The Three Mikes

    Over a decade ago I was hired to do some mural projects  on the viaducts opposite the with the children who lived Hephzibah Childrens Home.    I realized that if I could do childrens murals on the viaducts why not try to create something of my own.  I requested permission from the village and prepped three cement viaduct panels near the intersection of a busy street in Oak Park, thinking if nothing else at least I might attract some attention and get more work.    I painted a mural that featured three heads based on some of my own paintings.  The plan was to eventually paint at least seven more if the village would subsidize it.    The seven other portraits never materialized but the original three remained and slowly aged.
    A couple years ago the village began to commission artists to create murals on other viaduct panels and I was fortunate enough to add two to the collection.  Meanwhile  I would see my original three heads looking more and more forlorn as the  colors faded.   I had asked periodically about funding for  restoring the mural but nothing ever came of it.    Finally on an impulse I decided to act once again on my own.  I called for permission to work on the three heads, since the expense of time and materials were my own, there was no objection.  
     I spent about three full very hot days modifying, repainting and throwing new colors at the images.  In short they were brought very vibrantly back to life.   But not only that, they took on a whole new significance do to my acquaintance with a man named Mike, who strolled up to me as I was working.   Mike confided in me that he not only was homeless, but ‘mentally retarded.’  He also said, in addition to really liking the mural, that he had never  painted before and  asked me if there was anything he could work on.  I looked around for something he could help me with and decided that he could paint in some accent lines for me.  He worked very carefully and  was very conscientious about not making mistakes which I assured him would not be a problem because it was only paint, and paint could always be painted over.  We worked together for a bit before I finished for the day.  And then he asked what we were doing the next day.   I arrived very early in the morning in order to avoid the worst of the heat and just as I was finishing up Mike arrived.  There were a few sections that  I had intentionally left  unfinished in order to let him complete them which he did.  It was fitting that he finished up just as I was putting the finishing touches on the title  that I was painting on  the mural.   I called the newly restored  heads  ‘The Three Mikes.’  Mike was so proud to see his name inscribed that he flagged down a number of passersby to make sure they didn’t miss the connection.  And I helped too.
     It is a great ending to well deserved adventure.  

Katie's Wahl

I had responded to a call for submissions for a new round of viaduct murals to be commissioned in Oak Park similar to what I pursued a year ago.  As in last year’s request my first submission was rejected but my second was accepted.  It was based on a painting that combined elements of realism, abstraction, and cubism.
       Immediately after I was assigned my viaduct panel I went to work beginning around three in afternoon.  I quickly discovered that my 6 foot ladder was woefully inadequate to tackle a 12’ high wall.  So painted what I could on the first day and borrowed my neighbor’s extra long extension for the rest of the project.   By loosely gridding and transferring the image I could begin very quickly.   I worked for 3 hours in the heat and thoroughly exhausted when I got home.   The second day was back working by 6:30 am and continued nonstop until the rain washed me away.   But as soon as I got home the sun returned with a vengeance.   I had planned to return and finish up the following day but seen as it was only about 1:30 pm  I decided to return to the wall.   I finished everything up a few ours later and applyied two coats of clear varnish for protection.  It was a very quick run.

So why the title ‘Katie’s Wahl’? An older man had been watching me work on the mural from across the street.  After a short time he approached me and asked if he could speak to me.  As climbed down the ladder I could see that he appeared to be somewhat distraught  as if on the verge of tears. I  asked him if he was all right and he apologized and seemed to be looking for the right words to reply. Then after a few moments he confided that his daughter had suffered a devastaing accident just a few days earlier and was currently in the hospital.  I asked what happened and he told me.  Apparently she had been injured in a diving accident and was now completely paralyzed.  He kept apologizing for his obvious grief and I felt completely at a loss for words.    
    Then as he apologized again he  made an unusual request.  Somewhat embarrassed he asked me if I might be able to insert his daughter’s name somewhere in the mural.  I vacillated for about half a second.  "Of course," I said, "of course,  yes."
He told me that her name was Katie.  As he left I asked him what his last name was and he said Wahl.   Katie Wahl.   Suddenly the significance of the  mural  took on new meaning. I  decided to add  Katie's name to some geometrically intermingled patterned shapes, like pieces that may be fit back together again.  I don’t know this young woman but I decided to dedicate the mural to her and called it ‘Katie’s Wahl.’ I hope she will be able to visit it one day.

Sepias

Sepias

As young art students a group of my closest friends and I decided to explore an idea that involves contrasts and contexts, between what is ordinary and what is exceptional. One autumn day we decided to paint our faces white, dress in black, channel Marcel Marceau, photograph ourselves,  see what happened. We posed in both urban and natural settings.
There were numerous cameras floating around that day and these particular photos were taken by fellow art student and  'performer' Dana Larsen.  However none of the images you actually see here were actually photographed as you see them.  They are contrived and composed of various components from Dana's photographs.    They are illusions and through the miracle of photoshop I have created my own 'reality.'

Lins

rediscovered some very old postcards in box that I had used for an old exhibition announcement. It was a small 3”x 3” photo portrait of me that I had had copied in high contrast black and white . Since there were so many of these postcards I decided to experiment on them using water color to create a series. Although I enjoyed the spontaneity of the initial results I was more interested in creating more tension which I thought would be more engaging. I cut the portraits into four equal parts, mixed them up, and reassembled them as four paneled collages. This element of discord is something that permeates much of my work both on paper and canvas. It is this sense of finding order in potential chaos that I find so challenging.

The pieces are called Lins because my name, Jonathan Franklin, appears on the postcards and l-i-n are the only three letters that remain of my name after I cut out the portraits

The Dreads
I have always been intrigued with mops: their voluminous shapes and textures. I had initially used a couple mops on the heads of some home-made scarecrows in my vegetable garden and then I decided to use one of them as dread locks for a sculpture of Edgar Allen Poe that I created for a show celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth. I called the piece ‘The Dreads.’ Later I found another mop a couple more pieces.
A few months later after having found several more mops I was coincidentally invited to submit some work for a show called 'Shakespeare Interpreted.' The Dreads seemed like perfect foils. Shakespeare's 'Richard III' is about a hunchbacked tyrant who brutally eliminated all of his rivals including his wife and son as he rose and consolidated his power. I decided to portray his victims as 'mop-heads on pikes'.
On the wall behind the heads is one of my paintings titled, "Alas Dear Yorick, I Hardly Knew Ye" in which Hamlet contemplates his relationship with his long dead friend, Yorick, a court jester.

Loners

Sometimes with all my artist reviewing , reevaluating, and reworking work I occasionally commit the sin of overkill. It can happen to a painting if I should paint some out as well to my drawings. In this case I overdid it with a set of large portraits that I had transformed into collages, that I really liked. At one point I tried to camouflage a few smudges that lead to some touching up with paint. As one thing lead to another, before too long the drawings which had just the right amount of spontaneity and texture disappeared. What emerged were entirely new pieces, basically paintings on paper. I literally grieved at what they had become. In an effort to try to reclaim what had been lost I attempted to recreate new versions of them. The results were quite compelling, but nothing like what I had envisioned. Also the original drawings were portraits I made 30 years as I looked into a mirror. I drew a young man. Now, much to my distress and bemusement, what I saw and drew was an old man. Although physically the portraits do not like me, the essence is still present.

A step too far

One of the good things about how I work is that I have a hard time deciding when a work is finished. I have a tendency to constantly review and evaluate what I am doing and what I have done. This approach affects much of the work that I created in the past as well what I am creating in the present. Paintings, drawings, etchings, all have undergone the same critical ‘treatment.’ Nothing is sacred. I have always felt that one cannot compromise the entire piece for the sake of a detail. On the other hand there is no reason why a really great detail cannot be reapplied and integrated into another piece. In many cases I build on what came before. I never paint over. I build on the images that preceded. It is also one reason why I began working with collage. The process is like using patches to plug holes. For the most I am pleased with the reinvention. But there unfortunately are times when I wished that I had left well-enough alone. Here are series of how a piece evolved over the years going from spontaneous and energetic to opaque and stilted. And the final result is OK as a piece of art work but I wish in retrospect that I had left it alone.