What makes something iconic? “Widely recognized and well-established” is the Merriam-Webster technical definition. For me, it’s something that is instantly recognizable and evokes a sense of place, which means that one person’s “iconic” is another person’s “what the…?”
As an artist, creating an artwork based on an iconic place can be a tall order, something that the voice in your head quips “you better get this right”. There’s also a category of artists, the ones with more ego than talent or sense, who consider many subjects beneath them and not worth the flex of their brush. For these nimrods, the most egregious waste of their precious time is painting something iconic, cataloging the entirety of these subjects as passé, predictable and pedestrian.
What the aforementioned dolts don’t seem to understand is that most people gravitate to artwork that’s relatable, and there’s no better way to make something relatable than to make it recognizable! When it comes to leveraging the power of an iconic subject for a painting, I think its important to “get it right”, whatever that really means, but also put it in a setting or context that grabs the viewer’s attention. One way to pull this off is to present the icon in the evening, known as a “nocturne” in fancy art vernacular, whereby the setting is atypical yet still recognizable.
ONE NIGHT ONLY is, hopefully, instantly recognizable by any resident, past or present, of Austin, Texas. The Paramount Theater, and arguably to a lesser degree, the State Theater, epitomize the Old Guard that is downtown Austin. The Austin skyline has transformed over the past 15 years at an insane pace, but it’s hard to wax nostalgia over skyscrapers, in large part because, in my humble opinion, none are iconic, with two possible exceptions. First is the State Capitol, the original skyscraper of Austin, which held the crown of the tallest building in Austin for more than 70 years! Second, the Frost Tower Building (full disclosure, it’ one of, if not my wife’s favorite downtown building), which while it held the crown for a meager 4 years (2004 – 2008), was such a beautiful piece of architecture, residents readily recognized it in pictures and movies… by name! In other words, it was iconic.
Finally, there are a few technical details you might find of interest, and perhaps elicit some additional joy from the painting. Or not.
First, there was a lot of simplification, which was driven by equal parts fear and intent. As chance would have it, the very basic, loose structure of the dark buildings in the background turned out to be a happy accident. Initially, these were a simple dark value block-in that were necessary to contrast the very bright elements of the signs. I never bothered to go back and refine this area, frankly forgot about it, and then realized it did a fantastic job of directing viewers to the focal points. The second bit of artistic license was the exclusion of pretty much all of the Paramount building details. This is the fear factor, whereby I didn’t want to tank the composition with the distraction of what would have certainly been mediocre windows and brick detail. The cast shadows on the roof paired with the glowing orange wall is meant to anchor the right side of the work, which would have been difficult to do with architectural details.
As you can tell from the progression gallery below, the lettering of the signs was done by hand, no stencil and it evolved quite a bit over painting sessions. I practiced the lettering on separate paper canvas, experimenting with different brush shapes and sizes, as well as variations in paint load.
Regarding the Paramount marquis, the ultimate focal point of the work, it has virtually no paint! I washed the underpainting off of that area early on, and like the simplified background buildings, I never went back to it until the very end, and that was only to add “ONE NIGHT ONLY” lettering.
Lastly, note the lack of people on the street. This was intentional, but I struggled with the decision. I like adding people to urban scenes like this, in large part because they add interest, motion, and a sense of place. However, without them, the scene has that feel of a theater that has a full house and nobody is lingering outside. Hopefully that intent translates to you, too.
ONE NIGHT ONLY will be making its public debut this week at my solo show at Kerbey Lane Cafe (Westlake), “Paintings and Pancakes”. Come by and check out the 25+ pieces of artwork while enjoying the sweet nectar of pancakes and syrup!
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