An Abundant Life - A Beautifully Moving Work Of Art

There are so many beautiful murals in Jersey City, New Jersey, and so many wonderful Artists. It's known worldwide to be a place that is filled with exciting, unique and visionary art and cultural projects and for good reason. One of the things that makes my walks around the different neighborhoods so enjoyable is that I have the opportunity to see so much of the art that is done in public spaces, and over time I have had the opportunity to meet some of the Artists who create it. I've written about a number of them in this blog, and whenever I have the opportunity I try to see as much art and meet as many Artists as I can. My business for many years has incorporated working with Artists in the areas of public relations and marketing, finding space for shows, curating multi-media art events and helping to connect Artists with the community and with galleries and collectors and projects. I also walk everywhere, and though people sometimes think I'm crazy for doing it, especially now in the days of Uber and Lyft at our fingertips, I purposely have never downloaded those apps because I like to have a reason to keep on walking. One of my Artist friends jokingly calls me Jannie Walker after the ever present ad campaign for Johnnie Walker scotch, and I love the title because it's such a part of who I am and what I do. I love my walk abouts because I see great things and meet great people, and I find that my life is connected in a way to the community when I'm at street level that it wouldn't be otherwise if I was in a car, a bus or even on a bike.

One day last Spring when I was on my way to visit an Artist to talk about an event I was curating, I walked under one of the overpasses on my way to the other side of Jersey City from Hoboken and I saw two Mural Artists working on a project on each side of the concrete facing walls. I took a quick photograph as I walked up to them, and then walked closer and introduced myself to the one who was working on the wall to the right. After I had said who I was, I said, "I know you must be someone famous," and I meant it, because the work was so beautiful and so intricate that was being done. It told a story even though it was only in the beginning stages, and I knew that so much thought and design was being poured into it, so much history and emotion and life. The Artist laughed and said that he went by the name DISTORT, and I honestly nearly fell on the ground. For someone like me who is an admirer of street art and murals, it was an honor to meet him because he really is not only famous but at the top of his field. He's well respected and liked by other great Artists as well as by community leaders, community members and business owners, and he's looked up to by a generation of rising Artists and youth who see the integrity of his work and of his work ethic and life. Of all the people to meet on my travels, it was such an unexpectedly beautiful blessing, and I gave him my card and asked if we could meet again at some time for a blog post.

Over the next months I ran into him a few times when he was working on other projects, and I posted and tagged him on photos whenever I saw new work or had an opportunity to photograph one of his existing murals. Street artists very often don't like to be photographed and identified, to protect their privacy and also because at times, though they can often be part of projects that are legally created that they are invited to do, they also sometimes have tagged in the past or may still be actively tagging or painting in areas that are not legal, and where they can be fined or given jail time if they are caught. A number of years ago a good friend of mine who is known as Jesus Saves was caught for some old graffiti from the time before he was born again. He'd stopped illegally tagging but ended up spending time in Rikers for paint he'd put up some time ago. The photograph that I took on the first day that I met Distort had a part of his face showing, a piece of his profile, and though it wasn't much I asked him if I could post it because I didn't want to go out of bounds. He allowed me to at the time, but I won't post it here out of respect for his privacy and the code of this very special group of Artists that he is a part of.

When we sat down to talk recently in his studio, I had the opportunity to learn more about the beauty in the vision of this very wonderful and extremely talented Artist. He cares so much about the world and about the community around him that he is a part of, and he feels very deeply the courses of injustice and harmful influences that have been damaging to the earth's ecology and to people's lives. His process as he creates his pieces is an intricate and time consuming one that includes creating a kind of vision board in his notebook, an outline in collage form of what the finished project will be using drawings and images from magazines and newspapers and vintage advertisements that is a work of art itself. The pieces I saw in his studio are being created for the most part on metal surfaces with a mirrored finish. Layering enamel paint and etching onto and into them, sometimes the mirrored surfaces become part of the layers of the designs in ways that are unexpected. He was also in the process of working on a piece that included electricity to light up a small area to give a window into a hidden underground world that reflected the viewer and the vision beyond it.

His work is extraordinary. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he is classically trained and has exhibited extensively in the Tristate area, and has completed murals in Miami, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York and North Jersey. When you read his Artist Statement, it is a glimpse into the mind and heart of someone who is looking deeply and seeing the multi-layers of history as it overlaps with the present and informs our every day lives. But there is something else that can be understood, when you meet him and see the Art he has created. There is a quietness and a sense of listening, of being a part of the deepest and innermost secrets of the world around him, of a very human being who is present in every sense, who is taking time to hear people who are often unheard and trying to give voice to those who may not know how to use their voices or may not be able to. I am reminded of writers and philosophers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose work and life were so deeply rooted in getting back to the basics of who we are as people, and of William Wordsworth whose poems gave voice to the earth and sky and the birds and trees and brought us all a bit closer to what it really means to be human.

DISTORT

http://www.distoart.com/

A Collaboration With T.Dee

Blessings,

Jannie Susan