Side B- by Tammy Peacy
Franco the Painter. Franco the Collaborator. Franco the Rescuer. Franco, Franco, Franco.
there is so much happening in Kenosha right now, in terms of the art community and their vision of really having a place in downtown. I guess I just want people to realize how realistic it is. It’s not like a dream any more, it’s not a vision. It’s really, really happening.
T: Tell me about painting.
F: That was really actually pretty interesting. It was always something I wanted to try. With the tremors I became even more hesitant, because every body, when they think of painting, thinks they have to paint something and that’s what it has to look like. Right? And I was really nervous about that because I can’t hold the brush very steady. I remember this teacher saying, “Just put a nice straight line there,” and I’m going, “It ain’t gonna be straight.” (laughs) She said, “Well, that’s even better.” I was taking an abstract painting class and I was really having fun with it and everyone was like, “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” And I said, “No, but I was a photographer for fifteen years.” So what I had actually done is, in terms of composition and having the eye and the color and placement and whatever, I taught myself. Now what I was doing was applying it to the canvas. So I started doing it and this has been, what now, well over a year. I’m selling something about once a month.
T: Really?
F: Yeah, if anything right now I am so behind because the administration is sort of taking away from it. I haven’t had time to paint. Last year, and this was so much fun, a woman came in and she had done a little collage of what she envisioned her family to look like as a group. And she had seen something like it at one of the museums and tried to recreate it with magazine cutouts and stuff like that. It looked really cool. And there was another artist who said, “If she could do this, she could probably paint it.” So I talked to her and I said, “You know, I would love to work on this with you. I think I can get you involved in this painting as much as you want to be involved. And particularly because this is your family, it’s going to mean more if you do as much in it as possible.” The deal was that I wasn’t going to take a fee, but she would make a contribution to the gallery I would work on it.
It was really fun. We worked on it for four weeks. We had two appointments every week. And from the beginning we would glob the paint on and would both work on it. And the canvas, that was the other thing, I was like, “How big do you want it?” And it was something like 60 inches by- the guy that made the canvas made it in the house and then realized he couldn’t get it out the door (laughs). There was a lot to do on that one. We got to stylizing the figures. It was neat, the one she had come up with had words on the bottom. Family. Trust. I think there were five of them. So she had found stencils and that’s what she used for the words. And then I would just work on more of the detail stuff. She was in love with it. The next step was the family themselves. Well, they went nuts for it. They donated a thousand dollars to the gallery. Now if you look at the class schedule, because she’s referred some other people, I do one on one collaborations with people as long as they make a donation to the gallery. And that’s really fun.
It’s interesting, I found something that works with my tremors.
And being in the
gallery I can try everything. I’ve done glass on glass, now we’re doing ceramics.
T: Just being there should be inspiring.
F: Oh my God, to meet some of the artist’s who are so willing to share their craft. Where a lot of artists, they’re not even going to tell you what brush they used on a painting, “It’s mine!” (laughs) You know, when I had the model/talent agency, people had this façade, you know.
The thing with the art gallery, people think all we do is take this beautiful stuff, and hang the painting on the wall with a nail. (laugh) If you only knew. We’re driving it to where ever it has to be at seven o’clock in the morning. Doesn’t matter if it’s raining, winter, you have to get it there, put it up, patch the holes, paint the wall, re-measuring, everything. You can be there four or five hours. It’s very tedious.
T: This is going very well [note: I am two-thirds through my cranberry and vodka, and Franco has just about polished off his martini].
F: This is wonderful.
T: This is the best interview ever. And it’s my first one.
[Franco and I discuss briefly the rejection I received recently when asking a local artist for an interview. This portion of the interview has been excluded to protect the innocent.]
T: I smell pizza (wafting over from Luigi’s).
F: I know, it’s really bad when you’re up here late at night. Everybody always wants the margarita pizza. And it’s good, but it’s not pizza. I want all the rest of the slop.
T: Yeah, this pizza is decorated. Pizza should have ingredients thrown on.
F: I can’t figure out why it’s called the margarita pizza.
T: I, um, I don’t know. They don’t serve a margarita with it. And there isn’t margarita on it.
F: Maybe they should squeeze some lime on it.
T: No.
(The interview table is turned and Franco asks me a question.)
T: No, I grew up in Zion. So, yeah. Zion doesn’t really have an arts community.
F: I think they try. Last year they invited us to the mayor’s wife’s, something to do with flowers at the
Dowie house, around Valentine’s Day. The group has been there for years and years and they contacted
Lemon Street to see if we could do something at the house, which is really unusual. We had the whole third floor.
We have what I like to call the black elephant in the room at the gallery now. They called from Zion and I guess they have this festival of lights around Christmas time, like out in the parking lot, with like shadow boxes.
T: In Zion?
F: Yeah.
T: It’s actually over by the pool. And there’s a part you can drive through and then the part you walk through has the shadow boxes with Christmas scenes and Santa at one end.
F: Right.
T: We went to that last year. My husband’s uncle was Santa.
F: Aw. Well, she called and said, “We’re doing forty new boxes this year, we’d really like for Lemon Street to do one. We’ll drop it off and pick it up.” Of course, I didn’t ask her anything. So they bring this box, and it took four men to move it. Honest to God, it’s taller than I am and now that’s in the brick gallery and we have an exhibit on the fifth. We had this big idea that we were going to split the box in half and the top part was going to be a piece of ice with two boys looking down, fishing and they see the fish celebrating Christmas. With, like, a little table with Jewish fish, for Chanukah, and a Santa with a seahorse sled. Once you start talking like that, I was like, “We’re not going to be able to do that. So instead, we’re turning the box so that the back of it is going to be all broken mirror. And the simplest thing I could think of was, we’re creating a forest and then we’re gonna have a squirrel with a little pallet and a brush painting some birds.
T: That’s a little different from fish celebrating Chanukah.
F: Well, then we were going to do half a world, still with the glass in the back and we would take little water bottles and put ping-pong balls on them as heads and them put them in all their little native costumes, like “It’s A Small World.” But then we thought, who’s going to make those costumes? So we’re down to just the squirrel.
T: Is there anything (arts related) that we haven’t touched on?
F: The only thing that I can think of that I want to mention is that there is so much happening in Kenosha right now, in terms of the art community and their vision of really having a place in downtown. I guess I just want people to realize how realistic it is. It’s not like a dream any more, it’s not a vision. It’s really, really happening.
Put aside the cynicism. “Well, it’s Kenosha that can’t happen.” You know that’s the cynicism that’s stood for how ever long and a pattern of thinking that we just have to break. There is too much going on. I mean someone like San Francisco, that’s what I call Francisco [Loyola], who’s bringing some of those experiences here-
T: Yeah, Francisco is not even from Kenosha.
F: No.
T: He’s from Illinois and he’s bringing all of this, he sees something here. That has to account for something.
F: Yeah. And Tamara Merfeld, Executive Director of
AHA!, she’s twenty-six. How wonderful is that?
Bloomin’ Days is another example from last year. Harbor Market. I mean these are things that come into a city because it’s vibrant with art and has the intelligence to know that that’s going to attract tourism. There’s an impact statement telling what that type of culture brings to a city and how it impacts it.
(A grotesque and horrifying insect lands on the table. My conservative estimate is that the gray bug is approximately fourteen inches long and has vampiric fangs looking for the soft, white delicate flesh of Tammy-neck to call home.)
T: Oh, no! Make it go that way! (Franco is shooing the monstrosity from the table by pushing it in my direction)
F: No, no. It’s just, um, I forget what they’re called.
T: It’s hideous, whatever it is.
F: (laughs)
T: It’s really, really hideous.
F: They are ugly. It’s sort of like those, um, they make noises.
(The bug unceremoniously flies from the table and lands on the wall beside me.)
T: I’m sorry. You know, bugs don’t normally bother me. But that was really ugly.
F: One of the things I really miss about the West is there aren’t any bugs. None.
T: Okay. Whew. Can you think of any other cities that started like Kenosha, with this arts community that said, “This is going to happen.” Is there something we can compare it to?
F: I lived in San Francisco and there were no artist residence studios. None. They now have three. That’s something that they had a city planning meeting and it was actually discussed. We have buildings downtown that are sitting and rotting, and yes they would take renovation, but you know, why not invest in that?
T: Preservation is far more important and worthwhile than building another strip mall, or a Famous Dave’s, any of that.
F: I mean, more so than
Racine, is that this entire area has that potential. Think about another half a dozen restaurants, another half a dozen galleries. And you know what? We want that. Another gallery on the block, fine.
T: Another locally owned restaurant…
F: Yes. Yes. A lot of people have in their head, that pattern of thinking, “It’s not going to happen, they’re all greedy landlords.” Well you know what? If you’re involved, you can change that. I think that is becoming more and more feasible.
For one younger people don’t put up with that. They want to see it happen. They’re going to try and if they don’t like it and it doesn’t work, they’ll go somewhere else. And then, our loss.
T: 716
F: Yes, a missed opportunity. But they’ll do well.
T: In Racine.
F: We can’t afford for those things to happen too many times.
Franco Tarsitano Tartare you have been “Exposed”.
Franco Tarsitano is the general manager of Lemon Street Gallery and Artspace, Inc
Just in case you missed you can click here to read the side A of Franco’s interview.
Tammy Peacy finds time to write between loads of laundry in the basement of the home she shares with her husband, Steve, and their three children. Her writing has been published in AntiMuse, Chick Flicks Ezine, The Write Side Up, and Wanderings Magazine, and ExposeKenosha.com
8 comments ↓
Franco, Franco and Tammy, Tammy!
I wish you two would just keep on talking.
You are entertaining, informative, and a delightful read.
How about a regular column?
Joe
Hope you guys get together more often, i would really like to find out what else Franco has to share and the writer Tammy she is great
Thanks, Mom.
Thank you Tammy’s mom…hope to meet you soon.
I really enjoyed reading about Franco and i hope there will be more to keep us up dated to what else Franco is doing. Oh and by the way Tammy has always been scared of bugs
Was the bug a cicada :-)!!!!
Now, Mother don’t get caught up on the bug. Didn’t this young lady do a fine job interviewing such a skilled artist.
And now I’ve read Part 2. Excellent job both of you. In terms of informative reads, I’d say it did well. As a former K-town artist trying to get the “movement” underway, I have to say that Franco’s credo of taking out the politics and snootiness of traditional art movements is most likely the right one to follow. Local artists these days have more of a sense of connection with and respect for their fellow artisans than in generations past, and this is probably due to a communal understanding of what we each put into our chosen expressive media. Whatever the case may be, Kenosha’s local movement is well under thanks to the cooperative efforts of people like Franco, places like LSG, and events like the UW-Extensions Youth as Resources benefit art auctions. Given time, groups like AHA! and KAA can look around with pride at what they have wrought. Great job everyone!
Leave a Comment