Art Shows

The BRC workshop produced a couple of 5-stringers for exhibition at the community art gallery this Spring. The “Terrapin” banjo was donated to a fund-raising Patron Party in support of the Art League. Surprisingly, it was conspicuously displayed as a frontispiece on a central pillar at the entrance of the exhibit hall. The Terrapin will be raffled-off at a gala auction that has now been postponed.

Also this later Spring, the gallery is opening a juried show entitled “Visual Mixtape” that has challenged members to submit entries mirroring the master artists who influenced their works.

The BRC founder has entered a “High Lonesome Sound” banjo to reflect the unique sonic quality of Bluegrass music and its distinctive lineage of pioneer musicians like Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers.

Amidst the tuning pegs on the headstock is a treble clef that is pierced by a bolt of lightening and surmounted by the profile of a wolf`s visage.

Clawed wolf paw prints track along the fretboard among gold stars and paua abalone treble clefs.

For the eyes only of the musician, the “Hi-Lo-So” banjo neck has a large paw print on its heel which is a signature location for a mother of pearl inlay on BRC 5-stringers.

By request, the Art League has asked for a small photo of the artist who influenced each member`s submission to be posted with the work in the now rescheduled exhibit. The BRC founder provided a picture of himself taken at a banjo camp with Grammy Award winner Eric Weissberg- his boyhood banjo hero.

The concept and mystique of the Tree of Life spans millennia, cultures, and religions. In the autumn, trees shed their leaves and look dead in the winter. But, in springtime, buds appear on the naked branches, and soon the tree is renewed with a fresh garment of resplendent foliage. For the community Holiday Season art show this year, the BRC founder submitted a Tree of Life banjo to the exhibit offering a motif that we are all interconnected.

Bronze, brass, silver alloy, and mother of pearl trees are linked by a continuous network of roots on the peghead and fretboard. The pot displays a sine wave curve of dark cherry and black walnut sinuously coursing through a field of brightly toned ash wood like an endless cycle. The banjo was marketed via an online auction, and the new owner reported in the auction`s Feedback Profile, “Gosh, what a wonderful piece of “art” this banjo is. A pleasure doing business.”

As a class project, a team of university students from the School of Journalism attended the exhibit’s gala opening reception to interview the BRC founder about his curious banjos and Bluegrass music endeavors. They videotaped his band performing for the Children’s Hospital at the nearby brewpub and photographed the banjo builder in his workshop. Pictured below, the students stand beside a rare WWI poster published in 1917 by the university Journalism School, as this original document resides in the BRC founder`s military history memorabilia collection.

On Thanksgiving weekend, let us all take pause on our journeys and enjoy a moment with friends and family in the shade of the Tree of Life while gratefully sharing our interconnectedness.

For the 60th Annual Boone County Bank Art Show, the BRC founder submitted his “Pegasus Rising ” banjo to the autumn exhibit among over 200 paintings, sculptures, fiber, wood, and glass works. This creature from Greek mythology is the winged horse that heroic Bellerophon rode to defeat the monstrous Chimera.

During World War II, the image of Bellerophon astride Pegasus was adopted by the British paratrooper corps as their sleeve insignia. During the D-Day Invasion in 1944, the British 6th Airborne Division captured a vital French bridge near Caen amidst bitter fighting, and the span was forever renamed the Pegasus Bridge.

At the art show, the banjo garnered a ribbon and promptly sold as indicated by the red dot on the tag.

The British 16th Air Assault Brigade still wears the unchanged Pegasus sleeve insignia today, depicting a white steed and bold warrior on a field of crimson (below right).

A life long student of military history, the BRC founder crossed the English Channel in 1984 with a tour group of D-Day combat veterans inorder to share with them the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion. They walked the sands of Omaha Beach together and attended commemorative ceremonies at Pegasus Bridge.

One of the tour group members recounted piloting a LCVP (Higgins boat) during the desperate June 6th assault ferrying tense platoons of infantry through troubled seas to landing beaches raked with shot and shell. He had since lived a quiet life in Miami and was active in administrating the annual Orange Bowl parade and festivities. He gave the BRC founder a souvenir stick-on fabric orange blossom that has adorned the truss rod cover of the banjo builder`s favorite mandolin (below left) ever since.

Pegasus, a prominent constellation in the northern sky, is signified by a mother of pearl sun and star on the truss rod cover of the BRC banjo. This theme is repeated on the heel of the 5-stringer with a winged horse bracketed by the sun and moon, and this signature mother of pearl locus is for the eyes only of the musician.

For its autumn exhibition, the local art league challenged its membership to fashion works based on paintings and drawings crafted by youngsters in a project at a nearby elementary school.  The BRC founder selected an image from this artful collection that appeared to depict a grade school athlete nearing the finish line in a foot race.

The running  figure with outstretched arms reminded him of his youngest granddaughter who devotedly pursues fluttering butterflies in her quest to someday capture one of these elusive winged creatures of fragile beauty.

 

In retrospect, the theme of a butterfly 5-stringer was subliminally suggested to the BRC founder months earlier when he visited a zoo with grandkids and was photographed in his “banjo is best” t-shirt next to a boldly colored poster of a swallow-tailed species.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The incredible Monarch butterfly accomplishes a spectacular migration from North America to Central Mexico each autumn traveling 50-100 miles per day. On this yearly pilgrimage, these aerial travelers are mostly guided by the sun and internal photoreceptors. Because of environmental changes, the number of Monarchs is declining. Hopefully, these precious beauties will come under federal protection soon.

Grade-schoolers, parents, and teachers thronged the gala opening reception at the gallery to view the paintings, jewelry, stained glass and fiber works fashioned from the youngsters` inspirations. The curious kids were allowed to strum the “Chasing Butterflies” banjo while it was hand-held by the builder.

Clouded in mystery, the narwhal is the “unicorn of the sea” and first cousin to the beluga whale. Although a reclusive creature, the narwhal is a mammal that plies the Arctic waters in pods ranging from 10 to 100. It grows to 13-18 feet and can weigh up to 3500 pounds. Its swordlike tusk, which is actually a twisted tooth, can be sometimes 8 feet long and occasionally doubled in males. It is estimated that the population of this legendary deep diving (1300-4500 ft.) sea creature is 50K-170K.  Although not an endangered species, the narwhal is vulnerable to climate change. Its predators are polar bears that lurk at ice holes, and orcas that attack pods. Inspiration for a seafaring themed BRC 5-stringer came from a family trip to the island of Nantucket last summer and a visit to its Whaling Museum.

Amidst 113 paintings, sculptures, photographs, and mixed media works at the community Art League`s summer show, the BRC founder`s banjo “Seeking the Narwhal” hangs on a central pillar adjacent to his wife’s painting “River in the Woods.”  His spouse is seen discussing her oil painting with a curious patron while the banjo attracts little notice.

At the gala opening reception, however, The Narwal garnered a ribbon and was promptly purchased by a local blacksmith who forges metal sculptures for Art League shows.

 

 

 

 

 

The blacksmith then invited the banjo builder and grandkids to a tour of his smithy for a metal art demonstration, and the skillful artisan is pictured below at his anvil with hammer in hand.

A BRC granddaughter, whose favorite sea animal is the narwhal, later celebrated the ribbon and metal shop tour with an ice cream treat.