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T H E B L A D E , T O L E D O , O H I O S U N D A Y , N O V E M B E R 1 5 , 2 0 0 9 S E C T I O N B , P A G E 6
On the front of ‘Piano for Jon’ by Tim Sanderson and Michelle Sanderson is a tribute to Art Tatum, left, and Jon Hendricks. The piano is in the UT Student Union.
Above: ‘Piano for Art — Number One,’ by Chris McGlauchlin, is displayed at Har-old Jaffe Jewelers.
Above, right, and far right: John and Jennifer Rockwood painted ‘Tatum Lives Here’ with playful, colorful designs. It is on display at One Government Center.
Above: ‘Jazz in the Garden’ by Renee Brand and Paul Brand, is in the Crosby Conference Center at Toledo Botanical Garden.
Left: ‘Keys for the Cure’ by Pam Henry can be seen at Har-old Jaffe Jewelers.
Below: Blue Note record covers are highlighted on ‘History of Jazz’ by Philip Hazard. It is displayed at the Main Branch of the Toledo-Lucas Coun-ty Public Library.
The community is invited to try out pianos in public places, painted through jazz foundation project
By ROD LOCKWOODBLADE STAFF WRITER
rom start to finish, it is quite possibly the ulti-mate performance art project:
Pianos — not the fancy, grand variety, but pianos that were meant to be played a lot — are donated to an arts organization, placed in a public place to be painted, and then left there for anyone from the most accom-plished musician to a curious child to come along and play.
The Art Tatum Jazz Heritage Foundation created the Pianos for Art project this year to honor its namesake’s 100th birthday and claim a little artistic synergy similar to the It’s Reigning Frogs public art campaign in 2001 that featured giant, brightly painted frogs around Toledo.
But this effort came with a twist, noted Kay Elliott of the jazz foundation, who related the reaction of one of the orga-nization’s helpers when the frog comparison was made.
‘‘Someone said, ‘Wow, this is just like the frogs,’ and he said, ‘You couldn’t play a frog.’ ’’
There are now 10 colorful pianos dotted around the city at places such as Toledo Botani-cal Garden, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, the Lucas Coun-ty Arena, and One Government Center. All of them were painted by people of the community, ex-cept the one at the Toledo Zoo, which is the creation of Renee the Elephant, who painted it
holding a brush in her trunk.The idea for the project was
piggybacked off a similar effort in London, where pianos were placed throughout the city for people to play.
Ms. Elliott said the Jazz Foun-dation was looking for a splashy way to kick off its new vision — including no longer being called the Jazz Society — while honor-ing the centennial of the birth of the great pianist and Toledo na-tive, Art Tatum.
‘‘This is our first event, and we wanted to include the city and we wanted it to be piano-related,’’ she said.
The pianos were provided by people around the area eager to get rid of the old instruments; All of the movers and artists do-nated their time to the project. Also donating his time was a piano tuner who got all the in-struments ready to play.
At the end of the year the pianos will be auctioned to raise money for the Jazz Foundation and, Ms. Elliott hopes, plenty of people will have had a chance to tickle the ivories and channel a little bit of Tatum’s creative energy.
‘‘It’s interactive in every pos-sible way and it brings smiles,’’ she said.
‘‘It just gives you hope.’’To see all the of the locations
of the Pianos for Art, go to www.arttatumfoundation.com.
Contact Rod Lockwood at: [email protected]
or 419-724-6159.
BLADEPHOTOS BY JETTA FRASER
111509_RP5_SUN__B6 1 11/13/2009, 22:22:03 PM
