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133 Looker Dr.
Ingram, TX 78025
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"A Little Dab
of Texas," received local, state, and national news coverage.
TV - Radio -
Newspapers - Magazine
A work of art that attracted a lot of media
attention!
"Colossal
Collaboration"
Austin
American-Statesman
"FOUR
STARS!"
Channel
12-TV, Beaumont
The project was covered
by almost every major television station in Texas
as well as CNN.
Articles and photographs appeared in hundreds of weekly
and daily
newspapers. Many radio stations throughout Texas did live interviews.
The following article contains
excerpts from the March 1996 edition of American Artist magazine.
Some information has been updated.
In the late 1950s and early 60s artists such as Claes Oldenburg and Jim
Dine became known through "happenings": events or performances
often involving the participation of onlookers.
The legacy of the happening can be found in today's performance art and,
more specifically, a project undertaken by Texas artist Jim Campbell, who
drew a twelve-panel Western panorama, color-coded it, and transported it
around his home state so that willing strangers of all ages could have a
crack at painting it.
Campbell has received no funding, pays for all the supplies out of his
pocket, and doesn't charge people to participate, so this public painting
is not about short-term monetary rewards. When Campbell started the
project in October 1994, he was looking for a little exposure for himself
and his artwork, and so far he has been successful in that regard.
The genesis of Campbell's project dates back to about six years ago, when
he was living in New York and working with the Cerebral Palsy Association.
Fellow board members were brainstorming for a unique fund-raising event,
and Campbell proposed that he produce the outline of a picture a long with
a color key and that they request donations in exchange for the chance to
help paint it. He thought they could then try to sell the finished work to
a local bank or other institution, where it could be displayed with a
plaque describing its creation. But the idea, says Campbell, "never
got off the ground."
When he moved back to Texas, however, he decided to pursue the project on
his own. Campbell now travels the broad state towing a trailer he built to
accommodate his twelve 4'X8' panels, each of which is a stand-alone work.
"I don't charge for people to paint," he says. "This is
just a fun artwork. And it's become kind of a feature for community events
and arts-and-crafts shows. The people who come to the shows like to
participate." Ironically, he has been approached about using the
project as a fund-raising event. "Many groups have taken up the idea
and done very well with it," says Campbell, who delivers the
individual panels to these organizations for their event and then picks
them up afterwards.
The panels, he says, are painted in no specific order: "Whatever's on
top of the stack in the trailer when I pull it out is what I work
on." He sets up two panels at each show he attends -- the first
simply a color-coded panel for the children to paint, and the other a
painted panel (usually the one children at past shows have worked on) for
the adults to touch up and refine. "About 30 percent of the picture
has been painted by children," says Campbell, who supplies the
acrylic house paint and brushes for all his transient crew. Besides craft
shows, he also totes his panels to college campuses, rodeos and, when he
can obtain permission, malls. Only a handful of people can paint a panel
at a time, he says, and sometimes he'll have up to fifty people standing
around waiting for their turn. "It gets to be a feeding frenzy,"
he says.
"It's fun because I'm meeting people, and they're enjoying
themselves. They're learning to see paintings with a different eye. And
I'm getting a lot of media coverage from all over the state," says
Campbell. In fact, Campbell says the Texas House of Representatives passed
a resolution recognizing his public painting endeavor.
Feature
articles appeared in the following local and national magazines:
The Artist's Magazine, August 1995
American Artist, March 1996
XLent, Austin, Sept. 1998
"IN", San Antonio, Nov. 1998
Western Horseman, March 1999
American Cowboy, April 1999
Texas Longhorn Trails, June 1999
"Campbell received no funding, paid for all the supplies out of his pocket,
and didn't charge people to participate."
Copyright 6/2004
All rights reserved.
Jim Campbell's Art Studio |