Biography of Dillon Markey
Who the Hell Puts Their Entire Life Story on the Internet?

By Dillon Markey
Los Angeles, Ca.
Monday, March 5, 2007

Dillon Markey was born and raised in Washington, D.C. He was adopted at two weeks of age by Thomas Markey and Kathy Hosty, a wonderful young couple who would make the best parents a boy could ask for. They lived on Capital Hill until Dillon's wonderful younger sister, Genevieve (born 1983) was 1 or 2 years old and the family outgrew their brick D.C. rowhouse and moved to a bungalow in Upper NorthWest. Dillon attended school in his formative years at Lafayette Elementary School, just up the street from his house.

Since Dillon had no real problems or issues to deal with as a child, he started wondering about his adoption at a rather early age, 6. He wrote letters to his Birthmother instead of to Santa Claus and delivered them to the Barker Foundation, rather than the North Pole. He accompanied one of his letters with a Lego heart (he loved Legos) - one side blue, to show his sadness that he didn't know his Birthmother, and the other side red, to show that he loved her still. Dillon was probably the best at Legos of anyone he knew.

As time went on, Dillon became aware of some ADHD going on up in his hizouse. The doctors were like "hell naw" and gave his ass some Ritalin. He picked up the habbit in 3rd grade and from then on, he was a teeth-grinding little speed demon.

Puberty hit Dillon a little hard. He made the choice to transfer out of public school to a Catholic school, The School of the Most Blessed Sacrament, for 7th and 8th grade. Woah buddy! After asking out every girl in his grade, Dillon plunged into darkness and was forever changed. He became very angy and hostile after failing to gain acceptance with what he didn't yet realize were the children of what would become his worst enemy, Washingtonian religious fanatics.

Dillon spent the rest of puberty at the Edmund Burke School, where he was gradually taught how to channel his anger, directing it away from those that he loved and towards those that he most despised. At the time, Dillon's horizons had not broadened to behold the political implications of Washingtonian classicism, but he was beginning to distinguish between so called "preppies" and "cool kids." "Preppies" being those whose agendas fell in line with their affluent, baby boomer parent's, and "cool kids" being those who fight to see individuality prosper.

Dillon graduated from Ritalin to Dexadrine in 1994. He got his first B+ on an English paper 2 years later.

After Dillon's graduation from high school in 1997, he decided to search for his Birthmother before his 18th birthday on August 6. The decision was reached after he was accepted to Hampshire College, to begin classes that September. It was incredibly easy. All he did was call Barker and they set up a meeting. That was amazing for Dillon and his Birthmother, Nancy. They stood eye to eye, shoulder to shoulder, cranium to cranium. They had the same eyes and the same smile.

That summer, Dillon saw his first Alexander Calder exibit at the National Gallery of Art and began making his own wire sculptures almost immediately.

Nancy threw a baby shower for Dillon just a few weeks later. She invited all of his uncles and his Aunt as well as several other family members and childhood friends. Dillon even met his two new sisters, Katie and Shannon, who are wonderful.

Dillon continues to walk the line between being his parents' son and being the son of the woman who gave him life. There have been no apparent problems. It seems duality unifies itself when there is duality in family.

Dillon attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachussetts from 1998 until 2002. He started out persuing literature, but got bored and took up art more seriously. It was like a dam had burst! Dillon had found his calling. Not only was Dillon able to study McCarthyism, 18th century Russian Literature, and Cuban Communism at this school, but he could also do animation! Dillon made a 12 minute stop-motion film for his DIV 3 called "The Secret," a recursive subversion on the refusal of one boy to become a man.

After college, Dillon went home to DC for a while. He worked in a neon sign shop, restoring old signs for local museums and selling his wire sculptures at the famous Eastern Market near Capital Hill - a process he had picked up as relief from having a summer job in previous years.

In the early summer of 2003, Dillon packed up his car and moved to Los Angeles. Totally scared and unaware of the availability of job prospects, Dillon blazed a new trail in his life. He worked at the American Film Institute as a temp, driving vans at events and operating the front desk when the receptionist was on vacation. He hustled to get web design jobs. He did some character design, computer work, drawings, library organization, whatever he could get his hands on that would put money in his pockets. Dillon had a blast!

After about a year, Dillon secured two great jobs that would make him forever less available to many of his friends. The first was to animate the AFI Festival trailer and the second was his largest order of wire sculptures to date, 200 wire flowerpots for Simple Shoes, the biggest badasses in the shoe biz.

Dillon applied to the California Institute of the Arts in 2004 and was accepted. He completed Hello, My Name is Joe, a wire sculpture stop-motion, as his first year short film. Hello, My Name is Joe has gone on to be accepted to the CalArts Experimental Animation Showcase for 2006 as well as the Philadelphia Film Festival 2007, Australia International Film Festival, and the London International Film Festival. Hopefully the hot air I put into this film will keep propelling it along for a long long time.

Dillon is currently in his second year at CalArts and is working on his thesis film - working title: The Theory of Everything, which brushes upon the meaning and experience of existence as well as the nature of the universe.

To learn more about Dillon Markey, please visit: ...um...dude, I don't know. How much more do you want to know? Just ask him.

But actually, you could visit INSPWIRE.COM to see all of his wire sculpture work.