Music and Murals

There was a call to artists to submit mural  proposals at the Old Town School of Music  in Chicago and I wasted no time trying to come up with something.  But rather than try to reinvent the wheel I decided to fall back on my own images.  I had always wanted to see what they  might look like if I could cut them up and collage them back together again.  This proved to be a perfect challenge for me to hone my limited Photoshop skills.  Here are a few examples of some of my experiments.  Below is the letter that I included in my submission.  It explains the intention behind my selections.    

Music plays a key component in my life not only as musician but as a visual artist.  It is often  an indelible presence in my work.   Music uses sound to create a mood and instill an emotional  connection.   I use the figure as a point of departure.  Just as music can bend reality, I refer to the figure in less literal terms as well.   I see the  subject of the mural as another form of theater where the figures become characters in a mysterious tableau whose  meaning is left entirely  to the observers to explain,  describe, and, most important,  question.   

Extensions

Yes, I admit it.  I enjoy thumbing through my daughters' fashion magazines.  And yes, the women are very attractive.  But I have ulterior motives.  I am looking specifically for large head shots.  For these particular pieces I was interested mouths as the starting points.  Once I cut them out I let them with some paint define their new identities.   It is curious how beauty can become something else, still beautiful but different, even asexual.

Subsequently I mounted the portraits onto  paper and using pen and ink completed their transformations.

Painting and Photoshop

There was a call to come up with an image for a mural for the Old Town School of Music in Chicago.   It is a wonderful venue for music and dance.   Instead of 'reinventing the wheel' I decided to refer back to some of my paintings for inspiration, many of which featured elements of music and dance.   I've always been intrigued with idea of mixing up and combining images and was clear how to do it, until I discovered Photoshop.  It makes almost anything possible and allows for solutions that I could never have imagined or  created.  I feel as though I am somehow cheating.  Technically what I've posted is  a bit clunky.  But still,  the potential for new ideas and discoveries is infinite.  Now all I have to do is submit images and see what happens.

Walk-Abouts at the Maze

      Many years ago the owner of a high end, period furniture store and gallery stopped by my studio for a visit to determine whether he might feature a show of my work that he had hoped would complement his new furniture collection.  Although he enjoyed my work in general he decided that in the end the paintings would probably not be suited for his space.   As he was leaving the studio he noticed a painted figure hanging up in the corner.  It was a piece that I had excised out of a damaged  canvas that had been discarded.  Although I had initially dismissed the piece he said that if I could assemble more of them then maybe we could build a show around them.  It was quite a novel idea.  
       I eventually created several dozen of these figures that we installed all over the gallery in different configurations amidst the furniture.  It was like walking into a theater full of strange looking actors posing in tableau.  
      After the exhibit closed the question was what to do with the remaining pieces.  They were too big to place in file drawers and to flimsy to store upright so I decided the next best place would be to store them flat by sandwiching under our bedroom mattresses.  And that’s where they remained undisturbed for the next 20 years.
       A couple years ago having forgotten almost entirely about them I rediscoverd them when was moving my son’s bed.  Some of the pieces were in reasonably good shape but others had not aged well.  I brought them all down into my studio and began to repair, repaint, rework, and revive each one.  Then I built bases that allowed me to stand them up as freestanding pieces.  They have turned into the guests in my studio who never leave.
       Like my show at Spex the Walk-Abouts at the Maze Library, a small but very quaint branch library in Oak Park, IL, were presented with a similar challenge.  That is, there was absolutely no wall space. Exactly like Spex I could only use  narrow shelf space above the book shelves to display my work.   I could easily have installed paintings and other two-dimensional work.  But I preferred to try something a little more unconventional:   to create a presentation that played with texture and layering.   My free-standing cut-out canvas figures, the Walk-Abouts, were perfect.      Organized in clusters the of figures were transformed into tableaus of silent conversations.
      This was their first and probably only visit to the Maze.  

Art and Vision at Spex

  Spex is a spectacular spectacle store and gallery.  Because of the nature of the store, that is that its overriding mission is to present and market spectacle frames, the challenges of exhibiting art are very specific.   There is limited wall space.   I decided to take advantage of the tops of the display cases by installing a series of drawings called  Remnants.   These are assemblages of works on paper that I have secured together using string to give them an puppet-like animation.   I attached dowels to them and inserted them into wooden bases  to allow them to be free-standing.  
      On the walls I hung a series called Voyeurs which are portraits created by securing individual panels to window-like frames.  I also created a series of other portrait collages of a man wearing, what else?, spectacles.
   All of the assemblages are exercises in dissonance, and in the end, the sum of many parts.  

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.