A '20-Some Blurry Image Salute' to Spine-Taneous!

Spine-Taneous, I salute you!

It took a lot of work, cooperation, and drive to pull it off, but Spine-Taneous happened -and happened in a BIG WAY!  Here are some images from the evening.

Our third floor venue had a stellar view of downtown Davenport and the Skybridge.

A shot of Katy Kiley's and Dr. Jay Kitzman's collaboration.

Terry Rathje's and Dr. Ann Marie Campagna's collaboration.

Molly Conrad sang several songs that were inspired by her collaboration between her, Emma Harmon, and Amber Bollman.

Palmer College Of Chiropractic has a large 'spine' that they use for various publicity endeavors.  Adam McDonald, Dr. Martin Stine, and a few other masochistic souls 'volunteered' to hang the spine.  Some lights were added to the interior to add a really nice sense of drama to the spine.  It became one of the cool/interesting focal points of the event!

Dean Kugler's triptych of contortionists greeted everyone as they entered the event.

The collaborating artist and chiropractors were:  Katy Kiley and Dr. Jay Kitzman; Eileen Eitrheim, Allison Filley, Dr. Karen Smith; Paul Herrera and Dr. Kevin Wabelhorst; Dr. Richard Boyer & Linda Kelty;  Dr. Tara Pratt, Taylor Bennett, and Steve Banks (with a special thanks to Tami Schmidt!);  Paul Herrera and Dr. Julie Johnson (Paul was part of two collaborations!);  Jacki Olson and Dr. Martin Stine;  Leonard Metallo Jr and Dr. Martin Stine (Dr. Stine was also part of two collaborations); Terry Rathje and Dr. Ann Marie Campagna; Dawn Wolford-Metallo and Dr. Tyler Johnson;  Dean Kugler;  Emily Christenson and Dr. Traci Nelson; Eileen Eitrheim and Dr. Karen Smith (They worked on two pieces too!); Amber Bollman, Emma Harmon, and Molly Conrad; Ariel Beverly and Alfie Sundquist; Adam McDonald and Hannah Lingafelter,

Thank you to Dr. Julie Johnson for all of her work finding and coordinating Chiropractors and student Chiropractors for the project.

A big Thanks goes out to Dr. Ron Boesch, Dr. Julie Johnson, and Aramark Catering for making the evening a success! -and Adam McDonald and crew for hauling and installing that Spine-A-Saurus Rex.

A Super-Duper-Ruper thanks has to go out to Eileen Eitrheim for her vision, her bulldog tenacity, and her boundless enthusiasm.  Without Eileen, Spine-Taneous would not have happened.

And a final thanks goes out to everyone who braved the snow and the cold to come out and attend Spine-Taneous.

Spine-Taneous: Making The Piece

Spine-Taneous is the next show on the horizon (less than two weeks away).  It is the brainchild of Eileen Eiterheim.  She brought in Dr. Martin Stine and me early on to help flesh out the project.

Essentially, Spine-Taneous is a collaborative experience that pairs an artist (or student-artists) with a Chiropractor (or Chiropractic student). As a team/group we develop a concept for a piece and then we create it.

Here is the sketch I presented to Dr. Tara Pratt ( a link to her practice ) at our first meeting at Antonella's Pizzeria.  Underwhelming, eh?

Concept in motion.

We wanted to create a blend/hybrid between a tree and a spine with all of life's stressors weighing down on the spine/trunk.

So we got a big ole, sheet of paper (A huge THANKS to artist Tami Schmidt!), laid down rough squares of masking tape, and started to draw.  4 people and a lot of charcoal.

We also used erasers to make white marks in dark patches of charcoal.

It's important to 'motivate' young artists/workers with the proper administration of a 'face-squeezing'.

Along the lines of the John Steinbeck quote, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.', I brought in a 'ringer' to assure this project would be a success.  Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present: Taylor Bennett.  Taylor was a student in my Life Drawing class this past semester at Black Hawk College.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present what Taylor can do with charcoal and a piece of paper.....

Here's an image of Taylor erasing (making white marks on a surface covered with charcoal) a spine.

Some more images of the mayhem that weighs upon us both literally and figuratively.

The image is starting to take shape.

Once all of the drawing was completed, we removed the tape (which took roughly 30 minutes) to reveal a loose grid of white lines/shapes.

The long shot up the piece from the bottom.

Taylor Bennett, Dr. Tara Pratt, and our 'well-charcoaled' mark-making assistant!

So here's the initial 'concept' drawing....

And here is the finished product (turned 90 degrees so it could even fit on the wall in the studio).

4 people.  5 hours of work.

I think this face pretty much sums up the creative experience for the day.

Spine-Taneous, the one-night-ONLY show is Saturday, February 1st from 6-9pm on the third floor of the River Music Experience Building (RME/Redstone Building).  THAT SAME NIGHT (on the second floor in The Redstone Room) will be the farewell performance of Jim The Mule.  Not an evening to be missed!

Coming soon, images from other Spine-Taneous projects and behind-the-scenes set-up images for the show!

For more information about the event Eileen has even made a snazzy Facebook page ( HERE ) and even a website ( HERE ).

The Next Deal-EEE-O

After Ill-Suited For The Pleasantries opens (Monday, January 13th), the next thing on my plate is a collaborative project called Spine-Taneous (I was secretly hoping we would spell it Spine-TAIN-eee-ous, but alas......)

I could do a long blah-blah-blah about it (which I will do in an upcoming post), but instead I will just leave you with this image.

The ONE-NIGHT ONLY show is on Saturday, February 1st.  More on this soon!