Shattered Expectations: Guaranteed

Concept painting for "The Eleven", moment #5  -  25" x 25" acrylic on canvas

Shattered Expectations: Guaranteed was the title (well, it is still the title actually) of my submission to the AiS call for a mural for project #5 of “The Eleven” series for the football commemoration throughout the downtown area. This time it was limited to submissions from only Stark County resident artists to give us a fair chance at representation. Of the 30 to 40 applications, (different numbers have been quoted) one was selected as the winner and 5 additional pieces got chosen to be bridesmaids. Dirk Rozich was crowned the winner….my fellow bridesmaids include Scot Phillips, Su Nimon, Tommy Morgan and Tim Carmany, names familiar to all of stark county who follow anything to do with art stuff. Rather than ugly taffeta gowns, we get a nice check…..nice touch and well received by all I am sure.

Being artists, we are of course extremely curious as to who was our competition and what did we each propose? As a creative community, we are aware of each other’s styles, skill sets, and concepts so we can guess but not be sure. That being said, I had no idea who D. R. was….or else I have seen his work but never bothered to read the name which is most likely the case as with the vault mural at Julz.  Anyway… I am reprinting my proposal statement and the concept canvas image (a nice 25” x 25” to add to the storage room) for anyone interested in what my submission was all about. My starting point was one of the offered considerations for the final work….that it be a dynamic piece of art so people, even those who have no interest in football, would want to come see it (or a paraphrase thereof). 

So I thought about my totally nonathletic family and what would make them stand there and look up at a building for a few minutes…at an image about football…(without resorting to a story about panty hose or fur coats). Hmmmm…that same thing that made this little kid sit in a dentist office waiting room knowing it was going to hurt but I couldn’t get this magazine at home (stop that, I was a kid…) Highlights!  Remember that page where pictures were hidden in a linear drawing? Find the ice cream cone in a tree, or the tire in a jungle…I loved that stuff!!  So behold…my bridesmaid for your perusal.

“Shattered Expectations: Guaranteed”

By Judi Krew

This painting is created in a “stained glass” style technique using bold colors and a bit of illusion. Many specific aspects of Super Bowl 3 are depicted as outlined below. The stained glass window is often associated with religious architecture so I consider it a subtle reference to football being like a religion to many people, a game being a moving experience and Joe Namath, well…almost a god to some fans. Joe Namath shattered the expectations of many people that day.  He had given a prediction that some in the media considered a break of tradition or appropriate behavior for players, hence the title of this piece. Technically, a stained glass window is held together by thin threads of lead between glass pieces all working together to remain balanced and stay intact, a distribution of weight and duties. Theoretically, a team works the same way…held together by everyone doing a small and specific part to make the big picture work. There are no paintings on public buildings in or around our area that use this style of art.

Below are the specific images found it my concept piece:

The logo for Super Bowl 3 appears in the upper left, under lights, to commemorate the NFL’s first season to use them. Color and line work create the illusion of lighting. An outline of a football is included in this area.

The score of the game is in the upper left with AFL inside the 6 of the 16, and NFL inside the 7 (scores for each league) and the year of the game, 1968, in the 1, of the 16 so it is placed next to the logo. An orange for the Orange Bowl forms the center of the 6 in the AFL score of 16. A linear Hall of Fame building is the hyphen.

The upper left corner is “shattered” (and left unpainted on the wall) so the wall itself shows through, creating the illusion of a stained glass window being on (or in) the wall.

Joe Namath is depicted with a “number one” hand gesture in reverse to point to the score (leading the eye to the shattered area) as if to say…I told you so. It is also “outside the box” for a reason. His image is rendered in the window looking directly out to the viewer and much larger than life using a combination of “glass” and painterly brushwork. His hand contains a linear Vince Lombardy Trophy.

The team logos are included by using the Jets helmet, angled like a battering ram, and the Colts horseshoe in the middle, almost as if hit by the helmet, but also either hanging on or falling down, however the viewer wishes to see it. The horseshoe is broken because they lost the game. A linear goalpost extends out of the helmet.

All the remaining spaces are filled with 11 football figures in simple linear renderings depicting moves common to a football game and representing the number of men per team on the field. Perhaps they are a bit reminiscent of the ones found on the iconic Hall of Fame bridge over Interstate 77. The outline of a bell is also found in the line work representing Tom Bell, the head referee of the game. The contrasting green along the lower edge represents the playing field.

I did opt out of painting it myself and would not have accepted the budget to do so….fear of heights and no experience at such undertakings made it seem like a good Spock choice.

Congrats to D.R. and my fellow runners-up!