Art is where his heart is By GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original Publication: February 27, 2006)
Be a patron A portion of the proceeds from the sale of works in Michael Singletary's
"The Katrina Jazz Suite Series" is earmarked for survivors of Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita. For more on Singletary and the series, log on to MichaelSingletary.com.
You can reach him at 212-631-3530 or m.singletary@verizon.net.
Michael J. Singletary has always worn his heart on his art. The Mount Vernon
painter was among those who turned to the canvas for solace in the days after
the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "I did this 'Guernica'-type painting,"
he says of his "9/11/01," whose richly textured, nightmarish visions echo
Pablo Picasso's masterwork. He also curated the "Artists' September 11 Response
Show" at the Pelham Art Center in May 2002.
So when Hurricane Katrina hit in August, he turned to palette and brush. "Then I thought: 'I have to do more than just paint'," he says. What he did was to create a series of small pen-and-ink and watercolor works for a Nov. 6 benefit for The Katrina Fund, which the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund has established to aid Gulf Coast survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The event was sponsored by Mount Vernon art collectors Gail Wright Sirmans, an attorney, and her husband, Meredith Sirmans. "The Katrina Jazz Suite Series" didn't end there. It now numbers 30 works, on textured watercolor paper — about a third of which have been sold. "Whenever I feel I can bring attention to the story, I'm going to do a piece," Singletary says. For his efforts, he was among those "Heroes of Healing" recently honored by several mental health groups at the New York Society for Ethical Culture in Manhattan.
The arresting, elegant "Katrina Jazz Suite" features stark portraits of Louis Armstrong, Harry Connick Jr., Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis, to name a few, awash in moody blues, greens and mauves. "It's memories and music, all that was wiped out," says Singletary, who by day is a radio feature producer at CBS/Westwood One. It's also some of the strongest work he has done in a career that spans roughly 35 years and more than 200 exhibits at The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, Purchase College's Neuberger Museum of Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. Singletary has always adored art and all that jazz.
His large, striking portraits of saxophonists John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins were used in Spike Lee's "Mo' Better Blues" (1990). "The Blackeye Pea Eaters," a 1995 acrylic that teems with food, pattern and life, acknowledges with affection a meal with musician/friends at Sylvia's in Harlem as well as Vincent van Gogh's 1885 oil painting "The Potato Eaters". But while Singletary's earlier canvases are big and/or colorful, the works in "The Katrina Jazz Suite" are meditative, if not mournful, embracing American icons not necessarily associated with music. Here Rosa Parks — seen in profile, eyes closed — contemplates something we cannot glimpse. Coretta Scott King smiles across time, a young beauty perhaps not yet touched by tragedy. Even the rakish Jelly Roll Morton is pensive at the keyboard, lost in thoughts and memories.
"All artists have passion. But Michael's ability to connect his passion with the world and his spirit is extraordinary," says collector/fund-raiser Gail Wright Sirmans. The intimacy of these works comes in part from their size — 5 -by-7 inches or 8-by-11 inches. "It's a smaller medium, a different medium, a quicker medium. I wanted something that was not outrageous in terms of price," Singletary says of the pieces, which sell for hundreds of dollars, instead of the thousands his paintings command.
Those paintings fill the Singletary home, a handsome red-brick Tudor at the end of a serene cul-de-sac. While he talks in the living room, his wife, Michelle, looks on from a seat by a window. He is all playfulness. When you note that food is as crucial to his work as jazz, he clasps his abdomen on both sides, looks down and says, "Obviously." She is all quiet refinement and loveliness, carefully bringing out his paintings and interrupting only to stir some recollection. "We have our moments," she says. But mostly they meet over shared passions: Their pride in 28-year-old daughter Monique, an architect and engineer who is editor of the newsletter for the African Burial Ground Project in Manhattan. Their love of art — Michelle Singletary is also a painter, whose work has taken a decorative turn, mixing flowers and geometrics. Their sense of humor. Many of Michael Singletary's loves come together in his "Watermelon Eaters" series, which depicts all kinds of people relishing the fruit. "I wanted to erode the myth and stereotypes about watermelon eating and a strict etiquette governed by watermelon tasting," Singletary says in the book he's writing, "A Few of My Favorite Things: An Artist's Passion for Food & Jazz."
The same kind of wry commentary pervades his latest painting, "The Supremes," which shows the members of the U.S. Supreme Court posing for a formal portrait in their black robes — except that their heads have been replaced by apples and oranges. The chief justice's head is zebra-like. The work can be read as a study of a divided America, but Singletary says his point is simpler: "When you listen to (the justices) off the bench, they're just regular people." He has confidence in the justices and particularly in the power of an office to transform the person who holds it. Recently, he had a taste of judicial responsibility when he served on a jury. "You may go into the situation saying, 'I don't like this and that.' But you change. You go into the courtroom and say, 'Let me look at the facts'." Then again, Singletary is an optimist and as such believes in the power of art to comfort and in New Orleans' capacity for resurrection. "The music will always be there. The art will always be there as a healing force. There will always be a New Orleans. We always spring back. It's just the American spirit."
