Thunder-Sky, Inc.

Think Small

2012-01-24T06:07:00.000-08:00

"Small Potatoes" is our next show, opening February 24, 2012 with a reception 6 to 10 pm. We're collecting a variety of unconventional works in all kinds of styles that are primarily small in scope, but that generate a lot of mystery and weirdness when placed together in one room. Interspersed with the actual art will be serendipitous "finds" from a local thrift store. Sad, lost knick-knacks and trinkets.

Close your eyes and think of what it might look like if you emptied a toy-box and mingled every toy into a frozen parade. Or the aftermath of an aesthetic tornado. Or a beautifully rendered Hoarder's episode.

We'll also be showing some of the smaller items and ephemera Raymond collected in his toolboxes alongside the small sculptures, drawings and paintings.

Carlos Jesus Perez

Antonio Adams

David Gerbstadt

Katherine Ziff

The postcard invitation for "Small Potatoes"

Samantha Messer

A "goodie bag" of knick-knacks and ephemera from Valley Thrift Store in Fairfield, OH

A kazoo from one of Raymond Thunder-Sky's toolboxes

Goodie Bags

2012-01-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

On Route 4 in Fairfield, Ohio is a thrift store called Valley Thrift. It's a huge building nestled near a cul de sac. When I pulled in today the parking lot was extra-busy. Don't know why. Maybe it's the economy. When I went into the place, I was looking for knick-knacks and trinkets to be a part of our "Small Potatoes" exhibit which opens Feb 24. It's a show of small sculptures and paintings and I wanted to curate in a random freak-driven manner: kind of like a Hoarder's episode, only 10% classier.

I found what I was looking for.

I found plastic bags filled with knick-knacks and other "things" in rows and rows at the back of the store. Bags and bags and bags of it. Each of these bags had price-tags that said MISC. Just plastic bags of shit thrown together and put on display, like embryos of litter, or litters of embryos. The items within the bags did not seem to be packaged together for any reason other than they just fit into the size of the bags. That sloppy serendipity creates poetic mystery: a storybook surrealism that is both poignant and unnerving. Tossed aside toys and trophies and decanters (I even witnessed one bag filled with an ancient can of Right Guard and three fake strawberries) broadcast a symbolic message. But the symbolism has no attachment to the actual world we live in.

When grouped together like this all that crap starts to sing really scary songs in unison.

You get to thinking.

Why is this bag 99 cents, and this bag 49 cents? Why did somebody make these objects? Why were some of them mass-produced? Why did somebody originally buy this shit? Why oh God why?

You start getting overwhelmed at the immense, scattered nothingness of it all:

All the crap you give to people as gifts
All the toys from Happy Meals
All the sad little lessons you never wanted to learn
All the thoughts you think when you think you are not thinking
All the day-glo bobbleheads
All the nightsweats
All the pill bottles
All the ash-trays
All the words you never say but still form in your head and keep because there's nowhere else to put them and they never get erased
All the phone numbers you've ever had
All the lint from your dryer
Etcetera, etcetera...

It's all here at Valley Thrift in neat little baggies, priced to move.

I asked the guy at the check-out how this works. Who puts this into bags? Who prices it? He told me people who work here go through the donations and set aside stuff nobody in their right minds would want to buy. "We make goodie bags out of that," he said. "It's better than throwing it all away."

And I got to thinking about art too. About all the art that never goes anywhere. Never gets put into museums. All the art stored in garages and sheds and attics. Art that never gets canonized or even sometimes gets to see the light of day. People making art, continuing to make art, in a world overflowing with it.

"It's better than throwing it all away."

Here are some photos of the stuff I bought, soon to be featured in "Small Potatoes." Enjoy.

Tablescape

2012-01-16T12:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Gena Grunenberg and her mom we will have some great tables, stools and chairs to use to showcase the small works in "Small Potatoes," our next show opening Feb 24, 2012. The show will feature over 15 different unconventional artists who work small (sculptures, dolls, drawings, knick-knacks, etc.) interspersed/juxtaposed with serendipitous items from thrift and junk stores and other venues that feature small oddities. The whole look of the exhibit will be akin to Paradise Gardens brought indoors -- a dreamy space stocked ceiling to floor with weirdness and goodness.

"The Cathedral Is"

2012-01-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

The Cathedral Is

Slated for demolition.

John Ashbery

Infra-Friday

2012-01-07T06:59:00.000-08:00

Photos from the opening of last night's show, "Infrastructure: Abstractions by Alex Bartenberger, Evan Hildebrandt, Chad Rasmussen, and Michael Weber."

Larry Higdon, Thunder-Sky, Inc. Board Member and Raymond's friend, takes the magnifying glass to check out one of Raymond's drawings...

Thunder-Sky, Inc. Board Member Krystn Shopp and Thunder-Sky, Inc. Artist-in-Residence Michael Weber standing beside a Michael creation.

"Citybeat" Recommonds "Infrastructure"

2012-01-04T10:18:00.000-08:00

"Swishing," Michael Weber, acrylic on wood panel, 2011.

"Featuring four local artists, this show starts off the New Year with the proverbial 'bang.'"

Click on the link for more: "City Beat" Recommends.

"Every Artist Is Abstract"

2011-12-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

"Abstract literally means to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract... a realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts." Richard Diebenkorn

(Below are photos of the installation of paintings in "Infrastructure: Abstractions by Alex Bartenberger, Evan Hildebrandt, Chad Rasmussen & Michael Weber, with a portfolio of abstracted poster prints extracted from Raymond Thunder-Sky drawings. Show opens January 6, 2012, reception 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception February 11, 2012, 6 to 10 pm.)

Alex Bartenberger

Chad Rasmussen

Michael Weber

Evan Hildebrandt

Alex Bartenberger

Michael Weber

Chad Rasmussen

Raymond Thunder-Sky "abstractions"

Infra-mation about "Infrastructure," Opening January 6, 2012 at Thunder-Sky, Inc.

2011-12-21T13:49:00.000-08:00

Michael Weber

Alex Bartenberger

Evan Hildebrandt

Chad Rasmussen

"Infrastructure: Abstractions by Alex Bartenberger, Evan Hildebrandt, Chad Rasmussen and Michael Weber." Opening reception January 6, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception February 11, 2012, 6 to 10 pm.

"Infrastructure" is defined as "the most basic level of organizational structure in a complex body or system that serves as a foundation for the rest." The four artists in this exhibit foreground basic aesthetic structures and systems and transform them into the actual finished product. Their spare, color-rich paintings symbolize both obsession and resolution. Raymond Thunder-Sky's drawings often fetishize the "infrastructures" of buildings, streets, and even social systems. In a portfolio of prints created exclusively for "Infrastructure," we'll be "abstracting" from some of Thunder-Sky's most elemental drawings, allowing a new way to approach and examine his work not as representations but as preoccupations with what's underneath both reality and the way we perceive it.

Alex Bartenberger: Alex Bartenberger is an artist from Cincinnati, Ohio. His chosen medium is oil on canvas, and his canvases are usually large in scope. Rich and vivid, his paintings have a vastness and grace to them reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism. More information: www.alexbartenberger.com.

Evan Hildebrandt: Evan Hildebrandt started making art in 2003 while working for a top car company in Northern Kentucky. He started drawing with sharpie markers and soon amassed several dozen drawings. He continued to draw and started to explore oil paint and other artistic mediums. Over the course of several years, Evans prolific nature and hard work paid off and he began to sell his artwork. After seven years of working at a “normal job,” Evan felt it was time to take the plunge and become a full time artist. He quit his job and jumped with both feet into the art world. Art became more than just a hobby for Evan and he soon became sought after by many high end clients and designers. Evan’s art has been on display and sold at Voltage furniture, Cincinnati’s music hall, Switch lighting, The Ascent, and Jose Garcia’s development at 2801 Erie Ave. Evan is currently the gallery director at Bromwell's Art Gallery, downtown Cincinnati.

Chad Rasmussen: Chad Rasmussen attended the University of Michigan as a double business major and later returned to minor in theatre and dance; he also attended the University of Hofstra in Long Island for art therapy and the University of South Florida in Tampa for fine art. Chad has exhibited his work in L.A. where he was born, New York City, Tampa and many parts throughout the Midwest; as well as internationally in Copenhagen. Chad currently lives in Cincinnati, OH where he lived a large part of his life; he also belongs to an international group of artists known as the Emotionalists who exhibit their passionate works together throughout the world. His personal philosophy on art: "Art is what you make it.” Chad recently teaches at Evergreen/Wellsprings Retirement Community ever since August 2009 and just started teaching acrylic painting at Michaels in Westchester. He uses his skills as an art therapist and artist for both forums; "Art is therapeutic as is all forms of learning; I'm just especially fortunate to be able to specialize in a form of learning that has the potentiality to include anything and everything that is possible! It is also a form of communication, in which it has the absolute power to bridge the gaps of every type of language.

Michael Weber: Michael Weber is an Artist in Residence at Thunder-Sky, Inc. His main artistic focus is experimenting with what materials and media can do, including paint, found objects, and wood. He produces sophisticatedly simple works that have a complex spirit and an innate sense of order and splendor.

"Infrastructure"

2011-12-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

Documenting Raymond's World

2011-11-21T06:28:00.000-08:00

Raymond left behind many toolboxes, satchels, and suitcases filled with an incredible assortment of items (brochures, pictures, toys, VHS tapes, etc.) that document his life like nothing else can. We're opening a few now and scanning in the items for a digital archive. This is the first satchel we're documenting: a Samsonite piece of luggage filled with these scanned items (and a lot more we'll get to). These objects describe Raymond and his life in ways words just can't. (PS: we are currently on Drawing # 710 in our journey of digitally archiving all the drawings Raymond left behind. We'll keep you posted.)

Raymond carried around a variety of tool-boxes, briefcases, suitcases, and satchels. We have several of them in the archive, filled with items he either took with him on his travels and/or "souvenirs" he picked up on his way. Above is the first satchel we're archiving. Note the little cut-out window. This is something Raymond customized on all the cases he carried. Some people say he have have done this to let bad spirits out -- or maybe it's just so he could see what was inside without having to open the case.

The open case.

Priority # 1 (outside of drawing) for Raymond was getting a job. Here's a note he may have written to someone at CG&E (or to himself about CG&E employment possibilities). It's been slipped inside a Ziplock baggie.

Backside of the CG&E memo.

Notes to himself on scrap pieces of paper.

Random flyer. All his tool-boxes and cases are stuffed with random information like this -- stuff he grabbed from different places as he went about his travels and artmaking.

Raymond was a major volunteer. He did a lot with Habitat for Humanity, as well as this event at Notre Dame.

Raymond was an avid Polaroidist. He customized many of his Polaroids of demolition and construction sites by cutting away the white cardboard framing.

Part of Raymond's Construction/Clown drag.

Who knows?

Raymond wrote this on the back of his pay-stub from Goodwill.

A flyer from one of his favorite places. He often would go to King and other wrecking companies and the secretaries would tell him where the next demolition site would be, and then he would be off, catching a bus to the site with his art supplies.

Un-customized Polaroids.

Goes without saying. Lots of these kinds of publications are in the cases, as well as a lot of circus and carnival-inspired coloring books.

Dream Tool-bag.

Raymond wrote this on the back on an envelope he received from Goodwill. Don't know why. Inside the envelope is a monthly Goodwill Newsletter to donors.

Raymond's birth certificate.

This Must Be the Place

2011-11-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

Here's a random assortment of images that didn't make the cut into the yearbook. We had a great second year at Thunder-Sky, Inc. Here's to 2012...

Dale Jackson in the Thunder-Sky basement eating pizza and making art.

Emily Brandehoff and Bill Ross at "Spaghetti Western," a show of unconventional weird-assed Italian art we curated along with some other more stuffy art nextdoor to the Taft Museum.

Our last booth at Folkfest in Atlanta, GA. Great time, but we're gonna keep it local for a while.

Bunky Echo-Hawk at Thunder-Sky, Inc. The dude started with an empty gallery and empty canvases, created all of the art the last weekend of February, 2011. Incredible artist, wonderful person.

Photo of Michael, Raymond and Richard Brightfire Thunder-Sky. This came to the surface during Bunky's show back in February.

Antonio Adams at work in the basement at Thunder-Sky -- creating epic work for his one-man gig at Thunder-Sky in 2012.

One of a series of poetry readings at Thunder-Sky, curated by Dana Ward of CyPress Poetry.

Mike Weber in the basement of Thunder-Sky, working on a beautiful piece for his four-man show at Thunder-Sky in 2012.

David Rizzo and Antonio Adams at "Spaghetti Western." David's work will be in a Thunder-Sky 2012 show called "Reverse Psychology." Two incredible artists right there.

Ran Barnaclo doing his thing for "Hard Knocks" back in June 2011.

Michael Thunder-Sky (Raymond's younger brother), Larry Higson (Raymond's family friend and mentor), and Bunky outside Thunder-Sky... This was the first time Michael visited the gallery.

Artists talking at the "Hard Knocks" Show and Tell gig back in August. We stirred up a tiny little controversy because we focused a show on working class artists who don't want or have credentials. Go figure.

Kevin White working in the basement of Thunder-Sky.

Sign of the Times

2011-11-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Marc Lambert, Vince Grey and Anthony Stollings for rehabbing Antonio Adams' signage at Thunder-Sky...

Raymond Was Born in Hollywood

2011-10-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Alfred Eaker has concocted a strange and lovingly disjointed documentary about Raymond, called simply Thunder-Sky. Which probably is the only way to do it: Raymond's significance really does not come from his status as an "outsider artist," as much as his unique self-created persona, his self-imposed and beautifully freaky monarchy over a universe of buildings being built and buildings being destroyed. The drawings are simply evidence of his reign. In other words, "art" and "life" were never fully compartmentalized in Raymond's psyche and practice; in fact he seemed hell-bent on blending them into a cement-and-cotton-candy dream-world only he could tell us about.

We screened it Thursday night at Bromwell's Gallery, asking for criticisms and corrections. And we truly got some insightful, wonderful ways to make it better. It was as if everyone in the room were completely invested in making sure Raymond's life story is conveyed with as much style and class as possible.

Eaker's movie is high-style at points (beautiful animation done by Todd M. Coe is kind of like the movie's "tent poles," offering a funky, psychedelic structure to the ongoing talking-heads-ness; a great ongoing motif involving the items Raymond collected in his toolboxes also helps to shape the narrative), and a little too campy in others (those weird clown vignettes really do need to go). Sometimes the interviews get redundant (he focuses too much, I think, on Bill and me), and I think he may want to revisit having Thunder-Sky family friend Larry Higdon more in the spotlight, as his voice/demeanor/gentlemanliness as he speaks about Raymond really is arresting and actually made me cry.

No matter what though I just wanted to tell Alfred and his cohorts how much I appreciate all the work they have done. I know I'll never completely understand all the hard work and many hours that have gone into making this movie, but I do appreciate the final result: you've taken subject matter that is very hard to comprehend and fashioned it into a funhouse mirror world of reflection and celebration.

Thank you very much.

Raymond was born in Hollywood. Having a movie made about his life only seems like the next step in his evolution.

2012: Rough around the Edges

2011-10-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Thunder-Sky, Inc.'s 2012 Exhibition Season: Rough around the Edges

As we embark on our third year of presenting unconventional exhibits of works by unconventional artists, I think we may have stumbled into what we are supposed to be doing. Of course we have Raymond Thunder-Sky to thank for this accidental and wonderful purpose. Our space, our purpose, our namesake -- all of it seems to really come to life because we find worth and meaning in allowing the edges to be presented as the center of our world. The works may be a little rough sometimes (and other times beautifully smooth; "unconventional" often does not mean "raw" or "rough," just completely unique), but what everything we do has in common is the uncommon nature of the artists who make the works. We're dedicated to a Thunder-Sky, Inc. mission of finding and championing art made by people often not seen as worthy of a lot of attention or interest. We hope Season 3 brings as many surprises as the other two have.

Here goes:

Alex Bartenberger

Chad Rasmussen

Mike Weber

Evan Hildenbrandt

"Infrastructure: Abstractions by Alex Bartenberger, Evan Hildenbrandt, Chad Rasmussen and Michael Weber." Opening reception January 6, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception February 11, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. "Infrastructure" is defined as "the most basic level of organizational structure in a complex body or system that serves as a foundation for the rest." The four artists in this exhibit foreground basic aesthetic structures and systems and transform them into the actual finished product. Their spare, color-rich paintings symbolize both obsession and resolution. Raymond Thunder-Sky's drawings often fetishize the "infrastructures" of buildings, streets, and even social systems. In a portfolio of prints created exclusively for "Infrastructure," we'll be "abstracting" from some of Thunder-Sky's most elemental drawings, allowing a new way to approach and examine his work not as representations but as preoccupations with what's underneath both reality and the way we perceive it.

Katherine Ziff

David Gerbstadt

"Small Potatoes: Self-made (and Repurposed) Knick-knacks, Tchtokes and other Curiosities." Opening reception February 24, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception April 14, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. A group show featuring artists who create small, strange sculptures and paintings, intermingled with a collection of "knick-knacks" and "tchtokes" discovered in thrift-stores and other places. Each object and image will contribute to an overall installation reminiscent both of the TV show Hoarders and the vast magical expanses of landfills inside dreams.

David Rizzo

Katherine Michael

"Reverse Psychology: Katherine Michael and David Rizzo." Opening reception April 27, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception June 16, 2011, 6 to 10 pm. Florida-based artist Michael creates funny, funky, folk-arty cut-outs and paintings; they exemplify innocence and verve with high-energy hues and serendipitous subject matter. Cincinnati artist Rizzo's work has more of a dream-punk flair: his paintings seem to be created by an odd-ball scientist/hobbyist/artist who collects cultural influences and creepy imagery with a vacuum cleaner and then through a vacuum-cleaner-bag autopsy reinvents and repurposes what has been sucked in. Their works side by side are a little like having an angel on one shoulder, the devil on the other -- and sometimes you don't know which is which, who is who, what is what.

Raymond Thunder-Sky's art and life in a Polaroid moment

"Fly Your Own Freak Flag." Opening reception June 29, 2011, 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception August 18, 2012. A group show of "freak flags" made by artists from across the region and the world. Raymond Thunder-Sky was his own personal freak-flag parade, walking through downtown and other areas of the city in clown/construction costumes that foregrounded his inner-freak and proudly announced to the world that he wasn't to be messed with. We are asking freaks from an assortment of realms to contribute self-made flags that symbolize the spirit Raymond Thunder-Sky lived. We'll also be asking a few of the freaks to fly their flags in Northside's Fourth of July parade.

Antonio Adams at work on a central piece for "Unrealized/Unforeseen"

"Unrealized/Unforeseen: Antonio Adams." Opening reception August 31, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception October 13, 2012. This is Thunder-Sky, Inc. Artist-in-Residence Adams first one-person show since 2009. He has been working on the concept for over a year, creating an epic portfolio of artworks in which famous celebrities (including Lindsay Lohan and David Hasselhoff) get "unrealized" (meaning returned to non-celebrity status), while unfamous folks (people Adams has selected from his everyday life) become major celebrities in his own personal cosmos. The media include paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, and video. We will also be publishing a glossy, full-color book documenting both the exhibit and the work and concept behind it.

A Polaroid taken by Raymond Thunder-Sky

"Camera Shy: Photographs." Opening reception October 26, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. Closing reception December 15, 2012, 6 to 10 pm. We will be featuring a group show of photographs from local self-taught photographers, including Polaroids taken by Raymond Thunder-Sky.

"I Love This Place!"

2011-10-23T18:12:00.000-07:00

It was a great two days at the Factory Square Fine Arts Festival in Northside. We heard over and over that our shipping container gallery was one of the best and funnest exhibits in the festival. What we did was very simple and to the point (like Raymond's drawings). A bunch of painted cardboard boxes representing windows and bricks could be fashioned into buildings. We hung up a wrecking ball for people to use once they had constructed their buildings from the boxes. Easy as pie, and somehow very satisfying. What surprised me the most is the age range: lots of little kids of course, but also young adults and a few older ones came by to build their own city block and destroy it.

One little boy said after flinging the paper-machie wrecking ball at his buildings and knocking them down: "I love this place!"

It was a joy to see Raymond's spirit blooming from every "building" destroyed. Everyone truly had a great time doing what he dreamed of doing. A great way to introduce new people to his aesthetic universe... Thanks to everyone who came in and destroyed their worlds... Special thanks to Happen, Inc. who transformed one of Raymond's drawings into a beautiful public piece of art. The whole atmosphere of the festival teemed with an industrial Thunder-Sky glow...

"Thunder-Sky" Documentary Screens October 27, 2011 7 PM at Bromwell's Gallery

2011-10-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Making "Direct Contact"

2011-10-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

Some of the works in "Direct Contact: Self-Made Pop," opening October 22, 2011 with a reception 6 to 10 pm at Bromwell's Gallery, downtown Cincinnati. "DC" surveys aesethetic universes created from glitter, trash, and desire. These artist are self-made and use what the world has given them to make distinctively weird and eerily precise works of art. Primary inspiration for this gig: Raymond Thunder-Sky. Raymond made drawings about construction, destruction, and the blank, supernatural swirl of things coming together and falling apart. His precision mocks makeshift road signs; his vision destroys and reinvents the way you take in the normal world.

Raymond Thunder-Sky

Tony Dotson and Bill Ross

Spencer van der Zee

Antonio Adams and Tony Dotson

Raymond Thunder-Sky

Todd M. Coe

Spencer van der Zee

Drew Kidd and Bill Ross

Bill Ross

Antonio Adams

"Art of Destruction"

2011-10-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

October 22 & 23, 2011 we're a part of a festival of cargo containers here in Northside. Sound weird. And it is. But in a good way. It also seems perfectly suited for Raymond and his work. Pictured above is our container and the little exhibit we've pulled together for it: a paper wrecking ball and cardboard-box buildings to destroy. People can come in and hurl the ball at the buildings. We also have a couple large-printed Raymond drawings up as well. The whole area around the festival is a landscape of construction (see pictures above), a beautiful tribute to a Raymond state of mind...

"Direct Contact" Catalog

2011-10-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

That's Entertainment

2011-10-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

October 28, 2011
Opening Reception for
"Entertainment Tonight: New Works by Ran Barnaclo and Larry Cocklin"
Show closes December 17, 2011

Larry with some of his masterpieces; directly next to him on the right is Han Solo after he has been carbon-frozen in Empire Strikes Back.

Larry's "Buck Rogers."

Ran revealing his true self.

ET is about celebrity and blockbusters and the slightly askew feverdream called the Entertainment Industry. Ran and Larry's work use "entertainment" as a jumping off point to find personal myths and vision based on what is already in the public imagination: they make private pictures from public spectacles.

Ran's poster for the show.

Ran's befuddled Sasquatch.

17 Incredible Artists in "Spaghetti Western"

2011-10-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

"Spaghetti Western" is a show Thunder-Sky, Inc. has curated as part of a larger show called "Cincinnati Dreams Italy," a School Amici production hosted by School Amici and Western-Southern Financial, Inc. "The Dream" is a companion exhibit to "George Inness in Italy" at the Taft Museum. Inness' inspiration spills out into the neighborhood to historic buildings around Lytle Park where some of Cincinnati's most talented artists explore America's continued fascination with Italy in paint, print, paper, stone, metal, fabric, clay and glass. Exhibition Dates: October 7, 2011 to October 23, 2011 - weekends only, when the Taft is open, 11am-5pm, other hours by pre-arrangement or special invitation GALLERY LOCATIONS 400 Pike Street, Cincinnati OH 45202 (Park Place) 311 Pike Street, Cincinnati OH 45202 (Near Lytle Park) 314 Broadway, Cincinnati OH 45202 (Old Police Station).

Our location is 400 Pike Street which is directly next door to the Taft Museum. "Spaghetti Western" features the art of 17 incredible artists: Antonio Adams, Emily Brandehoff, Robert McFate, David Rizzo, Emily Bicknaver, Bill Ross, Dale Jackson, Mike Weber, Keith Banner, Kristen Vinci, Lindsay Whittle, Ervin Henderson, Ran Barnaclo, Brian Joiner, Leigh Cooney, Todd M. Coe, and Spencer van der Zee.

You’re invited to a Progressive Potluck Preview OCTOBER 6, 2011 6 TO 9 PM.

October News Releases

2011-09-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

Click on THIS to view news releases for upcoming Thunder-Sky, Inc. gigs.

"Art of Destruction"

2011-09-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

October is a major busy month for us. Here's a brief rundown:

October 7: “Spaghetti Western" (see "Everyday Italian" blogpost below) opens as a part of “ Cincinnati Dreams Italy” at Taft Museum.
October 7: Doug Korfhagen is including artwork from Thunder-Sky, Inc. in a show at Southgate House
October 22: "Diirect Contact: Self-made Pop” opens at Bromwell’s Gallery on 4th Street downtown Cincinnati with reception 6-10, and runs through the end of the year. On October 27, we're screening the Thunder-Sky feature-length documentary there at 7 pm.
October 28: "Entertainment Tonight!" featuring works by artists Ran Banaclo and Larry Cocklin

Also on October 22 and 23, we're involved in this gig:

Our part will be "Art of Destruction," a hands-on display featuring a wrecking ball created by Happen, Inc. last year, which can be used to destroy a huge city of cardboard-box buildings we've been working on in the studio for a while. Pictures above. We're also going to be showing some of Raymond's more destructive drawings. Should be fun.

Everyday Italian

2011-09-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

Ran Barnaclo

Antonio Adams

Leigh Cooney

Robert McFate

Lindsey Whittle

Thunder-Sky, Inc. has curated a portfolio of works for "Cincinnati Dreams Italy," a show of paintings, sculptures and photographs by local artists in association with the Taft Museum's exhibit of George Inness's Italian landscapes. School Amici's Kathy Holwadel has spearheaded this great event. Gallery spaces will be scattered throughout the Lytle Park neighborhood (where the Taft is located) in historic buildings, many not usually open to the public. Open weekends October 8–25. 11 a.m. to -5 p.m.

Our part of this gig is called "Spaghetti Western" and features: Antonio Adams, Robert McFate, David Rizzo, Emily Bicknaver, Bill Ross, Dale Jackson, Mike Weber, Keith Banner, Kristen Vinci, Lindsay Whittle, Ervin Henderson, Ran Barnaclo, Brian Joiner, Leigh Cooney, Todd M. Coe, and Spencer van der Zee. "Spaghetti Western" will be located at 400 Pike Street, next door to the Taft. We'll be part of a preview 6 to 9 pm on October 6, and the actual opening is October 7, 2011.

Below is info about "Spaghetti Western."

Kathy Holwadel came to us with an idea earlier this summer about pulling together an unconventional, Italy-inspired set of works by artists associated with Thunder-Sky, Inc. So we put out the word to artists we've shown the past two years at our space in Northside. Many of the artists are from around here, including Antonio Adams, Dale Jackson, Emily Brandehoff, Spencer van der Zee, Ran Barnaclo, Mike Weber, Britni Bicknaver, Bill Ross, Lindsey Whittle, Kristen Vinci... Some aren't: Todd M. Coe from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Leigh Coonery from Canada, and Robert McFate from Tennessee.

We spoke to these artists about how they "viewed" Italy through the lens of pop culture mostly, and the responses came through pieces like Antonio Adams' "Tony and the Italian Mobsters," a hilarious grab-bag of pop-culture images and associations ranging from "Jersey Shore" to "The Godfather." Britni Bicknaver's working on a visual "tribute" to Rick Steves, the NPR tourist guru. Lindsay Whittle has done a homage to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose sir-names come from famous Italian artists (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello). Tennessee folk artist Robert McFate contibutes three pieces, ranging from a portrait of Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars to a cardboard relief sculpture dedicated to his favorite local pizza joint to a tabletop board-game based on "Rocky." Mike Weber has a done a sculptural tribute to the ultimate Italian/American gourmet merger: "the personal pan pizza." Bill Ross and Emily Brandehoff have collaborated on a homage to Italian horror movie directors like Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Leigh Cooney calls himself a "folk pop artist," and his vision of the cultural-touchstone Italian masterpiece by Leonardo DaVinci transforms the mysterious Renaissance smile into the overanxious grin of the pharmaceutical 21st Century: a Mona Lisa for the "bipolar age." "Mona Lisa" has been reinvented by a lot of artists and ad agencies, but Leigh seems to be referencing mustachioed Marcel-Duchamp mischief just as much as the actual masterpiece itself. Most of the art we've chosen is like that: referencing Italy through the funhouse mirror of cultural appropriation. It's like a little weird survey of what Italy "means" to Everyday America.

Most of the artists in "Spaghetti Western" probably haven't ever been to Italy literally, so their configurations of Italy's influence aren't about authenticity or tourism, but about what "Italy" means to their imaginations through TV, books, movies, art, and fastfood. "Spaghetti Western" is more about responses to representations than about creating representations of actual Italian places and cultures. The unconventional art and artists we've pulled together investigate Italy through what we often take for granted as "pop culture," that steady stream of imagery and language and symbols coming through the TV, internet, and strip-malls.

George Inness' depiction and love of Italy is like the jumping-off point for us to look at the way that love and depiction work themselves out in everyday American life: from Pizza Hut to Francis Ford Coppola, from Rick Steves to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. These images and influences are part of how any culture, including Cincinnati, often "dreams" Italy.

Thunder-Pop

2011-09-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

“Direct Contact: Self Made Pop” opens October 22, 2011 with a reception 6 to 10 pm at Bromwell’s Gallery 117 West Fourth Street Cincinnati, OH 45202.

Thunder-Sky, the new feature-length documentary about Raymond Thunder-Sky’s life and legacy will be screened October 27, 2011, as part of “Direct Contact,” at Bromwell’s Gallery. http://www.bromwellsgallery.com/

Greatest Hits

2011-09-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

"Thunder-Sky!" documentary poster by Todd M. Coe

"Super What? [Part One]," Drew Kidd and Bill Ross

"Bloodbath," Tony Dotson and Bill Ross

"Turn the Negative into Positive, Part 4," Antonio Adams

"Dracula," Raymond Thunder-Sky

"So You Think You Can Dance," Mike Weber and Dale Jackson

“Direct Contact: Self Made Pop” opens October 22, 2011 at Bromwell's Gallery, on the second floor of Bromwell’s (117 West Fourth Street), the longest-running business in downtown Cincinnati. Bromwell’s Gallery’s mission is to bring Cincinnati fine art that is accessible to all art enthusiasts, and “Direct Contact” is an accessible, fun, unpretentious survey of art made by unconventional artists including Antonio Adams, Todd M. Coe, Cedric Cox, Tony Dotson, Drew Kidd, David Mack, Bill Ross, Spencer van der Zee, and the late Brian Joiner and Raymond Thunder-Sky.

The show is kind of like a "greatest hits" album for Thunder-Sky, Inc. It includes work from previous shows, as well as art made by artists who have had work in some of the 12 or so exhibits we've curated in the space since opening two years ago.

All the artists featured in "Direct Contact" create their work in a diverse range of styles and subject matters, and yet what their works have in common are styles and attitudes borrowed from popular culture, including narratives and imagery from B-movies, video games, comic books, tabloids, 24-hour news cycles, and so on. In other words, they create aesthetic universes from cultural litter. Dotson's use of cartoon compression and satire reveal the joke of just about everything most people take seriously. Ross' slick, Technicolor exercises in kitschy surrealism come off like candy-colored pastiches of 50s monster flicks. Van der Zee delves into the R. Crumb depths of ‘zine culture for a lot of his inspiration and comes up from the underground with drawings that simmer with weird associations and few bitter truths. Adams' paintings of Lady Gaga literally kicking the ass of Osama Bin Ladin read like Quentin Tarantino editorial cartoons, and his collaboration with the late Brian Joiner (created in 2009) repurposes superheroes and 9/11 imagery in a chilling homage to Picasso’s “Guernica.”

The central figure in "Direct Contact" is Raymond Thunder-Sky. His whole persona and art come from a desire to merge the Pop-Art, primary-colored sadness of clowns and carousels with the dreamy anxieties of demolition sites and vacant buildings. Before passing away in 2004, Thunder-Sky walked around the city of Cincinnati for decades, often dressed in a clown/construction-worker costume; he would set up a drawing table in front of demolition sites and draw the destruction head-on, finishing each work in the privacy of his apartment. The results are drawings that marry docu-drama severity with the clown/poet's need to re-envision the world as a place where bulldozers named Dracula help pave the way for the new Clownsville Amusement Park and Super Highway.

Thunder-Sky made direct contact with the world through his need to make art. He took popular culture and reshaped it into a series of indelible images. Mack, Cox, and Coe pay homage to Thunder-Sky's influence in a series of drawings and paintings that turn a street-person into an icon. Mack is a graphic-novelist and artist from Kentucky, and he has produced a suite of Thunder-Sky drawings and paintings that reveal both his stubbornness and his innocence. Cox has taken a print of one of Thunder-Sky’s unfinished drawings and finished it in his own style. And Coe, a filmmaker and artist from Wisconsin, contributes images he made for animation sequences for a Thunder-Sky documentary titled Deconstructing a Legacy of Art.

All the artists in “Direct Contact” have exhibited their works at Thunder-Sky, Inc., the gallery in Northside created to archive the 2,000-plus drawings Thunder-Sky left behind. Thunder-Sky, Inc.’s mission is to keep Thunder-Sky’s legacy alive through educational programs and exhibits, as well as showcasing and supporting unconventional artists like him from across the region. Bromwell's mission is to bring Cincinnati fine art that is accessible to all art enthusiasts - whether you are a seasoned collector or simply want a unique, quality piece for your home. They represent artists whose roots hail from the midwest, and their promote their works via exhibits backed by art openings, gallery tours, private showings, artist lectures and educational events.

The Last Picture Show

2011-08-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

We were in Atlanta GA at Folkfest last weekend, and had a pretty good time. We've decided though that this is going to be the last festival we go to for a while. It takes so much work and energy that by the end of the three days you feel like you've worked at a convenience store non-stop for 72 hours. I love the idea of booths of odd art lining wall after wall inside a large building, and also the idea of all kinds of different artists taking control of their destinies and setting up shop and selling whatever they can however they can. At the end of the day, though, it just feels exhausting to me. I think we're going to concentrate on projects that maybe aren't completely about commerce, but about figuring out how to legitimize Raymond's legacy without loading up a vanload of stuff, driving 9 hours, unloading, installing, manning a booth, hoping for the best, and then having to un-install, reload the van, drive another 9 hours. And so on.
So thanks to everyone who came by our booth. And who purchased art. And who listened to us and picked up info about Thunder-Sky, Inc.

But last weekend was our last road-show for a while...

Some of the Art We're Featuring at Slotin Folkfest This Year

2011-08-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

Antonio Adams' logo for the "Hard Knocks" exhibit at Thunder-Sky, Inc.; this year we are taking a "mobile unit" of a show we've had in the gallery since June. It features over 30 self-taught artists from around the world. The "mobile unit" at Folkfest will feature a summarized version of the full-on "Hard Knocks" experience.
Below are some of the work we're taking...

Drawings by Brad Robert Benford; center soft sculpture by Andrew Pace

David Rizzo's sister and niece standing in front of his work

Robert McFate

Leigh Cooney

Jason Taylor

Doug Korfhagen

Ian Piper

Jansen Taylor

Norma Barnes

Antonio Adams: Jeweler

2011-07-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Not only is Antonio Adams a successful painter, writer and sculpture, he also makes jewelry... See some of his work below... (A lot of the materials were donated to Thunder-Sky, Inc. by Brian Joiner's family.)

"Reality Is Perception"

2011-07-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last night we partnered with New Perceptions for an art exhibit at the Carnegie Creative Performing Arts Center in Covington, KY... Thanks to everyone who came out...

Random Thunder-Sky 11

2011-06-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

2011 So Far...

2011-06-11T20:34:00.001-07:00

Click on Thunder-Sky 2011 So Far for a photo show of highlights from the first six months of this year...

Thunder-Bolting

2011-06-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

Thunder-Bolting, [thuhn-der-bohlt-ing], verb: to make a sudden, swift dash, run, flight, or escape into downtown areas of Cincinnati, Ohio, and while doing so taking mental pictures of all the buildings currently under construction, being demolished, or about to be demolished, as well as paying very intense attention to the way buildings, parking lots, sidewalks, utility poles, and construction equipment (ie: orange cones and barrels, orange-and-white-striped road-blocks, bulldozers, and other machinery) fit and slide into one another, to be used later in meticulous drawings.

Yesterday we walked from Fountain Square toward the Serpentine Wall and over the Purple People Bridge. There was a Reds game about to start on our way over, and I felt this sudden Raymond-ness to the whole scene: people everywhere, Cincinnati Banks under construction, road blocks set up for the game, sunshine, cloudless sky. But I wasn't going to the game, and really I was just walking to take in the sights.

It was a spiritual thing, so we coined the above verb: thunder-bolting, as in walking down Cincinnati streets with an intense purpose inside your mind, and being silent and obsessive and collecting data, while everyone else is on their way to a ballgame or trying to find a parking place or late to cocktails. The city becomes a weird work of art aching to be identified when you do this. You don't fit in to the crowd, but you are a part of it; the city swirls around you and you absorb its angles and essences.

As we walked in his footsteps, I began to understand Raymond as what he actually was, a Cincinnati version of Baudelaire's flaneur: "a person who walks the city in order to experience it." Raymond experienced the city visually and philosophically, absorbing its newness and scrutinizing its decay, and translating that reality into his version of it.

On the way back to Fountain Square, around 10 pm last night, the game was still going on, and someone made a home-run: smoke and fireworks, those bright stadium lights casting an hallucinatory glow across parking lots and river-water. Chainlink sparkles. The places between buildings, crevices and cracks, brick into brick, lit up like a movie still.

Try Thunder-bolting when you get a chance.

Facelift

2011-05-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Antonio and Bill spruced up Antonio's signage yesterday at T-Sky...

JUVENILE DETENTION IS BEING DEMOLISHED

2011-05-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

Right now I am working on scanning in all of Raymond's drawings for a digital archive that will encompass not just all of the over 2000 drawings RaYmond left behind, but also his customes. toolboxes, and other items. It's a daunting task, but as I do it I also am re-experiencing the thrill of seeing the way Raymond's mind worked. His drawings are not just drawings but eerie reminders of what you have to lose in order to find your destination... Case in point: JUVENILE DETENTION IS BEING DEMOLISHED TO CLEARING WAY FOR NEW MT AUBURN COSTUME SHOPPPE.

Ghosts in the Machine

2011-04-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

As we pull together "2 + 2 = 5: Collaborations" (opening 4/29/2011 with a reception 6 to 10 pm at Thunder-Sky, Inc., I can see ghosts hovering. The King of these Ghosts, of course, is Raymond Thunder-Sky, who had a phantom-like presence even while he was still alive. David Mack, Antonio Adams, and Cedric Michael Cox have tapped into that phantom zone to create collaborations from prints of Raymond's unfinished drawings. These drawings were "unfinished," we surmise, because Raymond would be in the middle of drawing them outside in front of a demolition site or wherever, and he would be disturbed by people asking him what he was doing, or possibly even admiring what he was doing, and he would get spooked and pack up his makeshift easel and toolbox of art supplies and run off to another place so he could be alone with what he was doing. That feeling of Stubborn Phantom comes alive in Antonio's, Cedric's, and David's renditions:

Cedric + Raymond

Antonio + Raymond

David + Raymond

There are other ghosts in this machine, as well. Donald Henry, Dale Jackson and Bill Ross worked together on a collaboration back in 2009, and the result is chalkboard sadness merged with a sky-written mysticism. The ghost in this piece could be Donald, who passed away in September of 2009, or it could be a robot-spirit from some other planet letting you in on a secret you should have already known. Either way, this work has an authority that haunts.

Henry + Jackson + Ross

Bill also has a few collaborations he did with Becky Iker, one of the sweetest and smartest people we've ever known. Bill and Becky have worked together on paintings for almost ten years; Becky now lives in Kentucky, so they don't see eachother that much anymore. Their pieces in "2 + 2 = 5" have a nostalgia and sense of history built into them, like souvenirs. But the imagery is ghostly as well, as if they knew even back when they were creating these paintings together there would be a time when they would be apart.

"Blue," Becky Iker and Bill Ross, 2009

Finally, the central ghost in the machine: a three-panel epic painting by Antonio and Brian Joiner, who passed away last year. The two of them worked on this triptych in 2008 as a sort of tribute and parody of Picasso's "Guernica." It was shown in 2009 at Country Club Gallery. Now it's evidence of what's lost and what's found. Machines need ghosts, and ghosts need machines...

"Those Who Want War Warring Against Those Who Don't," Antonio Adams and Brian Joiner, 2008

It's going to be an incredible show...

Becky and Bill

Raymond and David

Raymond, Paul Rowland and Antonio back in the day...

Virtual Exhibit 2: Construction of New Chinese Restaurant

2011-03-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Virtual Exhibit 1: Robots, Tunnels, Churches

2011-03-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

This is the first in an ongoing blog series. We're trying to juxtapose Raymond's drawings with what Raymond might have been seeing as he drew. We're photographing old haunts (construction sites, utility digs, demolition sites, etc) across the area in order to find new ways of looking at and understanding his aesthetic and his reality.

Antonio Adams & Raymond Thunder-Sky

2011-03-09T18:33:00.000-08:00

Raymond Thunder-Sky with his work, circa 2003

Raymond Thunder-Sky Holding His Work, with Clowns, date unknown

Antonio Adams Working on a Drawing about Raymond Thunder-Sky, 2011

"As the World Turns," Antonio Adams, 2009, acrylic on wood panel, 24" X 48"

"Coming Soon," Raymond Thunder-Sky, marker on cardstock, date unknown, 9" X 12"

"Escape Your Way out of This Mess," Antonio Adams, acrylic on wood panel, 2009, 24" X 48"

"World Domination Part 1," Antonio Adams, acrylic on wood panel, 2010, 24" X 48"

"Hamilton Chase," Raymond Thunder-Sky, marker on cardstock, date unknown, 9" X 12"

"The Life Decision," Antonio Adams, acrylic on wood panel, 2010, 24' X 48'

"Dracula Construction," Raymond Thunder-Sky, marker on cardstock, date unknown, 9" X 12"

"World Domination II," Antonio Adams, acrylic on wood panel, 2010, 24" X 48"

"Northside Post Office," Raymond Thunder-Sky, marker on cardstock, date unknown, 9" X 12"

"The New George Harrison," Antonio Adams, mixed media, 2009, 18" X 6" X 7"

"Last Sunday," Raymond Thunder-Sky, marker on cardstock, date unknown, 9" X 12"

"World Domination III," Antonio Adams, acrylic on wood panel, 2010, 24" X 48"

"The New Timothy Thomas,"Antonio Adams, mixed media, 2009, 18" X 6" X 7"

Available artworks by Antonio Adams & Raymond Thunder-Sky.

"I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum."

2011-02-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

The title above is the first line from Claes Oldenburg's 1961 manifesto, and it really fits the way I see Bunky Echo-Hawk's work and style. He visited Thunder-Sky, Inc. this weekend, and basically created a whole suite of paintings out of thin air. Friday, we had a gallery filled with 16 blank canvases, one 3' X 4', the rest 16" X 20". That was the tabula-rasa. Bunky came in from Oklahoma Thursday night, and then Friday visited a classroom at Clark Montessori High School, and then went to the gallery and started to work. Around 7:30 pm or so, he gave a talk about his philosophy on art to a group of about 50 people who showed up, and asked them if they would mind participating in the show as stand-in muses. 16 people were game. He asked each volunteer to hold a canvas, and he got to work, interviewing each canvas-holder about what was inside their heads concerning representations of Native Americans.

Stock images came forth (Geronimo, Dances with Wolves, etc.), as well as shock images (scalping, war paint, etc.). Fire was mentioned, as well as the Jodie Foster movie Contact. The whole feeling was like at a county fair, when you pay a caricaturist to do a portrait of you playing golf or driving the kids to soccer practice. But the reality was that Bunky was on an excavation for whatever truth is left where representations of Native Americans are concerned. Calm, reserved and very kind, he respectfully probed and prodded each person. The responses, however, weren't really as important to the whole gig as Bunky's reponses to the responses. Bunky wanted to take stock images and tired tropes and reinvent them into small, precise pictographs, inverting centuries of mythologizing by the People in Power into smart-assed interrogations of what those mythologies do when you don't understand their innate power to structure the way you see and act and even feel.

So what could be seen as a gimmick or a stunt becomes a way out of the same old bull-shit, and the 16 paintings he will leave in his wake are evidence of listening, responding, and creating meaning from Political Correctness or just plain Amnesia. The P-C Amnesia is nobody's fault in the room, of course. Like any other disapora or ghetto, the reservation has to be made into something we can all tolerate through that one Pop Culture tear crawling tenderly down the cheek of the Native American chief in the Keep America Beautiful PSA.

Bunky's art isn't about blame: it's about getting the joke.

The Oldenburg quote comes at you like an arrow. Art has to do something other than sit on its ass in a museum, or it becomes as ossified and correct as "official history." In his small, concise way, and in his whole body of work, Bunky Echo-Hawk is creating art that is political-erotical-mystical, and I'll add a few too: comical-ironical-beautiful.

Bunky at Clark Montessori High School

First painting at Thunder-Sky, Inc.

An Interview

"Scalping"

Raymond's brother Michael Thunder-Sky, Bunky Echo-Hawk, and Thunder-Sky Family Friend and Thunder-Sky, Inc. Board Member Larry Higdon

Bunky giving a digital tour of his art

"Indian as Cowboy"

Happy Birthday Raymond

2011-02-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

Raymond would have turned 61 today, February 16, 2011.

(Bill Ross first met Raymond Thunder-Sky in 1999, when he was hired as a social-worker for people with developmental disabilities. This essay is about this initial meeting and the inspiration from it that has lasted for ten years. Raymond passed away in 2004.)

On my case load of about 30 people one name stood out: Raymond Thunder-Sky. I read through his file and found he was Native American and more specifically was from the Mohawk Tribe. There was an article from the Cincinnati Post that celebrated Raymond’s eccentricity as a local figure known to walk around downtown in a clown suite with an Elizabethan collar and hard hat. He was known as the Construction Clown by those who would see him as he would frequently hang out at construction sites.

I was informed he was not in the best of health. So I needed to see how he was doing and the condition of his apartment. I started by simply trying to call, but he never answered. I stopped by his place late in the day a few times and realized this was not a time you would find him home. He lived in an apartment in Northside. A bar of sunlight flooded out from under his door in the dark hallway that smelled of old food and mildew.After a few visits, I could tell when he was home. There was a TV on, a shadow under the door that moved back and forth. He wouldn’t open the door, so I spoke to him through it explaining who I was and that I would be checking on him every so often.

The next time I stopped by he cracked the door a little as I was about to walk away. I still couldn’t see him but he made a sound that kind of resembled the clearing of his throat. Maybe the sound of agreement. For the most part, though, I just felt ignored.

The next time I showed up, Raymond opened the door and let me in. Raymond stood in his doorway in a turquoise green T-shirt and checkered boxers. His shirt was covered in toothpaste spit and what looked like food from the night before. His legs looked painful with varicose veins and scabs. He didn’t look well.I asked if I could come in and he made that throat clearing noise. He left the door open for me as he went back in. He sat in a kitchen chair facing his TV. I sat on the couch. The apartment was filled with tool boxes, a work bench with a vice, traffic cones and many pieces of machinery that were unrecognizable.We sat and watched an episode of the Tele Tubbies. His TV had poor reception, and the image flipped and fuzzed out every so often. He watched with a smile, aware I was noticing him, but letting me know he was OK with me being there.

Seeing how he looked and the condition of his apartment I felt obligated to do something social-workery. I thought, this poor man needed more help and needed to be checked out medically. Back at my office, I called everyone I could on the list of names connected to him including the nurse from the agency that provided him with drop-in services.I pulled a meeting together that even included an old family friend who looked out for Raymond and who would later share Raymond’s story in a lot more detail than I knew at this point.

Raymond was the last to show up at this meeting. In fact, I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to show. He came in to the room in a pair of overalls and his clown collar. On his head he wore a King Wrecking Company hard hat. He carried a tool box in his hand.Raymond sat across from me and opened the red tool box as if he were opening a violin case. He had that smile on his face, like he had when watching the Tele Tubbies. He would not make eye contact. He pulled out a stack of drawings from the tool box and pushed them across the table in front of me.It was truly a life-changing moment.

This mysterious and very private man choosing this time to share something so amazing and deeply personal with me in front of all these people. In all the attempted visits, talking through his door, watching TV with him, I had never shared with him I was an artist. I was pretty much all business. I hadn’t really considered his dressing as a clown and walking around Cincinnati as a creative act until he shared his drawings. Honestly, I thought it was some kind of idiosyncrasy probably related to his disability.Each drawing was very composed, each a little different than the next. Raymond was drawing demolition sites with buildings in various states of destruction. He included in the composed chaos of the drawings a caption of what he wanted to put in place of the building being torn down, which often times included clown suit factories or amusement parks.

The point of the meeting was to try to get him to take better care of himself and to try to convince him to let his caregivers take him to the doctor and help him try to live healthier. This message never really sank in. Looking back he had his own agenda for me at this meeting.I learned a lot more about Raymond from Larry Higdon, the friend of Raymond’s parents. I learned about his Native American heritage as his Dad was a Mohawk Chief and his mother was a descendent of an Austrian Nobleman. I learned how Raymond fell in love with the circus and wanted to go onstage the first time he saw the clowns come out. How Raymond longed to work in construction. Through art he was able to merge these two passions.

It is true that everyone is a door opening to another world. When I knocked on Raymond’s door, I had no idea. Getting to know him helped me better understand who I am. Without Raymond,I would be a lesser person, and the world would be a lesser place.

Poetry = Anger X Imagination

2011-02-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

"Poetry = Anger x Imagination"
— Sherman Alexie

Raymond Thunder-Sky's drawings are elemental yet sophisticated, and house within them meanings that are deceptively simple. He is roaming the cityscape trying to find destruction so that the creative part of his imagination can fill in the emptiness. He is trying to find a way to resurrect all that's been lost for him, and maybe even his ancestors. Raymond was a Mohawk, his father the chief of that tribe. The history of the way Native Americans were relegated violently to the background of main-stream history is sorrowful and horrible, but from the destruction and devastation comes a spirit that produces greatness. Raymond had a psychic connection with that sense of loss and what can be gained from reinventing that loss. In every one of his drawings he is appropriating what time, culture and capitalism does to the landscape: buildings being bulldozed, wires and earth revealed like what's underneath flesh, a whole universe of destruction, peopleless and more beautiful because of that. There's an aura of inescapable loneliness, with sky-writing (like smoke signals) letting you know the future.

Like Raymond, Bunky Echo-Hawk appropriates the dross of a sad culture and takes that waste and creates a new function from the form: a sarcastic, head-on collision that redefines the way we define Native people. He surveys the saccharine in order to present the sardonic, usually finding solace in laughing at both the hopeless stereotypes that usually represent Native Americans, as well as the sentimental attempts to cling at those stereotypes by constantly reinventing them. For example:

The tropes of strange blue aliens/angels, a cartoon figurine from a faux-past, and/or a "sympathetic" white guy "going Native" are interchangeable and allow everyone to feel as if all that "bad stuff" that happened is now just an almost forgotten dream. Look at everyone in the picture staring off into space, vacuous and posing as if they are on the cover of the new Vanity Fair.

The dream gets revised in the art made by both Raymond and Bunky. Their works find a way to critique and resist without shrillness or arrogance. They merge anger with imagination, as Sherman Alexie says, and produce poetry.

Raymond & "Disability"

2011-01-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

Object found in one of Raymond's toolboxes.

Every once in a while, a person will come into Thunder-Sky, Inc. and not know who Raymond was. He/she will survey the gallery and then wind up in the "the Raymond Room," where we have some of Raymond's work on display, as well as some of his tool-boxes and clown costumes, and a big photo of him. A lot of times the first or second question he/she asks is: "What was his disability?" Or: "Was he ever diagnosed?" Or even: "What was wrong with him?"

People read you by the way you look, of course, and Raymond in photos has a look for sure: stubborn, mischievous, a little scary to some folks. Plus the clown outfits, the construction hats, the stone-cold edge he developed inside his eyes to warn off people that wanted to mess with him.  His self-created "construction-clown" personna interferes with the way we often automatically label with our gaze, searching the face in a photo or in person to find ways to connect with, recognize, or (more often than not) relegate to a category called, "Not me thank God."

Raymond challenged you to break away from the way you pigionhole people in much the same way a drag-queen does: using a blend of style and substance to allow people the opportunity to question the way they see and the way they make meaning from what they see. Also like drag, Raymond used costume as armor, solidifying his true self into a carapace as hard and shiny as a helmet. He used a tool-box, flourescent orange road-wide-worker vest, construction hat, construction company logos, and a clown collar in order to merge worlds most people would never merge, and from that hybrid he was born: a serious workaholic clown, a show-biz construction-worker, a no-nonsense street artist. His image and identity helped to forge a beautiful myth, and yet ironically the myth also allows people to ask questions like, "What was his diagnosis?"

As far as I know, he was never diagnosed. He just needed some help getting to the doctor and paying his bills.  He was very capable, and like most of us wanted to deny that he needed help.  His biggest accomplishment, of course, is the work he did everyday of his life, drawing upon drawing upon drawing. But also that character and image he created stand side-by-side with the drawings: they are a package deal.

Raymond was a clown/construction-worker making art on the street. And unlike a lot of "street artists" championed today, he was not a part of a club or in search of a secret society to join. He never really pursued the spotlight or even seemed to need it. He was just out there, with his clipboard, markers and ruler standing in front of a demolition site, and when someone told him they liked his work he said thank you and would often stop and walk away.

Most of the time when people ask what his disability actually was, I just say I don't know. Let's leave it at that.

One woman on Facebook, when I posted this photo, commented that it "creeps"her out because "he looks so much like John Wayne Gacy." So yet another way to relegate. What are you going to do?

Opportunities for Reconciliation

2011-01-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

"Wilma Mankiller," Bunky Echo-Hawk's portrait of the famous Native American leader, will be a part of "Bunky Echo-Hawk: New Works" at Thunder-Sky, Inc., opening February 25, 2011. Bunky is an incredible example of a contemporary artist using his heritage and talent to place a spotlight on Native American history and culture. We want to support any initiatives and conversations happening locally as well... Below is the start. If anyone else has any other happenings concerning Native Americans in the Cincinnati area, please let us know...

From George Hardebeck, of ARCHE (Arts Restoring Culture for Healing Earth), two great opportunities to "go Native..."

Our next two conversations:
All who care for these topics are also welcome. Please RSVP with the venue host.

RECONCILING OUR CULTURE THROUGH THE ARTS & IDENTITY PROTION
Wednesday, January 26th 2011, 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.
MBR & Associates
424 Findlay Street, Studio 2B
Cincinnati, Ohio 45214
above Carl Solway Gallery
Ring second bell from top
RSVP Mary Barr Rhodes, at mbr@mbrcreates.com

How might we realign our Central Role of The Arts, from our primal and vast generations: to restore culture to healthy human-natural community – ecology; recognizing and reconciling damages done, and rebirthing our ancient richly renewing life?

RECONCILING WITH NATIVE LIFE IN EDUCATIONAL & COMMUNITY CENTERS IN PUBLIC SPACES & ON PUBLIC LANDS

Saturday, February 19th 2011, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Dater Montessori Nature center
2840 Boudinot Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio 45238
www.dmnaturecenter.net/
RSVP with Susan Vonderhaar, at dmnaturecenter@yahoo.com

This conversation is especially for Nature, Cultural and Arts Educators, for those in Green Building, Landscape Architecture and Health, and for stewards of Public Lands & Spaces. Family members of the school are welcome, along with those who wish to explore reconciliation and restoration for our region to planet. A related art and writing project for children, will be available during the meeting.

NATIVE PEOPLES are especially invited to join and guide us as our cultural elders and leaders in our meekness toward life, in this journey of reconciliation and restoration.

Antonio Adams: Yesterday and Tomorrow

2011-01-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

Antonio Adams, "Common Surprises Day," acrylic on wood panel, 1.5' X 2', 2009.

Antonio Adams, "Super Serious," acrylic on wood, 1.5' X 1', 2009.

Antonio Adams, "You Can't Be Serious," acrylic on wood, 1.5' X 1', 2009.

Antonio Adams, "Terri Schiavo The 60s," acrylic on canvas panel, 1' X 1.5', 2008.

Antonio Adams, "New House," acrylic on canvas, 1' X 2', 2008.

Antonio Adams, "Mirror Object," mirror-tiles on painted wood panel, 1.5' X 1', 2009.

Antonio Adams, "Bang in the Bomb," marker on paper, 8.5" X 11", 2007.

Antonio Adams, "The America We Trust," marker on paper, 8.5" X 11", 2007.

Antonio Adams, "We Are Moving into the New House," acrylic on canvas, 1' X 2.5', 2008.

Antonio Adams, "The New Marcus Feisel," mixed media, 10" X 1.5' X 1', 2008.

Antonio Adams, "New Day," acrylic on wood panel, 2' X 4', 2008.

Antonio Adams, "Yesterday and Tomorrow," acrylic on wood panel, 2' X 3', 2009.

Reviews about Antonio Adams' work:
April 2006 (Citybeat Newsweekly [cover story], Cincinnati, OH)
July 2008 (Nuvo Newsweekly, Indianapolis, IN)
April 2009 (Citybeat Newsweekly, Cincinnati, OH)
July 2010 (Citybeat Newsweekly [cover story], Cincinnati, OH)
September 2010 (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Antonio Adams' biography, resume and more images:

Antonio Adams, Artist

Raymond Thunder-Ice

2011-01-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

Friday night Sculptor Tom Tsuchiya unveiled a beautiful ice sculpture of Raymond Thunder-Sky, to celebrate the opening of Bob Scheadler and Mike Weber's "Ice Ice Baby" exhibit at Thunder-Sky. What do you do with an ice sculpture after the party? Place it outside and take a lot of beautiful photos of it... I hope the weather stays cold for a long long time... More info about Tom's work: Tom Tsuchiya.

"Raymond Thunder-Sky" Ice Sculpture

2011-01-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

Sculptor Tom Tsuchiya created an ice sculpture of Raymond for the opening of "Ice Ice Baby: New Works by Bob Scheadler and Mike Weber" January 7, 2011... It was the center of attention all night. Another beautiful way to remember him...

Why Ice?

2010-12-20T19:30:00.000-08:00

The next show at Thunder-Sky, Inc. is called "Ice Ice Baby! New Works by Bob Scheadler and Mike Weber." The inspiration for the sculptures, paintings, photographs (one of which is pictured above -- a photo by Bob Scheadler titled, "Ice 3090"), and prints is ICE. One of the reasons we established Thunder-Sky, Inc. is to ensure that Raymond's memory and legacy live on. So how does "Ice" fit in with this mission?

This is from an article written by Steve Kissing in Cincinnati Magazine, circa 2006:

Over the course of his life, Raymond [worked] at Goodwill Industries, separating and organizing donated items; in food service at the Westin Hotel, where his knack for creating ice sculptures was discovered; and as a general laborer for Ogden Entertainment, the outfit that manages food service and other matters for the Cincinnati Convention Center. According to Higdon, Thunder-Sky could toss around eight-foot banquet tables like they were sheets of cardboard. During his decade-long tenure with Ogden, he missed only three days of work due to a bad cold. Such devotion to hard work didn’t help his poor health, and in 2002, his varicose veins burst, causing internal bleeding and nearly killing him. He ended up in a west side rest home for four months.

The night of the opening we're going to try to have a Raymond-shaped ice sculpture. January 7, 2011...

Literary Figure

2010-12-20T19:19:00.000-08:00

Dale Jackson's text-driven art is featured in the Spring 2011 issue of Jellybucket, the literary magazine at Eastern Kentucky University... A six-page full-color insert! This is Dale's first publication... And it's nestled in among some great poems, essays and short stories.

Antonio Adams, December 3, 2010: Art Thing Kingdom

2010-12-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

Antonio Adams had a great night Friday December 3, 2010. He had works in two different gallery openings (Prairie Gallery and Country Club Gallery), and he came to both show dressed in full Art Thing Kigdom Master regalia... From top to bottom:

Antonio and Terrance Hammonds at Prairie Gallery's "Chocolat" exhibit

Antonio with Terrance Hammonds, David Rosenthal, Lennell Myrick, Pam Kravetz,

Pamela Myrick, Kaji Parker

Antonio's work at Country Club Gallery's "ArtAbilities" Fundraiser

Antonio with his work at Prairie Gallery next to Brian's Joiner's

Antonio's work at Prairie

Thunder-Sky, Inc. 2011: One Step Beyond

2010-11-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

2011 at Thunder-Sky, Inc. will feature six exhibits and each show is all about finding new ways to see, make, present, feel, and imagine what art is, who artists are, and what we can all do together to push the limits beyond "white walls/white wine/white people."

Here goes:

Ice Ice Baby: Michael Weber, Bob Scheadler, Adam Maloney (January 7, 2010 – February 18, 2010) Paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs about the big freeze by Weber and Sheadler. A sound installation titled "In Space No One Can Hear Your Tractor Beam" by Adam Maloney. Opens January 7, 2011 with a reception 6 to 9 pm.

Bunky Echo-Hawk: New Works (February 25, 2011 – April 15, 2011) Echo-Hawk, a Native American painter/writer/performer from Oklahoma whose works are saturated in Pop-Art colors and street-smart savvy, investigates the meanings of “Native” and “American” through historical and cultural iconography and myth. Opens February 25, 2011 with a reception 6 to 9 pm.

2 + 2 = 5: Collaborations (April 29, 2011 – June 10, 2011) "I admit that two plus two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, two plus two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too." (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground) Artists of all kinds and creeds work together on paintings and drawings, including several collaborations involving unfinished works by Mr. Thunder-Sky himself. Opens April 29, 2011 with a reception 6 to 9 pm.

Hard Knocks: Art without Art School (June 24, 2011 – August 12, 2011) Co-curated by Antonio Adams, Ran Barnaclo and Spencer VanDerzee. A group show featuring artists who could not go, did not go, and/or chose not to go to art school; the level playing field provides ample space to see that “self-taught artists” produce an amazingly diverse spectrum of styles and subject-matters. Opens with a reception June 24, 2011 6 to 9 pm.

Order of Selection: Jessie Dunahoo, Stevie Grueter, Jennifer Meridieth (August 26, 2011 – October 14, 2011) Drawings on rocks she finds along the road (Grueter), sculptures made from plastic bags (Dunahoo), and drawings about a world two miles away from normal (Meridieth). In Under-Sky, Inc., the basement space: "The $50 Museum: a Thunder-Sky, Inc. fundraiser." Opens with a recepion 6 to 9 pm August 26, 2011.

Entertainment Tonight!: Ran Barnaclo, Larry Cocklin (October 28, 2011 – December 23, 2010) Art that is both funny-haha and funny-weird, done by two young artists inspired by Darth Vader, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus, and the random thoughts inside wild animal heads. Opens with a reception 6 to 9 pm October 28, 2011.

Photos top to bottom: From 2 + 2 = 5, Donald Henry, Dale Jackson, Bill Ross. Bunky Echo-Hawk's art. Poster for "Hard Knocks." And work by Jessie Dunahoo.

Unfinished Business: PTA Meeting 11-17-10

2010-11-18T07:10:00.000-08:00

Last night I had an opportunity to speak to a group at a local PTA meeting, concerning Raymond Thunder-Sky and what we do through Thunder-Sky Inc. I explained how for years Raymond was known as the “Construction Clown” and during that time a number of urban myths were conjured up to explain Raymond’s daily perfomances downtown and all around the area. Often he would be in hia full "clown/construction-worker" drag at demolition sites and construction site: a mystery people often admired, some feared, and some mocked. I explained how for the most part his mission as an artist was misunderstood. To say Raymond didn’t say much would be an understatement…at least verbally. However, come to find out, Raymond was speaking volumes in his work as an artist. I explained how meeting Raymond and the moment he showed his drawings to me changed my life. I explained how he inspired both Keith and I to co-found Visionaries and Voices and more recently Thunder-Sky Inc. to archive his art work and belongings as well as feature other unconventional artists’ works that relates in some way to Raymond’s work.

Being with parents and teachers last night, however I felt it was important to discuss another aspect of Raymond’s life and legacy and that was his stubborn bravery. Raymond was Real (capital R). He, more than anyone I have ever met, lived his life against the grain, even while he was trying to create a place for himself within the grain. He stood out and like anyone who is different he was also bullied; we have gathered a number of stories about these incidents from people who witnessed the bullying. This didn’t stop him. He was bound and determined to be himself. He knew that whatever he had to do was far too important to worry about what others thought, even when bullies and systems tried to put him in his place.

Recently Thunder-sky Inc hosted a folk art carnival in Raymond’s honor. The tag line for the event was “Fly Your Own Freak Flag”. We embrace this notion as Raymond flew his own freak flag every day. Being your self is hard, scary and probably looks weird to others. But, if you are for real it’s what you have to do. In my ramblings last night I wanted to convey how we all need to make being “real” easier for those who are compelled for whatever reason to be different.

Thunder-Sky, Inc. in "Folk Art Messenger"

2010-10-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is a story that came out this month in Folk Art Messenger, about Raymond Thunder-Sky's cultural influence... We'll be featuring it in the exhibit we're doing about Raymond that opens at Thunder-Sky, Inc. October 29, 2010, "Fables of the Deconstruction."

Precious Objects Must Go

2010-09-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

THE $50 MUSEUM

PRECIOUS OBJECTS for $50 & UNDER

Reasonable Prices Irrational Art

This Is a Benefit to Keep Thunder-Sky, Inc. Going

Closing Reception 6 to 9 pm October 15, 2010

Thunder-Sky, Inc. Gallery

4573 Hamilton Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45223

Artists who donated work:

Anonymous

Antonio Adams

Ran Barnaclo

Tony Dotson

Mark Dunbar

Gena Grunenberg

Dale Jackson

Dave Jarred

Nicole Manning

Matt Morris

Bill Ross

Eric Ruschman

Jason Taylor

Kevin White

Contrary Clowns

2010-09-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

Think of the one in Stephen King's It. Or Insane Klown Posse. Or Gene Simmons coughing up fake-blood in Kiss. Or Heath Ledger's or Jack Nicholson's Joker turns in the Batman flicks. The list goes on and on. Clowns often freak people out. There are many reasons I'm sure, but my reason for clown-o-phobia is that it seems like sometimes the fakery involved can take the fun hostage. Make-up and curly wigs and big red smiles are alright in very small doses I guess, but when they come at you with a raspy laugh and contorted-balloon animals and an uneasy sense of privilege (I'm a clown... You just have to love this) I get spooked.

I don't really know or understand Raymond's reason for loving clowns. I think it might have something to do with spectacle and irony. Raymond patched together his own unique blend, toning down the clown aspects (he wore no clown make-up or wigs and really never laughed a raspy laugh or contorted balloons into animals as far as I know). He tempered clownishness with construction-worker dignity, and in that mix, both in costume and demeanor, is where Raymond found his identity I think: a spectacular court-jester weirdness merged with a down-to-earth, let's-just-get-this-job-done intensity. He wore the clown collar and the hard-hat, striped clown PJs with work-boots and a tool-box. The originality creates the mythology. He was a clown through the looking glass. Alice saw him on her way to the tea party.

One aspect of Raymond's clowning might come from his Native American heritage. On the website charliethejugglingclown.com, Bruce Johnson writes about "Native American clowns," and how many tribes across Northern America had clowns as part of their sociological structure. Johnson writes about one aspect: The Cheyenne tribe has Contrary clowns. They would walk about the camp on their hands, ride horses backwards, shoot arrows back over their shoulder, and do many other things wrong. When they came to a stream, they would take off one moccasin, and then hold up the bare leg as they hopped through the water. In time of battle, they would revert to doing things the normal way. The other tribes feared the Contraries the most, because they were the most skilled warriors. Contrary clowns are shown in the movie Little Big Man.

Let's just say Raymond probably was one of our most skilled warriors. And leave it at that.

(Above: a "scary clown" photo I found by googling "scary clowns," and a photo of a Native America clown mask of the Nulth-Ma tribe on the Charlie the Juggling Clown website. I've provided a link to that site on the links list for more info about Native American clowns...)

GHOSTS OF FOREST PARK

2010-09-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

One thing Raymond Thunder-Sky did for me is change the way I look at things, especially buildings and the space around them. There is a mystery about abandoned malls and restaurants and banks and schools, those spaces that await demolition with patience and a sort of blankfaced bravery. Raymond's drawings discover and aestheticize that "emotion" (I guess buildings can have emotion) without a lot of heavyhandedness or preciousness. Raymond's line is distinctive, fashioned usually with a ruler or protractor, but his drawings never have the feeling of inevitability, just a sense of purpose. The straight edge also gives his work a nervousness and a compassion somehow: the drawings are vestiges of his search for a sort of tranqulity born from loss and what is about to lost, and then what is going to replace it. The energy of his vision is honesty merged with hope, and a dead-eyed conclusiveness. He writes on most of his drawings what is going away and what comes next without any poetic bull-shit. Just the facts. He was a busy man.

So today I look out and see where I live: Forest Park, Ohio, center of the dead-mall universe, a cancatenation of closed-down capitalism (ghosts of Fuddrucker's, Texas Roadhouse, the Mexican place that was once a Boston Market, Hollywood Video, Cincinnati Mall, K-Mart, a used car lot, etc. haunting the landscape beside 275). Raymond lived here too for a while in the late 90s. He would love imagining all that dead space being ripped to shreds. I do too. The buildings are corpses, but they never die. Not zombies though, just cement and aluminum and wood and plastic remnants still in the shape of what they once were. Raymond would imagine a Dracula Construction Robot coming to town, terminating those sad essences, erasing what business-people made, in order to replace it with a CardTrick ClownSuit Factory, or a Richard Brightfire Thunder-Sky freeway (his dad's name), or a big red-and-white-striped circus tent filled with the sound if calliope music.

Raymond gives me hope because he looked at the world the way it is. He documented it precisely. But then he demoilshed what was there and opened himself up to his own Utopian dreams.

He was a construction worker. He was a clown. He was an artist. But really he was just a plain old workaholic, digging through his own dreams to find a reason in all that destruction, poetry in all that we lose.

Above: Forest Park's ghosts (an abandoned Texas Roadhouse, and an aerial view of the almost-defunct Cincinnati Mall), and one of my favorite Raymond drawings.

Atlanta Folk Fest 2010: Shiny and New

2010-08-21T08:17:00.001-07:00

Thunder-Sky, Inc. is here at the Atlanta Folkfest through Sunday August 22. Located in a huge trade center in North Atlanta, it's billed as the largest art festival of its kind (focusing on contemporary and traditional folk, outsider, self-taught, etc. art), and from day one I was struck by the work of artist Andrei Palmer. He builds exquisitely detailed cars from cardboard and electrical equipment, and each automobile has a distinct, homemade ingenuity. They are lovely to look at, like really great toys with the gumption and vitality of Red Grooms. There was an article in the Atlanta newspaper about Andrei: "[He] loves cars as much as any all-American guy. Except the 23-year-old Stone Mountain resident, who was adopted from Romania at age 6, brings a bit of an outsider’s perspective to the infatuation."

Andrei's status as an "outsider" actually doesn't matter too much when seeing what he is able to do of course: his work has the tenacity and whimsy of really cool art plain and simple. But his bio does lend a little depth to the whole enterprise. Having survived some horrific times in Romanian orphanages he has been able to create an aesthetic and a life from what he loves. When I met him last night he was hard at work on another vehicle, and he was totally enjoying the spotlight in his booth. I asked his dad what it was like witnessing the way Andrei found how to make what he makes, and he said he had always been worried that Andrei might just become a video-game recluse. But he said that Andrei puts on 80s music and creates car after car. He has a sense of purpose, he said.

Andrei's work when contrasted with a lot of the other art here at Folkfest has a singular shine. Its carefulness and purposefulness really allows it to float to the top. In that aspect, his work reminds me of Thunder-Sky, Inc.'s Antonio Adams': Antonio's story parallels Andrei's in a lot of ways. They are both two people who have discovered unique ways to live and to understand the world. They have found just the right mix of materials, creativity and artistry to build art that seems both innocent and indestructible. Antonio's work here at Folkfest, the cat sculptures and paintings, also stand out because they seem to have been made in order to exemplify clarity and simplicity, playfulness and ease. But there's a seriousness to what they do. In one piece, Andrei has built a hearse with a beautifully detailed casket inside; Antonio's cats are totems resurrecting celebrities who have passed away, giving each person, in Antonio's words, "new life."

Both Andrei and Antonio seem to be creating art that is both easy to be around but also weird enough to make you rethink the way you see the normal world. That leads me back to the whole reason we do what what we do at Thunder-Sky, Inc.: we want to keep Raymond Thunder-Sky's legacy alive. Like both Antonio and Andrei, Raymond went in search of his artistic purpose and discovered it mainly on his own, creating drawings that seem naive yet clever, simplistic yet sophisticated, old-school yet shiny and new.

Top to bottom: Raymond Thunder-Sky, circa 2000; Antonio Adams standing in front of his cat sculptures at Atlanta Folkfest 2010; and Andrei Palmer with his work in his booth at the Atlanta Folkfest 2010.

Lost & Found

2010-08-08T11:40:00.001-07:00

Visionaries & Voices staff found some lost Raymond drawings and clown costumes tucked away in a garage at their space: 161 drawings, 14 clown costumes, 5 clown collars, and one Cinergy hard hat. Amazing! Thanks V&V!

The Rest of 2010 at Thunder-Sky, Inc. (& Beyond)

2010-07-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

June 25 - September 17, 2010: "WORLD DOMINATION: Antonio Adams and Tony Dotson" The paintings of Antonio Adams and Tony Dotson have much in common, but mainly what pops out at you upon first glimpsing each of the artists' works is a sense of high energy and an intense need to get a point across. Both use elemental materials (house and acrylic paint, wood panels, paper and pen) to sophisticated, concise ends. Also happening at the same time in Under-Sky, Inc. (the gallery underneath Thunder-Sky, Inc.): “KITTY CAT EXTRAVAGANZA: Art by Cat-Lovers, curated by Antonio Adams, Melanie Derrick, and Millicent Larson.” (Photo above of the opening reception of "World Domiantion," June 25, 2010.)

July 30 – August 21, 2010: “PARADISE: Paintings and Collaborations (with Donald Henry and Becky Iker) by Thunder-Sky, Inc. Cofounder Bill Ross” at 1305 Gallery Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 opens with a reception July 30, 2010, 6 to 11 pm.

September 24, 2010 - October 15, 2010: "THE $50 MUSEUM, a Thunder-Sky, Inc. Fundraiser" All art and other stuff in this exhibit is priced 50 bucks or under, and all proceeds benefit keeping Thunder-Sky, Inc. alive. Come celebrate the Unconventional Spirit, buy a few things, and enjoy knowing you are part of a new wave of weird. Opens September 25, 2010 with a “mobile unit” at the First Annual Raymond Thunder-Sky Folk Art Carnival. The exhibit will return to the gallery and be on display through October, with a closing reception 6 to 10 pm October 15, 2010.
September 25 & 26, 2010: The First Annual Raymond Thunder-Sky Folk Art Carnival Taking place in the parking lot of Building Value, 4040 Spring Grove Avenue, Northside in Cincinnati, Ohio, this art fair showcases conntemporary folk, outsider, and other unconventional artists and the organizations that support them, by providing a venue to sell their works and celebrate what they do. Sponsored by www.thunderskyinc.org and www.buildingvalue.org.

October 29, 2010 - December 31, 2010: "Welcome to Lonely Mountain Community Center: An Installation by Bruce Burris & New Works by Aaron Oliver Wood" features work by Bruce Burris, an artist from Lexington, Kentucky whose pieces have been featured at Institute 193 (Lexington KY), Braunstein/Quay Gallery (San Francisco CA), Anton Galllery (Washington DC), Urban Institute of Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids MI), and Delaware Center for Contemporary Art (Wilmington DE). Burris' installation consists of a large, room-sized bulletin-board that displays scraps and ephemera both lighthearted and freighted with meanings far beyond their function. Aaron Oliver Wood lives in Cincinnati and creates beautifully detailed, straightforward but still somehow enigmatic drawings. Also happening at the same time Under-Sky, Inc.: “Fables of the Deconstruction: A Decade of Raymond Thunder-Sky Influence” surveys through photos, documents, art, and video the influence Raymond Thunder-Sky’s art and life has had culturally in Cincinnati and beyond, using as a starting point the first time Raymond showed his work publically in 2000 through his death in 2004 to the gallery and organization established in his name celebrating its first year of exhibitions and programming.

Universal Raymond

2010-07-02T15:44:00.001-07:00

Raymond Thunder-Sky was a regionalist, meaning that he found comfort and inspiration in the world right in front of him. Since he lived in Cincinnati the longest his work is steeped in Cincinnati-scapes. Local demoltion sites, bulldozers, Cincinnati streets and skylines all provided Raymond a starting point, a foundation to investigate the mystery and meaning of destruction, reinvention, and the tranquility of knowing that what is destroyed always gets replaced.

Raymond's themes are not regionalist, but universal. In his drawings he seeks a meaning beyond the names of streets and the shards of broken glass. In each drawing he is replacing what is being erased with something far more perfect and far more bizarre. In his search for Utopias he transcends his own sense of concrete detail and his connection to his own region. But he also seems to feel completely comfortable in that world. Stories from people who spotted him along his journey are often about seeing him on a bus or walking the streets with a tool-box, his expression stone-cold serious. He knew what he was doing.

He was searching for an image, not a place, because the place he was constantly reinventing in his mind.

Artist David Wojnarowicz wrote: "Heaven is place in your head. Hell is a place on earth."

While Raymond was a consummate pedestrian, walking and searching his whole life, he was also cosmopolitan and clever. His drawings aren't just documents about Cincinnati. They are about a spiritual craving. Raymond was in search of heaven. Raymond knew hell was a place on earth.

But he also had a great sense of humor, a stubborn, solid sense of aesthetics, and a patience that created prolificity.

So in the end, yes, Raymond was a regionlist, knee-deep in Cincinnati-isms, but he did not worship region. He used it to get to stranger and stranger places.

(The above paintings about Raymond are by David Mack.)

Raymond's Resume

2010-06-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

Raymond had a short art career (his first gallery showing was in 2000 and he passed away in 2004), but his influence often reached beyond Cincinnati. His drawings crystalize ideas and notions that go beyond reigonalism into a universal territory of creation/destruction. They also exhibit a sarcastic knowingness about the limits of progress, and the necessity of removal/rejuvenation. Here's a breif synopsis/resume of Raymond's four-year art career, and some of the milestones after his death.

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." Pablo Picasso

Raymond Thunder-Sky started showing his work formally in 2000, with an exhibit of twelve drawings at Base Gallery in Cincinnati. His second exhibit, also at the Base Gallery, occurred in 2001; it was a group-show titled, “Art Thing.” This exhibit garnered major media attention from Cincinnati Post, Cincinnati City Beat, Hamilton Journal News, and Cincinnati Enquirer. Raymond’s work has also been shown through America Oh Yes!, a folk-art on-line gallery, with locations in South Carolina, Washington D. C., Atlanta, Georgia, Maryland, and Virginia. On their web-site, he was featured as an emerging artist. Raymond’s work was also featured at the Pittsburgh Folk Art Fair and Seminar in December 2002. There, two pieces were consigned by Gallerie Bourbon-Lally, an Outsider Art gallery located in Montreal, Canada, and shown at the Outsider Art Fair in New York City.

Raymond had his first one-man show at Base Gallery in March, 2003. Titled “Being Torn Down: A Retrospective of Raymond Thunder-Sky’s Life and Work,” the show featured approximately seventy drawings. Raymond’s work has also been featured in exhibits in exhibits at the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati), the American Classical Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Freedom Center (Cincinnati), Fitton Center for Creative Arts (Hamilton, Ohio), Middletown Fine Arts Center (Ohio), and the Pyramid Hill Art Hair (Hamilton, Ohio).

In November 2003, Raymond’s work was featured in a poster for the University of Michigan’s Ethnic Global Literatures Seminar.

In February 2005, after his death, Raymond’s work was displayed in exhibits at: Duke Energy’s downtown offices (Cincinnati), GBBN Architects (Cincinnati), and Base Gallery. Also, after his death, one of his drawings was accepted into the permanent collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum. His obituary appeared in the Folk Art Messenger, as well as Raw Vision.

In 2008, Raymond’s work was featured at the Good Folk Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as the Atlanta, Georgia Folkfest. Raymond’s work was also featured in a one-person exhibit in Los Angeles, California at the Art Queen Gallery. In 2009, Raymond's drawings were featured in a group exhibit at the Sandra Small Gallery in Covington, Kentucky, and as well his works and life were honored at the opening of Thunder-Sky, Inc. in Cincinnati. Also in 2009, a mural depicting his work and life was created by Antonio Adams, Cedric Cox and apprentices from the Artworks Program.

Raymond’s art has been featured in:

Folk Art Messenger (the magazine of the American Folk Art Association)
Cincinnati Post (seven articles from 2000 – 2004, five of which written by David Wecker)
Cincinnati Enquirer (three articles from 2002 – 2004)
Cincinnati City Beat (four articles from 2001 – 2004)
Downtowner
Raw Vision
Hamilton Journal News (two articles from 2001 – 2004)
America Oh Yes! web-site
American Oh Yes! advertisement in Raw Vision magazine for Emerging Artists exhibit
Channel 9 News (Cincinnati)

RAYMOND DOCUMENTARY IN THE WORKS

2010-06-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

Alfred Eaker and J Ross Eaker of Eaker Productions are producing/directing/filming a documentary about Raymond Thunder-Sky and Thunder-Sky Inc. They've done some initial shooting here in Cincinnati back in April and this weekend, interviewing Bill Ross, Antonio Adams, David Mack, and others. The purpose of the documentary is document Raymond’s life and influence through interviews with Cincinnati artists, co-workers, construction workers, and fans who knew Mr. Thunder-Sky. The cumulative effect of the feature-length film will be a portrait not just of Raymond as a man or artist, but as a cultural and spiritual figure who while he was alive was all but ignored, but through the persistence of his art-making and brave exploration of his own aesthetic universe, and through the persistence of those his life touched, became a touchstone for what it means to be creative and alive.

"Cat Power"

2010-06-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

Another lovely "Kitty-Cat Extravaganza" piece:

Eric Ruschman
"Cat Power"
found objects and enamel on shelf with enamel on two MDF panels
dimensions variable
2009

Also a little update: folks from the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) will be at the opening June 25, 2010, with some adoptable kittens and cats... We're donating 5% of any "Kitty-Cat" sales that evening to the SPCA...

WORLD DOMINATION, Phase 2: The Catalog

2010-06-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

A twenty-page, full-color, hardbound catalog that documents the incredible paintings and sculptures that make up "World Domination: New Works by Antonio Adams & Tony Dotson," opening June 25, 2010 at Thunder-Sky...

MEOW MIX: Some of the art in KITTY- CAT EXTRAVAGANZA!

2010-06-06T10:26:00.003-07:00

From top to bottom:
Cathy Dailey, "Kitty Butt" (acrylic painting)
William Crespo, "Cat People" (comic)
Nicole Manning, "Psycho Cat" (print)
Geri Shields, "Cat Painting"
V. A. Wooden, "Flying Cat" (video)
Vanessa Sorensen, "Brush Cat" (drawing)

KITTY-CAT EXTRAVAGANZA opens June 25, 2010 with a reception at Thunder-Sky, Inc. 4573
Hamilton Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45223

WORLD DOMINATION, Phase One: THE POSTER

2010-05-20T07:27:00.001-07:00

CALL TO ARTISTS!

2010-05-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

Actuality into Raymond Reality

2010-05-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Took these photos yesterday of some construction sites in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. A documentary is being made about Raymond and I wanted to include some of these images so you could see the actuality transformed into the Raymond Reality of the drawings...

Raymond and Antonio

2010-03-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

I wrote an essay about Raymond Thunder-Sky's and Antonio Adams' friendship and the "cultural revolution" it gave birth to here in Cincinnati... Here's a photo of Antonio last Sunday standing in front of the mural he designed and painted about Raymond (along with Bill Ross, Cedric Cox, and students from the Artworks program) on the side of the building Visionaries and Voices is in on Spring Grove Avenue here in Northside... The essay will be in Folk Art Messenger soon...

Out of Order Opening Night February 26 2010

2010-03-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

We counted: close to 200 people showed up. We debuted Milan DelVecchio's great animated film based on the works... A couple students from Miami University read poetry and stories based on the works in the show... Beautiful food by Kevin's Mom and Angie Nolte... A great night...

Raymond's Headstone

2010-03-05T15:15:00.001-08:00

Here it is. We had a fundraiser to purchase a headstone for Raymond back in October, and we finally got around to taking a photo of it. It's on his gravesite at Arlington Cemetary in Mt. Healthy. Raymond, Rest in Peace...

The "Out of Order" Opening Night February 26, 2010

2010-03-03T12:53:00.000-08:00

A couple photos from opening night of "Out of Order: Paintings & Other Creations by David Jarred & Kevin White." The joint was packed with people, poetry (one of the photos is of Miami University creative writing students reaidng some of their works), food, and the debut of Milan DelVecchio's film based on the works. Thanks to everyone for coming and hanging out... Show closes April 12, 2010. Next up: "Remember Me as a Good Thing: Words & Images by Kendra-Bayer Foreman & Dale Jackson." Opens April 30, 2010 with a reception 6 to 10 pm.

Trailer for "The Raw Amalgamated"

2010-02-23T08:19:00.000-08:00

"Th/FFP" trailer. from milan delVecchio on Vimeo.

Milan DelVecchio has created a great film utilizing the works in Thunder-Sky, Inc.'s new exhibit, "Out of Order: Paintings & Other Creations by David Jarred & Kevin White." The exhibit opens with a reception 6 to 10 pm on February 26, 2010. At 7, we will be screening the movie for the first time.

UNDER-SKY, INC.

2010-02-15T06:58:00.001-08:00

Here's a new sign that Antonio Adams made for the space under Thunder-Sky, Inc.'s gallery. We have an ongoing Saturday program (1 to 5 pm) where anyone interested can come and make art. Plus, during openings of Thunder-Sky, Inc. exhibits, we'll do "spillover" shows of work by different artists.

OUT OF ORDER: Don't believe the hype

2010-02-10T06:49:00.001-08:00

Thanks Dan Leesman for spreading the joy. Be on the lookout for The Next Wave. OUT OF ORDER opens February 26, 2010 with a reception 6 to 10 pm, THUNDER-SKY, INC. 4573Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45240. 513 823-8914. See you there.

Raymond and the Banks Project

2010-02-05T10:01:00.001-08:00

I keep thinking what Raymond would do with all this. How he would haunt the area, ghostly and focused, peering through the chainlink fence, silently becoming every construction-worker's friend. Watching over it and analyzing it all into his own dream. This is the stage when huge construction projects (like this one, the downtown Cincinnati Banks Project) have so much potential and raw beauty it seems like a vast sociological experiment. Maybe even a spiritual one. Definitely an aesthetic one. Raymond understood the strange, cruel loveliness of concrete, wire, flattened earth, people gathering to turn nothing into something, a place about to transform into apartment-buildings and parking garages and stores. But the irony and somehow too the joy of the whole enterpirse is that whatever happens on the site will never be as beautiful as what is inside your head at the moment you first see everyone busily preparing for Utopia.

The Skeleton of His Own Heritage

2010-01-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

Raymond Thunder-Sky was one of the last Mohawk Indians living in the Southwest Ohio region. His father, Richard Bright-Fire Thunder-Sky, was a chief of the tribe. Recently I googled around a little and found this info from a website about Native American history:

"The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the George Washington Bridge, the World Trace Center... For more than 120 years, six generations of Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) Indian iron workers, known for their ability to work high steel, helped shape New York City's skyline. Each week, hundreds of Mohawks commuted to Manhattan from their reservation in Canada, in order to frame the city's skyscrapers and bridges."

Raymond's obsession with construction, demolition, and what is put in place here in town really is a confirmation, it seems, of his own Mohawk legacy: his ancestors built iconic monoliths of steel. Raymond's art focuses on the interiors of demolished buildings, the wires and tubes and metal beams that hold the world together. Peeling away all the work it took to erect the structures, in his drawings, he seems to try to find the skeleton of his own heritage...

Tool-box Excavation

2010-01-02T07:15:00.000-08:00

Every object you see and touch has value far beyond its real-world purpose; there's a symbolism in all the knick-knacks and souvenirs and pieces of paper you accumulate.

Raymond must have known this instinctively. He left behind many tool-boxes. He used these tool-boxes both to carry around his art supplies, as well as repositories for all the things he acquired on his daily journeys around the city, in search of demolition sites to draw.

Last night, New Year's Night, we were at the gallery taking down the Xmas tree. I started going through a couple of the tool-boxes we have on display and got inspired enough to take some photos. Interspersed with markers and pens inside each tool-box were sad, beautiful objects Raymond must have found interesting and inspiring enough to keep, including some of the items in the above photos: A "No-WIMPS" button, a ticket stub to a Shrine Circus performance, a silver Lone Ranger mask, a monkey-wrench, a kazoo...

All of these objects speak about Raymond espeically now that he is gone. Silly, utilitarian, mysterious, weird, whimsical, these trinkets let us in on a part of Raymond's real life, while also providing peep-holes into his personal creativty, which is just another form of spirituality... What Raymond seemed to worship is the smallest of the small, the things we don't recognize as important and yet give off a strange glow (at least to those people who can see the glow).

I thought about Joseph Cornell, and how he would spends hours, days, months creating those shadow-boxes of his. He seemed to be so inspired by the objects he loved in the real world that he had to include those objects in a space small enough not to notice, yet large enough to encompass the whole world. He created small, precise versions of realities so powerful to him he needed a documentation of their worth.

In Raymond's tool-boxes, and in his drawings, I see the same kind of odd and touching need: to carry around small pieces of the world he cherished, to possess those moments he had to leave behind.

OUT OF ORDER

2009-12-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

Be on the lookout for this on doorknobs across the vicinity. Just our simple, weird way of getting the word out about David and Kevin's upcoming (and brilliant) exhibit at Thunder-Sky.

HARD KNOCKS: 2011

2009-12-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

June 2011 at Thunder-Sky, Inc.

Raymond Thunder-Sky was a prolific artist, and he spent a majority of his life perfecting his craft. He had a movie-star Indian chief for a father, and Austrian royalty for a mother. He was an ice-sculptor, honorary Shriner's clown, friend and ally to Cincinnati construction workers, and a mysterious toolbox-carrying icon. Raymond eventually had his work exhibited in galleries and museums across the country. Hell, he even has a gallery named after him.

What Raymond Thunder-Sky did not have before he passed away in 2004: a B.F.A., or an M.F.A., or a Ph.D. He did not go to art school.

So we figured we should curate an exhibit in the aforementioned gallery named after him about artists like Raymond who never got the chance, or maybe even chose not to, or dropped out of, art school.

If you are an artist who could not attend, chose not to attend, and/or dropped out of art school, send us some photos of your work via email. If you don't have photos of your work, call or email us and we will set up a time to touch base with you.

UNDER-SKY, INC.

2009-12-06T11:22:00.001-08:00

Making stuff: Here's the basement of Thunder-Sky, Inc: UNDER-SKY, INC. Where the magic happens every Saturday one to five PM.

Next Up: OUT OF ORDER

2009-11-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

Will Thunder-Sky, Inc. be showcasing other artists besides Raymond Thunder-Sky? Of course. Our mission is to spotlight unconventional artists in professional, unorthodox, new ways. Artists like David Jarred and Kevin White. Out of Order: David Jarred and Kevin White features the works of two artists who seem to be communicating to one another without actually knowing it. Kevin White's paintings and drawings (the bottom photo), usually large-scale, have the mischief and disquieting vitality of cartoon machinery learning how to take over the universe one big bite at a time. David Jarred's smaller-scale works (top ohoto), sometimes sculptural, sometimes two-dimensional, evoke memories that may not be in your head anymore, but have left an imprint like lines drawn by a finger on a steamy window. Seen together, the works of these two artists match one another's oddnesses with innocence, authority and style. This exhibit opens FEBRUARY 26, 2010, reception 6 to 10 pm.

Friday's RAYMOND NATION Opening

2009-11-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Some photos of opening night. What a great way to celebrate Raymond Thunder-Sky's legacy and resonance. Thanks to everyone who showed up. It was a blast. We're starting regular hours this week: Friday 6 to 9 PM, Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 PM. Or by appointment: (513) 823-8914.