Page 17 - the NOISE October 2014

A BIRD’S EYE VIEW:
PAssinG oveRheAD With FlyinG ColoRs
FROM FAR LEFT: Turtle Ships, Meteor Flashflood, and Verde Valley Monsoon By sARAh are a few in Mr. Graham’s most recent foray into the visual medium. GiAnelli
Knowing firsthand some creative types need a deadline to goad projects across the finish line of completion, such was the case with balloon-pilot/artist Don Graham who, af- ter nearly 10 years of “creative blockage” (the reasons behind which are still murky), was finally coaxed to pick up the paint- brush again by ruth Ann Border of Visible Difference and served with a date to meet his goal.
“Ruth Ann liked some of my stuff and suggested I con- tact The Noise to see about getting Turtle Abduction on the cover,”says Mr. Graham. “We had a meeting and the publisher explained what it would take to get my art on the cover. I agreed to meet his deadline, and put my nose to the grind- stone to meet and exceed it. I completed more paintings twixt April and August of this year than I have in the previous decade ... maybe longer.”
Mr. Graham completed 11 paintings in all — some brand new; others that had haunted him, unfinished, from their dusty stacks for years.
“That it was a spiritual healing is about the best way I know how to put it,” he says. “I have no idea why I was blocked for so long; it’s been an on and off again thing for most of my life. I would like to think it’s finally ‘off’ for good. The creative juices are flowing again like I haven’t felt in years ... maybe it’s like jamming a stick into a clogged pipe, I don’t know, but I’m proud of all of the works on display at Mountain Oasis; each of them has a story behind it. Some had been in ‘unfinished-lim- bo’ since 1988. Not being able to finish those had been eating at me for years ... I would just ‘lock-up’ when I looked at them, and tell myself: ‘someday you really have to finish these.’”
That “someday” came this past summer, and one of the brand new fruits of his labor — Turtle Abduction — made this month’s cover, as was the artist’s original intention. Inspired by “ingesting too much fantasy and sci-fi in his ‘formative’ years, overdosing on Frank Zappa, and spending too much time south of Area 51, Turtle Abduction depicts an oversized turtle-spaceship beaming up smaller turtles against a red rock backdrop. The idea for the piece originated from a series of outdoor murals he did for a client in Phoenix “many moons ago,” progressing from the original, which depicted a Sonoran desert landscape, to another set in the Mojave and now, on display this month at Mountain Oasis, against a background reminiscent of the geology of Yavapai and Coconino counties.
When pressed for the meaning of Turtle Abduction, Mr. Gra- ham exclaims, “Why, turtles are being abducted, of course! Isn’t it obvious? It was done for the whimsy of it all. Must ev- ery painting have some kind of existential, deep, mysterious, metaphysical, psychological meaning? WTF ever happened to doing something simply for the fun of it?”
When his playful exasperation peters out, Mr. Graham does say the piece was a “tongue-in-cheek, nose thumbing gesture towards the Sierra Club and their pet theory of ‘disappearing tortoises’ in the Southwest.”
Shunning oils for a litany of reasons, Mr. Graham typically works in acrylics, inks and enamels on canvas, Masonite, pa- per, metal and particle board, though he says “he’ll paint on just about anything that will hold still, and has painted on
quite a few things that didn’t.” niques; painting everything from boat tails, race cars, and bill-
Taking in the 13 works on display at Mountain Oasis, his subject matter quickly coalesces into two distinct groups: sky oriented landscapes and pieces featuring Native American symbolism of some kind.
The central figure in Rides the Lightning Bolts is a Yavapai- Sinagua Akaka deity who mythically rides the lightning bolts between worlds and is based on a pictograph image in Se- dona’s Loy Canyon; and Hopi Girl, in which a stylized figure stands in profile on a cliff, was fashioned after a small, hand carved and painted wooden statue he saw at a friend’s house.
Verde Valley Monsoon is an aerial view of a purple, pink and blue-bruised sky and cloud blanketed mountains during Ari- zona’s beloved wet season, and was inspired by a balloon flight Mr. Graham piloted over the Verde Valley about a year ago; while Flash Flood Illuminated by Meteor, was based on an actual event Mr. Graham witnessed hiking in the Mojave Desert.
The recurring subject matter takes on a deeper significance as Mr. Graham spins the story of his life, and starts to emerge as representative of the two major threads guiding his narra- tive:aloveofaviationandafascinationwith“signage,”bothin the ancient and contemporary sense.
Mr. Graham has been working as a tour guide pilot for Ari- zona Balloon Works in Cottonwood for the past seven years. He captains approximately 200 flights per year in vessels he describes as a “three dimensional sailboat without a rudder,” or, in SCUBA terms, “the big drift dive in the sky.”
One could argue that Mr. Graham’s destiny to spend much of his life airborne dates back to the womb. His father was a military aviator and as Mr. Graham puts it, he was “infected with various types of aircraft noise while still in the oven,” and credits this influence with leading him to become a professional bal- loon pilot; both of which started out as recreational pastimes.
Mr. Graham “flew wings before bags” and his greatest avi- ation claim to fame was back in the 80s, when he dropped flowers on a co-worker’s wedding on the 18th hole in Death Valley National Park’s Furnace Creek Golf Course.
“As far I know, I have made the only below sea level flight to drop flowers on a wedding from a small aircraft,” he says.
Early on, in addition to a yen for flying, Mr. Graham also demonstrated a natural inclination toward the arts.
“I was one of those kids who was regularly doing crayon mu- rals on Mother’s walls, and a few others, too,” he says. “But the punishment only lasted for so long, and then there would be that urge to indulge in Crayola again. I was considered ‘the little artist’ in my public school days.”
In his youth, he was exposed to petroglyphs and it ignited a fascination with all varieties of aboriginal rock art that con- tinues to this day. “It was kind of like this tuning fork phenom- ena,” he says. “I just knew I had to study this, and I did.”
Led by his creative skills, as a “young buck” Mr. Graham won him an apprenticeship as a sign painter and soon became master of his trade in the days before computers had any part in the process, working with industrial grade pigments & enamels and old-school air brushing & hand lettering tech-
boards, the last of which was for Armand Ortega between the towns of Sanders, AZ and Gallup, NM, also vaguely chronicled as “many moons ago.”
His preoccupation with ancient pictographs and petro- glyphs led him to archaeology projects like documenting var- ious rock-art locations across the Southwest. As a “documen- tary illustrator,” Mr. Graham would go out on site and create drawings to augment the photographic and technical docu- mentation, the originals and copies of which he has tucked away and refers to for the indigenous symbolism found in many of his paintings.
At some point, it dawned on Mr. Graham that there was a more profound connection between his chosen profession as a sign painter and his persistent interest in ancient cave and rock drawings.
“When I was out on those petroglyph recording projects, the ‘archys’ (archaeologists) would ask me why I was out there, and my usual answer, while trying to keep a straight face, was something along the lines of I was conducting a lifelong in- vestigation into ‘industrial genealogy.’ Even prior to my ap- prenticeship as a sign-painter, I had a fascination with what kind of ‘signage’ was being produced prior to the existence of a ‘written-language.’ These guys were the predecessors of my profession. It was a form of communication and transmitting ideas, and that’s very much what signage is.”
As an illustrator, Mr. Graham cites his claim to fame as cre- ating the artwork for the Las Vegas Balloon Rally from 1987- 1994. Since then, his sign painting work has, for the most part, been limited to the occasional billboard signs proclaiming the likes of “Over 100 Items made by Indians!” “Moccasins for the Entire Family!” “Good Restroom Stop!” and “Indian Ruins Don’t Miss it!”
Ballooning started out as a hobby for Mr. Graham and be- came his profession; painting went from his job, to his hobby. While he’s the first to say it’s not such a bad tradeoff, Mr. Gra- ham is ready for them to flip once more and go full circle — with art becoming his focus and flying back to something he does for fun.
“I love the sensation of being in the air,” he says. “I like the views. There is a lot to flying that I am unable to describe verbally ... you might say it’s a ‘spiritual thing.’ I get inspired by things I see when airborne and I have a great deal of aerial photos to draw from for future paintings. Now, these aerial perspectives are what I will be emphasizing, so that ground- bound folks may get a taste of what the world looks like to a bird.”
Mr. Graham’s paintings will be on display for the month of October at Mountain Oasis international restaurant with an opening reception during First Friday ArtWalk on October 3 from 6-9PM at 11 E. Aspen Street in Flagstaff.
| sarah Gianelli likes to know her air temperatures. arts@thenoise.us
thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • OCTOBER 2014 • 17