Join Arts For ACT Gallery, 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers, on Friday, February 3 from 6 to 10 p.m. for the opening reception and art walk for February 2012. This month, ACT Gallery will feature Mojo Hands in the main gallery.
It will be a visionary celebration of America's musical heritage featuring a special collaboration of new photographs by pioneering blues historian George Mitchell and the folk art blues paintings of Florida Everglades artist Lennie Jones. These two artists became friends when Mitchell returned to Fort Myers, and Mitchell purchased one of Jones' pieces of art. This exhibit will pair Jones' outsider blues painting with the blues' photography of Mitchell. Jones has painted his rendition of Mitchell's photographs on several pieces.
Also exhibiting this month in the office gallery is artist, author, mythologist and art historian Dr. Kyra Belán. She will be showing selected works from her Art, Myers and Rituals series. Kids With Cancer will exhibit in the middle gallery room as a fundraiser for The Young Artists Awards. Lennie Jones, an outsider artist, primitive self-taught painter of the holistic blues experience, grew up in south Louisiana. His father instilled in him a deep love of blues music, drawing pictures and endless swampy wilderness.
His mother also gave Lennie talented artistic influence. These positive connections luckily cradled him through a very troubled youth and have remained the most powerful motivations in his adulthood. Lennie's father left early in his life, so the bulk of his youthful years were heavily influenced by a vibrant, oneeyed, Southern African-American woman named "Tex." She raised Lennie, whose mother was constantly away pursuing other ventures. Tex had a boisterous and soulful love of the blues, God, booze and fishing, all of which became very important to Lennie as well. Upon finishing high school, Jones became a traveling blues musician, gigging in New York City in March 1968, where he met and heard the incredible Albert King. King's unique combination of incomparable power, heartfelt pain, passionate subtlety and compelling musicianship moved his soul like no music ever had before. Soon, Jones was opening for the original Canned Heat, shaking hands with Muddy Waters, Bill Monroe, Bill Graham, seeing the immortal Jimmy Reed and Zappa. This solidified his love of playing, hearing and living the blues. Unfortunately, years of continued professional playing resulted mostly in a habitual wrestling match with his alcohol demons and repeated brushes with the law. As often lamented by bluesmen, "When you let the Devil ride, he wanna drive," states Jones.
This struggle culminated with his final arrest following a late night gig in a rural southern enclave in March 1980. Police roughed him up and threw him into a tiny, dark jail, and chained to another unfortunate convict who had murdered his wife that very night with a knife. Early the following morning, the two of them were paraded barefoot through several blocks of a small town and presented to a hard time judge. This was Jones' crossroads, and he never drank alcohol again. Only a few years later, miraculously overlooking his "shady" past and welcoming his unique wilderness skills, Jones was hired by the federal government as a ranger in the remote Florida Everglades, where he wandered for over 20 years, working alone and chasing poachers, renegade "gators," smugglers and other wonderful characters in his very own American paradise.
For many years, he had thrived in the mysterious and primitive wilderness, very happy, healthy and blessed with a timeless source of spiritual inspiration to his art, heart and soul. Upon retirement, Jones picked up a paintbrush, started painting his first love, his rendition of the blues experience, the Louisiana Bayou and whatever else that moves him. For more information on Lennie, send an e-mail to bluescop49@embarqmail. com
