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| Photograph by George Mitchell |
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| The painting by Lennie Jones |
Arts for ACT Gallery is pleased to present "MOJO HANDS' Opening Friday, February 3rd, from 6 to 10pm. This visionary celebration of America's musical heritage featuring paintings by primitive folk artist, Lennie Jones and the photography of pioneering Blues Historian, George Mitchell. Jones has painted his rendition of several of Mitchell's blues photographs.
Lennie Jones is an outsider artist, a primitive self-taught painter of the holistic Blues experience as he envisions and experienced it. As a young boy, his South Louisiana father instilled in me a deep love of Blues music, drawing pictures, and endless swampy wilderness. His mother was also a talented artistic influence. These positive connections luckily cradled him through a very troubled youth, and have remained yet the most powerful motivations in his adulthood. After his father left, the bulk of his youthful years were heavily influenced by a wonderful vibrant one-eyed Southern African-American woman aptly named “Tex.” She was a substitute for his mother, who was constantly away pursuing other ventures. Tex has a boisterous an’ soulful love of Blues, God, booze and fishin’... all of which became very important to him as well.
As a traveling blues musician, gigging in New York City in March, 1968, he met and heard the incredible Albert King. His unique combination of incomparable power, heartfelt pain, passionate subtlety and compelling musicianship moved Lennie's soul like no music ever had before or since...Opening for the original Canned Heat,shakin’ hands with Muddy Waters, Bill Monroe, Bill Graham, seein’ the immortal Jimmy Reed and giggin’ for Zappa further solidified his love of playing, hearing and living the Blues.
Unfortunately, years of continued professional playing resulted in a habitual wrestling match with his alcohol demons, and repeated brushes with the law. As often lamented by blues men, “when you let the Devil ride, he wanna drive.” This struggle culminated with his final arrest following a late night gig in a rural Southern enclave in March, 1980. Police roughed me up, which I fully deserved. Thrown into a tiny dark jail, I was chained to an unfortunate black convict who had murdered his wife that very night with a knife. Early the next morning, the Lennie and the other convict were paraded barefoot through several blocks of a small town and presented to a hard-time judge. This was his very own Crossroads, and he never drank alcohol again. Possibly the best night and finest morning of his entire life.
Only a few years later, miraculously overlooking my “shady” past and welcoming my unique wilderness skills, I was hired by the Federal government as a Ranger in the remote Florida Everglades. There I wandered for over twenty years, working alone and chasing poachers, renegade ‘gators, smugglers and other wonderful characters. For many years, I have thrived in the mysterious and primitive wilderness, happy, healthy and blessed with a timeless source of spiritual inspiration to my art and soul...An’ the music never left him!
After retiring from the federal government, Lennie picked up a paint brush and started painting his passion. Painting his beloved Blues musicians and instruments. He works primarily with acrylic paint on linen canvas, as well as occasional works on driftwood that he has discovered deep in the Everglades. Lennie’s subjects generally revolve around Southern blues & roots music themes, and his creations are colorful, soulful & singularly unique. Lennie’s completed works have included Festival & Event Posters, CD Covers, Magazine & Media, Prints & Portraits and he has received a wide variety of appreciative testimonials & accolades.
George
Mitchell has been making serious photographs since his senior year in high
school, when he began photographing traditional blues artists he located or
visited with a Kodak Instamatic camera. He began making more professional
photographs in 1967, when the University of Minnesota School of Mass
Communication and Journalism lent him a camera, and his wife and he went to
Mississippi for the summer to record, photograph, and interview traditional
blues musicians. This trip resulted in a
master of arts paper and also his first book, Blow My Blues Away,
published by Louisiana State University Press.
For several years in the late 1960's and early 1970's, he was a reporter
in Columbus, Georgia. Under the tutelage
of the photographers at the Columbus Ledger, he took the photographs which
appeared with his stories. At the
Columbus Times, he was a reporter, a photographer, and later executive
editor. During that period, he produced
his second book of photographs and text, I'm Somebody Important. He then
decided to become a photography teacher, and returned to the University of
Minnesota where he studied photography teaching in both the journalism and art
departments. He taught photography in
Atlanta at four high schools for a total of 25 years. He also authored five more books of
photographs and interviews.
There have
been several solo exhibitions of his photographs over the years, including
three in Atlanta; one in Columbus, Georgia (a number of his photographs are in
the permanent collection of the Columbus Museum of Art); Sacramento,
California; Utrecht, Holland; and Fort Myers.
Mitchell,
who spent his first two years in Fort Myers, before moving to Atlanta, has
returned to Fort Myers, where he continues to photograph for exhibition and
publication.
BOOKS BY GEORGE MITCHELL
(All are books of
photographs, most with text as well, both by Mitchell)
This collaboration of Jones and Mitchell is not to be missed. Jones will have all new works and many of Mitchell's photographs have never been seen in this area.
