The assignment that Stanley gave me first was painting a bird to look like a fish. It wasn't until the next week that I was able to put my library research to use. I had been looking up bird fish and fish birds and didn't come up with much. When I arrived for work, Stanley met me in the croquet room. He had with him a wooden mobile that was in the shape of a goose. The mobile was about three feet long and the wingspan was about five feet wide. It was meant to be hung from a tree or eave of a house and, when the wind blew, the giant wooden bird would appear to fly. It was now my job to paint the goose to look like a fish. Now that I knew what was going on, I was able to put my noggin and library books to use. My first thought was to start with a clean slate and paint the thing orange like a goldfish. I used acrylic paint so it dried fairly quickly. I then started adding accents to give it depth, texture, and shading. I conferred with my books often to keep the image of a flying fish in my mind. The goose was slowly transforming into a weird fishy-bird. By the end of the day, I had used orange, royal blue, yellow, grey, black, silver, and navy to paint this one project. I thought the bird/fish had so many layers of paint on it that it would never fly again. I told Stanley that his fish was done and he came out immediately to see it. It lay on a tarp in the middle of the floor, not moving, not swimming, not flying. Stanley walked around it a few times inspecting it closely. Finally, he stood still and closed his eyes. A sly grin slowly crept onto his face. He opened his eyes and said, "It's perfect. It will fly gracefully in my back yard." The next time I came to the office, the flying fish was gone. Later, when I went with Stanley to his house, I saw it floating in the breeze by a huge oak tree in his back yard. It brought a smile to my face to see my work appreciated . The two pictures below give you a pretty close representation of what I was working with and how the bird/fish turned out. Cameras were occasionally allowed while I worked with Stanley, but I rarely took any pictures since we both felt that sometimes art is a glorious fleeting event. Also, lack of evidence was, at times, a concern.
The next time I went to work with Stanley, he told me I needed to meet him downstairs by his truck. We were going on a field trip. We climbed into his Ford Expedition with the SM3 license plates and hit the road. We talked about museums and galleries and art and cows. He asked me how I would paint a cow if I had the opportunity. My first response was, "If the cow was a Holstein, (black and white) I would paint the white areas pastel colors. Each cow in the herd would be a different soft shade of color." I thought for a moment and added, "If they were Angus (all black) I would paint them to look like walking skeletons." This one got a laugh out of him. We were now on Amarillo Boulevard and he told me to start looking at the signs that lined the side of the road. As we drove slowly, I began to notice that there was some kind of sign about every three to five feet. Road signs, advert signs, paper signs, store signs, bench signs and construction signs were spaced along the route for at least a solid quarter mile. I told him I thought it was sad to see so much visual junk lining the street. He said that he had the same thought, but he did something about it. We pulled over at the end of the long stretch of signs and stopped. He said, "This is where my art is going right now," and he pointed to one last sign. Blending in perfectly with all the other signs was a big diamond shaped traffic-yellow sign. It was professionally done and looked as legal as any sign directing traffic or warning for cross-walks. The sign simply stated "PLEASE IGNORE ALL PREVIOUS SIGNS." I sat agog in his truck. I had never seen something so simple and yet so brilliant. A small bit of art in the middle of all this chaos. Some people may drive by it everyday and never notice it. Some that do see it, may not understand it. But those fortunate souls that got a kick out of it were the people Stanley was after. As I sat there in awe, I said, "Stanley, that's fucking brilliant." He said, "I know. We're re-installing a different one that got torn down on Route 66 headed out of town. It says 'ROAD DOES NOT END' and you're going to help me put it up." I told him that I was in and that he could count on me. It would be mildly illegal, but I was all for it. Much of my next couple of years would be the thrill of erecting a sign in broad daylight hoping to get in and out as quickly as possible. To Stanley it was a game of cat and mouse. To me it was the thrill of a lifetime.
See some of the other things I'm up to at www.JonathanElmore.weebly.com
The next time I went to work with Stanley, he told me I needed to meet him downstairs by his truck. We were going on a field trip. We climbed into his Ford Expedition with the SM3 license plates and hit the road. We talked about museums and galleries and art and cows. He asked me how I would paint a cow if I had the opportunity. My first response was, "If the cow was a Holstein, (black and white) I would paint the white areas pastel colors. Each cow in the herd would be a different soft shade of color." I thought for a moment and added, "If they were Angus (all black) I would paint them to look like walking skeletons." This one got a laugh out of him. We were now on Amarillo Boulevard and he told me to start looking at the signs that lined the side of the road. As we drove slowly, I began to notice that there was some kind of sign about every three to five feet. Road signs, advert signs, paper signs, store signs, bench signs and construction signs were spaced along the route for at least a solid quarter mile. I told him I thought it was sad to see so much visual junk lining the street. He said that he had the same thought, but he did something about it. We pulled over at the end of the long stretch of signs and stopped. He said, "This is where my art is going right now," and he pointed to one last sign. Blending in perfectly with all the other signs was a big diamond shaped traffic-yellow sign. It was professionally done and looked as legal as any sign directing traffic or warning for cross-walks. The sign simply stated "PLEASE IGNORE ALL PREVIOUS SIGNS." I sat agog in his truck. I had never seen something so simple and yet so brilliant. A small bit of art in the middle of all this chaos. Some people may drive by it everyday and never notice it. Some that do see it, may not understand it. But those fortunate souls that got a kick out of it were the people Stanley was after. As I sat there in awe, I said, "Stanley, that's fucking brilliant." He said, "I know. We're re-installing a different one that got torn down on Route 66 headed out of town. It says 'ROAD DOES NOT END' and you're going to help me put it up." I told him that I was in and that he could count on me. It would be mildly illegal, but I was all for it. Much of my next couple of years would be the thrill of erecting a sign in broad daylight hoping to get in and out as quickly as possible. To Stanley it was a game of cat and mouse. To me it was the thrill of a lifetime.
See some of the other things I'm up to at www.JonathanElmore.weebly.com
No comments:
Post a Comment