Alex Dunn: A Life Lived on the Road Less Traveled

I first embarked on a road less traveled when I was twenty years old.

I was on an extended break from college when I took a job as a field assistant to an ornithologist, who studied endangered bird species in the Chocó rainforest of Northern Ecuador.

After spending a good while in the jungle together, this biologist would become one of my most transformative life mentors. He showed me what it meant to follow one’s true path, one’s inner road, and he urged me to pay heed to the signs of my own calling.

From this I understood that I needed to go back to University, yet I would leave my studies in Biology and my aspirations of med school and enter the world of fine art. 

The artist’s road, was my road. 

This was difficult initially because it meant abandoning a path that was more direct and secure, more linear and stable. 

This was difficult initially because it meant abandoning a path that was more direct and secure, more linear and stable.

But, I have always been drawn to the unknown.  

When I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in sculpture, I had to come up with a way to make money.  My spirit of adventure would lead me down the docks of Seattle’s Fisherman’s Terminal and onto a commercial fishing vessel. 

I would spend the next ten years living the seasonal life of a vagabond-artist-fisherman, whiling away the summers catching wild salmon in Southeast Alaska in order to afford my habits of making art and bike touring. 

Aboard the fishing boat I picked up guitar as a way to pass the time. 

Again, I felt a calling. 

As the years went on I began writing songs, mainly of the folk/Americana variety, and eventually caught the attention of some notable northwest musicians. 

I recorded my debut album Scattered Poems in 2018, thus embarking on a new adventure.  After 2 years of touring and playing around the Northwest with my band, I am now set to release my followup album in early spring 2021.