Speaking in fiddles

Not every violin is a 400-year-old Maggini, sold for seven figures in an auction house. You can pick up a fiddle online for a hundred bucks. Either way, it’s unlikely one would succumb to the urge to hammer bottle caps into the instrument. Self-taught artist Mr. Imagination did just that, encrusting three violins with beer tops, all to be sold via silent auction at Symphony Center Thursday 24.

For the first Painted Violins: Bridges Between Art and Music, 32 of the city’s leading artists, architects and designers teamed with the League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association to raise funds for CSO outreach programs, such as the Crain-Maling CSO Youth Auditions, by creating one-of-a-kind artworks that use violins as a canvas. (The instruments were unplayable and donated.) Penny Van Horn, former president of the League, championed the idea. In the tradition of Cows on Parade, the pieces range from Mr. Imagination’s wacky sculpture to the sleek and stringless “iViolin” by documentary filmmaker and philanthropist Donna LaPietra. We asked four artists to explain their inspiration.

John Himmelfarb
Mixed-media artist
Double Cadenza
“While I made a lot of art as a child, I spent even more time playing violin and piano. I played in the Chicago Youth Symphony and the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. I made the decision to become a visual artist junior year of college and gave up the violin. Many years later, I tried to pick it up again. I worked hard for a year before realizing that my practice time was coming out of my studio time. Once more, I gave it up—though not easily. Cutting this violin in two and turning one half into my brush holder symbolizes this rather violent transition and makes reference to Jasper Johns’s coffee can. The idea may have been suggested by seeing Christina Courtin shred her violin during a MusicNOW concert at the Harris Theater.”

Paul Sierra
Painter
Concerto for Nature
“Classical music has been a part of my life since I was a child. My father, a lawyer, wanted to be a violinist and had a large collection of classical records. Every weekend was a classical marathon in our house. At age seven, I knew how many symphonies Beethoven had written and could tell that Tchaikovsky wasn’t for me. Today I have over 200 classical CDs. When I paint, I play some of my favorite composers: Sibelius, Nielsen, Rachmaninoff. Or Carlos Santana. What collection is complete without ‘Black Magic Woman’? The musician in my painting is playing his instrument for nature.”

Carl Johnson
Owner, Carl Johnson’s Gallery, Galena
Ode to Michigan Avenue
“My wife and I live one week a month in Chicago, so I decided to use landmarks near our downtown condo as inspiration. The new landmark ‘The Bean,’ or Cloud Gate, is on the front of my violin. As an artist who enjoys painting architecture, I decided that an iconic Chicago landmark, the Symphony Center, would be perfect for the reverse side.”

Carol Ross Barney
Founder, Ross Barney Architects
Pizzicato #1
“Paint a violin. It sounded like an easy assignment, but it wasn’t. As an architect, I am used to working on assignment first and inspiration second. ‘Form follows function,’ Louis Sullivan famously said. Paint a violin as what? Paint a violin for what? Remodel a violin so it can do what? The deadline was approaching. As I was discussing this dilemma with my best friend in a restaurant over breakfast, a woman was eavesdropping at the next table. ‘I can’t help overhearing,’ she said. ‘Will your violin be about Chicago?’ The idea came to me instantaneously. I would create a maquette of Picasso’s Chicago landmark that would integrally and lovingly hold the violin.”

The CSO auctions off violins Thursday 24 at Symphony Center. Visit cso.org to download registration and bid forms.

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