Dave Eggers takes on new art making in ‘Idaho’

The workers have been on my mind for more than 10 years, and I had always been doing studies and drawings and taking photos and thinking of tableaus of construction workers, especially working at night.

The “Idaho” of the title is referenced only in a replica of roadside “Ice Cave” signs, yet it signifies a new art-making state of sorts for Eggers, who branches out into 3-D media.

[...] old obsessions continue to linger around the edges, in the form of the safety-orange-clad workers peering into mysterious crevices against pitch-black backgrounds.

Is it a lamb pointing toward the biblical associations surrounding the creatures in Eggers’ last large solo gallery show in 2010 at Electric Works?

In making the text-embellished pieces, Eggers usually starts with a drawing, then stares at it, wondering what his creations might be thinking.

For the onetime SF Weekly cartoonist, art making is what he turns to for pleasure after an eight-hour workday of writing.

Proceeds from sales at the exhibit go to ScholarMatch, the college-access nonprofit organization that he founded, in addition to the literary-focused nonprofit 826 Valencia and San Francisco publishing company McSweeney’s.