d’Arte Board

“Robert Magolan”, Oil on Canvas, 30″x40″

Back in 2004, I started doing portraits of some of the artists and interlopers who frequented the scene in Chicago’s Wicker Park.  By that time, most of the neighborhood’s “grittiness” had been wiped away by gentrification, so this was probably the last generation of that ‘hood having a viable creative identity.  At the time, I was the night manager at Filter Coffee Lounge, which sat on a six-corner intersection, a prime vantage to observe the madness.  Some of the pictures aren’t the greatest, but I will update them as I reshoot.  “Kai Orion”, Oil on Canvas, 30″x40″

“Noah of the House of Zubi”, Oil on Canvas, 30″x40″

For a while, I was writing down some of my interactions with these people in a journal.  Here is one of the entries for a man named Gordon, who I never got the opportunity to paint.

Somehow, Gordon is able to make no enemies yet say anything without reservation that comes into his mind. When I first met Gordon, I was working the closing shift at Filter, and he came in to exchange the coins he had panhandled for paper currency. At the time, the cafe’s policy was not to break change for anyone except paying customers, and furthermore, the homeless were not permitted inside under any circumstances. The amusing aspect was that I was told this by France, one of the owners (then just a manager), earlier that day, and here was Gordon strolling through the front door without an inch of apprehension. “Hi, I’m Gordon,” he said in a voice that sounded more like he handled telephone calls all day instead of hustled on the street corner. “All them other assholes out there,” pointing out the window adjacent the counter, “forget about them. I am the only one you can trust.” I shook his hand. “Now, do you mind?” He asked this while pouring a cup of silvery coins into his hand. At this point, I decided that I would disregard the policies I had been told, and begin to interract with the strange people I was meeting on a case by case basis. Later, I realized however that this put me at personal risk when I decided to finally eject a lumbering 6’5″ figure, whom I had allowed to enter on a cold night, and was soon threatening to cut my throat; outside, he was beaten with a baton to a bloody pulp when he took a swing at a passing cop. Eventually, through my persistent persuading (and others), several passive or otherwise good-natured non-customers were allowed inside Filter, so long as they understood certain prevailing conditions for their behavior, they included, Gordon, Oba Maja (the street poet) and Sharkula (a rapper who sold his cassettes for “whatever you got”). In those early nights after I had first met him, Gordon and I would talk a lot on different topics such as street politics, books, ethics and other what not he or I had experience with. He was surprisingly well versed, since he graciously accepted donations of books that he would constantly read. To this effect, he had established a loan policy with the local bookstore, Myopic Books, which enabled him to check out a book and return it for another when he finished reading it. In the time that we lived in Wicker Park/Bucktown, Gordon served as a surrogate parent for Mandi and I (worrying much about us being safe). Also, he was the protector of Filter, helping me cast out undesirables as necessary, and my unwavering friend. He told Mandi and I once, in one of the last moments that we saw him, that we represented one of only two white people that he would die for. At times, he was even my art promoter; he would pass out fliers for my shows and I once employed him to be the “greeter” and to take admission at one of my events. However, despite all of his attributes, Gordon had reasons to make ME worry. Most significant was that he was (and probably still is) an alcoholic. In the time that I knew him, he was usually drunk or trying to get there, a state that left him susceptible to many things, like being robbed, which he was. Once, in the coldest week of winter, he was taken for even his blankets. For transportation, Mandi gave him a bycicle and he had this stolen shortly thereafter as well, eventhough she had also given him a lock for it. His alcoholism also prevented (prevents?) him from getting a job, despite the fact that I had developed resumes for him and tried to help him with leads (so have several others). Although, in the last few months before I moved from the neighborhood, things had begun to look up for Gordon. He found a girlfriend who has a steady job as a nurse, and who offered him the opportunity to move in with her, which he did. Her influence has served to straighten him out a little, which is much altered from his previous girlfriend that was removed from the streets for prostitution. The last time I saw Gordon, he was interviewing for a job, and he had to interrupt speaking with me to check his cell phone (given to him by the woman he was living with) for a call that he was expecting. As I am uncertain as to how his events turned out, I am hopeful that Gordon has helped himself. For, he has certainly helped out enough of us.

“Stephany Colunga”, Oil on Canvas, 30″ x 40″

“Aila” Oil on Canvas, 30″x40″ (not from the neighborhood; this was a commission I received from the series for this girl in Brooklyn, NY)

“JoJo Baby”, Oil on Canvas, 30″x40″

This entry was posted on June 12, 2009 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Jason Gray, oil painting . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.