and process transformation is triggered by a fresh perspective. Seeing things with “Kaizen eyes,” is the catalyst for invention. Scott realized he could take a playful approach and still achieve substantial change. Embracing an art mentor’s advice to “let go of pre-conception and overthinking, to create the most powerful forms of expression,” his end results are daringly innovative. 

Each layered canvas tells stories of transformation, glimpses into the artist’s mind. Remaining bold, staying playful, and trusting the process. 

While relatively new to Detroit, Scott’s energized immersion into the local art culture and community has rapidly grown his popularity and presence. Balancing his time between corporate and creative cravings, through the Detroit Artists Breakfast Club, he has amassed a powerful network of artists, art enthusiasts, and collectors. 

Aligned with Scott’s visual and social nature, he loves exhibiting his dynamic work at galleries, restaurants, and other public venues. His high-engagement style also makes him a crowd-pleaser at live painting performances at musical and art events. While most of his work is on view around the greater-Detroit area, his paintings have also been showcased in New York City. 

When he’s not performing or working on an exhibit, he can be found at his studio at the Russell Industrial Center. In this rustic old factory, in a messy painting space, his expansive body of work surrounds visitors as they come to engage, play, and learn. Inside this vast room, he hosts interactive workshops to pass along combined corporate and artistic acumen, teaching artists both business and art techniques. 

McDuffee is confident that sharing his personal transformation will uplift others. His work inspires that same boldness and creativity, within a collector’s space. Through his life, his art, and his teachings; he shows the way to reinvention. 

“Artist & Detroiter,” the artist exclaims “even after five decades you can discover something new.” 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Each work is a reinvention. Like those, I try to apply to my life. Being bold, continuously learning, my canvases share this energy of adventure and daring to be a rookie. 

Finding art later in life, after almost 5 decades on the planet, I jumped into the deep end with both feet a handful of years ago and found I could not only tread water but swim like a fish in this adjacent industry. I love the people side of Art. The art community in Detroit and surrounding areas is ripe with talent and transformation. 

I’m known for my bold, non-representational, abstract expressionist, transformational paintings. These high-energy, deeply storied, and textured works, suggest we can all think outside the box and make moves outside our comfort zone. Rich with motion suggesting emotion, I start without preconception and allow playfulness and intuition to drive a free-flowing process. Being in Flow. Where the heaviness of the world’s events do not exist. It is so great to find this special space where my creative passion runs free as a counter-balance to the nearly constant travels and pressures of traveling the globe as a corporate executive change agent and leadership consultant. 

What matters most to you?
Authenticity is important. Community is important. Taking myself lightly but others seriously is important. I want to find a way to bring my unique set of corporate and creative skills together to be a successful artist enabling me to help others find their way as well. Strategic Planning, varied approached to marketing and collaboration, and many methods of continuous improvement are ways I can help fellow artists which likely don’t have a similar background. It is my vision, to someday have a large painting performance and gallery space, from which I can promote the art and art business of others, particularly those underrepresented or their voices are not being heard. 

Contact Info:

• Email: scottamcduffee@gmail.com
• Website: ScottMcDuffeeArt.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scott_mcduffee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottmcduffeeartist
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=scott+mcduffee