So, the book’s done. I’m waiting for the printer to get back to me with an estimate. I decided it would be a paperback so I can start with fewer copies and have a full-color jacket. It was fun to apply what I’ve been doing the last couple years with collage to this thing.
I’d hoped to maybe have another press put this one out, but I don’t wanna wait anymore and have this bottleneck the projects coming after it. I know from past experience that cleaning the slate as best I can makes new things come out better. I can work on many things at once so long as they’re in different lanes. A painting, a couple collages, a pet portrait, a book review, and a book don’t get in one another’s way. But a finished book not out in the world is like a putt-putt driver in the passing lane.
So I gotta get this grandma out of the way for the greater good. To that end, I’m selling the cover art work. Only one of these, so act now, as the infomercials say.
Math’s not my strongsuit. I forget when things happened. What came before what. It hurts my head to trace a timeline and even when I go through and painstakingly reconstruct one, I get parts wrong a lot of the time. All that said, I know for sure that the collage show I’m putting up Sunday, June 19th marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of my first show at the Rainbo Club.
It won’t be the twenty-fifth show, I missed a few years, and, as stated, math is a problem, but if I were to guess, I’d say it could be the twentieth. The first, in the fall of 1997, was in the display cases on the Damen Avenue wall, where the windows would be. I don’t recall what I put up. Probably gouaches and sumi ink paintings of my apartment on Claremont. I was all about interiors then. Maybe a couple views out the windows. I suppose I should’ve kept a ledger with details like that. Sales too. To this day, I don’t note who I sell what to.
I didn’t make postcards for half the shows either. The first six years that would’ve likely been the only material record or evidence that the shows took place as I didn’t learn to even turn on a computer until late into 2003.
After that I posted details on MySpace and the succession of fly-by-night/crash-and-burn art sites. Can’t even recall most of their names which is probably for self-preservation—it’s good to forget all the failure, otherwise, moving forward becomes impossible.
I know two of the shows, likely a decade apart, were devoted to bookshelf paintings, which I started making in the late 90s and have returned to periodically ever since. There were three or four portrait shows, many full of cityscapes and roomscapes; one of paintings done at the Rainbo itself.
There was a time when I had expectations of moving on from putting up art in bars. The art world tells you it’s gauche, only for beginners and amateurs. But after every gallery experience blew up in my face, fell short, or otherwise disappointed me, I began to look forward to putting up stuff at the Rainbo and other bars and restaurants.
The thing about having work up at a bar is that people will actually see it. They’re not there to look at it or judge it specifically, but that’s all to the good because this way when they notice something on the wall it’s without any pressure to comment or appreciate; they’re just drinking or trying to get somebody to go home with them, then, when they look away from their quarry a second they see a painting of a bookshelf and become curious.
A bar is a lot closer to a dwelling than a gallery is. Therefore seeing a painting on the wall at the Rainbo is a lot more the way it will look at your place than it does in some antiseptic white cube. Also a lot cheaper for all involved. Since you’re buying that book painting from me rather the bored girlfriend of a hedge-fund manager or child of a millionaire, I will charge you a lot less. I’m not selling prestige or status. Nor am I presenting you with a good way to hide from the tax man; I’m just offering you a picture I made.
I’ve sold a lot of art off the walls of the Rainbo Club over these twenty-five years. Some of the people I sold paintings to have become friends; others I no longer speak to. Artwork can remind people of good times as well as bad. So can places. I know the reason I skipped having shows at Rainbo a few times was because the place reminded me of relationships that went south. I had to stay away for a time to allow the bad feelings to fade.
But I always return. The bar has been a constant in my life the way no personal entanglement can mar for long. I don’t know how much longer the place will be around but I’ll put up art any time they let me.
It’s a home away from home.
If you’re in Chicago on Sunday, June 19th, come by the bar and say hello. I’ll be there 4—8pm. The collages I’ve made the last two years will be on the walls and in the display cases. I’m looking forward to seeing you there.
Sunday evening a bunch of teenagers show up at Thalia Hall. They’re here because their friends or friends of their friends or kids they wanna be like or be with are on the bill. The headlining band has a record out with a big-deal label. It’s a night to celebrate.
I have misgivings about being here. It’s one thing to be the old guy at the show when everyone else is at least of age according to the government; another to be surrounded by actual children. But with all the proud parents, I have protective cover. They’ve even roped off the balcony for family seating. That’s the one area I’m not allowed.
I find out about this show from an article Leor wrote. My friend Brian’s kid is in one of the bands. There will be zines for sale. Curiosity beat out discomfort. I figure that I could not belong in this crowd just as I don’t belong in throngs of my own cohort or in herds of geriatrics. It’s always like going on safari.
The merch area’s overflowing with teens. They’re like colts or calves, skittish and awkward. Most are giggly and excited. The tables are covered with tapes, t-shirts, patches, and zines. It’s weird but sort of touching that people who’ve lived through screens their entire lives are attracted to these outmoded means of expression. Before coming here, I’d spent the whole day doing layout on what amounts to a slightly more advanced version of what these kids are hawking. Makes me feel like I have some point of entry, a connection. I buy a five-issue run of a zine devoted to horror movies to give to Mallory and a few others for me.
The hall starts to fill up as the first band hits the stage. I listen a few minutes, then wander upstairs and flip through my pile of zines at a table in the lobby. I wonder whether the parents of the kids who made these things showed them how or if they blundered through on their own. Is it possible to be amateurish with paper, scissors, and glue in the cyber age? Does it mean the same thing to run off a hundred zines now as it did forty years ago?
Downstairs, Brian’s manning his kid’s band’s merch table. He looks really happy. His young daughter’s helping by getting t-shirts from a big box in the back when someone orders one.
I do a sketch of his kid’s band. They’re really good. So good I leave after a couple of the headliner’s songs so the traces of the previous set can linger as I bike home.
