arts spotlight ... ::....'. .. _ ■ .. - - ... ........ ... , ..... .. ; Mayhew's work is a much heralded reflection of the American landscape By SARAMMA METHRATTA Collegian Arts Writer There are some people who glance at a painting and wonder what all the fuss is about. There are others who gaze dreamily at the same painting, nodding, smiling, perhaps wishing that they could enter this world of ideal color and form. And then there are those who have not only entered this world, but created it, filling in shades of beauty and possibility with a potpourri of pig ments and brushes. Professor of art Richard Mayhew exemplifies the contemporary art ist. The fact that he is a Black artist who has contributed substantially to the art world made him a natural choice for Bucknell University’s Since the Harlem Renaissance. . . program. Excited by this proposal to exclusively showcase Black art ists from the Harlem Renaissance to the present, Mayhew convinced the show’s coordinators to include Penn State in their four-city tour. The show, then, will be presented at the University through November 17, with Mayhew joining a panel discussion titled Afro-American Art and the Contemporary Scene. The discussion is part of this weekend’s symposium and will take place to morrow afternoon from 3:15 to 4:45 at the Paul Robeson Cultural Cen ter. No stranger to recognition, May hew has collected enough honors and awards during his career to make even the strictest nonaesthete take notice. For his landscape oil paintings, Mayhew was named Aca demician of the National Academy of Design in New York, an honor dubbed the “Academy Award” of painting by artists. Mayhew also Concert will help hungry Starvation in America is the subject of an upcoming benefit concert, the second Rock Against Hunger. Three local bands will perform at 8 p.m. tomorrow night in the HUB Ballroom. Admission is $2 to this concert sponsored by the College Democrats, with all proceeds going to the Oxfam America relief group. The Weathermen, a high school band, will open the show. Band members Nathan Calhoun, guitar and vocals, Jim Hollis, bass, and Jesse Mills, drums, play Velvet Underground and ’6os punk in fluenced originals. With Glenn Sadin on guitar, Jeff Edmunds on bass and Doug Ed munds on drums, The Seen will play an entirely new set of original neo-psychedelic/folk/dance tunes. Public Service will close the Bands update: Editor’s note: The following is the first in an occasional series of arti cles updating the activites of local bands.. By NATALIE NICHOLS Collegian Arts Writer Seen One of State College’s-most inno vative young bands, The Seen has returned from a disappointing trip to Europe to concentrate on song writing and recording. The foremost question in any Seen fan’s mind is, “What happened in Europe?” The band members had Lead singer R.T. (Rodney Thompson) and guitarist Paul Young of the Earthtones perform at the 19th annual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. The band will appear at a University anti-apartheid benefit next Saturday night. received the Academy’s Grumbach er Gold Medal and Merit Award, as well as awards from the Ford Foun dation and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Not one to idle away the hours between awards, either, he has been involved in solo and group exhibitions with such institutions as California’s Young Gallery and New York’s Queens Museum and Grand Central Galle ries. This past year, Mayhew took a sabbatical leave to study and paint in the Western Ucited States, travel ling through Mexico, Arizona and California. He described the experi ence as a lesson in “creative inter nalization.” Rather than propping up an easel in the desert or making only preliminary sketches of the landscape, Mayhew merely sat on hillsides in these arid states and looked. He then embarked on a California retreat, funded by the Djerassi Foundation, and painted what he had seen not by remem bering the experience, but by reliv ing it. “There was this kind of spiritual encounter that I felt when I paint ed,” he said. “I was actually back in the desert again, looking. I got so caught up in the fluid joy of creativ ity that, when I saw the finished works, I didn’t know where they came from.” But come they did. Mayhew’s desert sabbatical proved to be one of the most artistically prolific periods of his life: He fin ished 20 paintings in 3 months. Mayhew’s work in the Western United States was his latest attempt to capture the American landscape by region, a project that has span ned the past 20 years and is just now nearing completion. He is intrigued by the challenge of painting this show with their upbeat “ska” dance rhythms. The five-member band includes Tim Wilson, lead vocals, Chris Manos, guitar and vocals, John Patriarca, drums and vocals, John DiTieri, saxo phone and Jeff Banks, bass. The first Rock Against Hunger benefit, held April 22, raised $5OO for African hunger relief, said Sue Weinstein of the College Demo crats. Both The Weathermen and Public Service played at that con cert, along with Sadin and Doug Edmunds and the now-defunct Ga tors. It is likely that more of these performances will be held, Weinstein said, adding, “We’d like to have Rock Against Hunger ev ery semester.” (Left to right) Bass guitarist Jeff Edmunds, drummer Doug Edmunds, and lead guitarist Glenn Sadin are The Seen’s —by Natalie Nichols personnel. The band will appear at Rock Against Hunger tomorrow evening. Most like the local scene but many want to branch out plans to tour in areas of France and Germany, but the members were hardly ever on the continent at the same time! Glenn Sadin, the group’s guitarist, explained that dis organization was the band’s main problem. Jeff Edmunds, The Seen’s bassist, lived in France for about six months before Sadin arrived early this sum mer with Doug Edmunds, the band’s drummer and Jeff’s brother. Jeff told the other members he was unhappy with the atmosphere in France because he felt the French didn’t go out to hear live music very often and have terrible musical tastes. Because of this, Jeff felt that The Seen didn’t stand a chance in terrain that differs so dramatically from coast to coast. “If there is always that freshness, that daring in the work itself,” he said, “you won’t grow stale as an artist. With the American landscape, you’re continuously coming into contact with new color, new lighting, new space, new inspiration.” For exam ple, rt in the deserts where I was this past summer, a misty haze hangs in the air; the greens are a grayish violet green, and there’s orange dirt, purple sand, pinks everywhere. It gets to the point where you realize France and went home, Glenn and Doug decided to stay in Europe for a while. They travelled to Germany wpere they stayed with friends and spent most of their time writing and practicing new songs. Their friends finally convinced the two to play once at a local bar, where they were well-received. Meanwhile, back in the United States, Jeff was also writing a lot of new material. When they finally got back together, they used this “col lective burst of energy,” as Sadin' called it, to put together an entire new complement of songs that they will play in their upcoming perfor mance at 8 p.m. tomorrow night in the HUB Ballroom. Given their local success, which includes brisk sales of their short tape, In The Groove, the next step for The Seen is an album. The mem bers are recording a demo tape in hopes that a small record company will take interest in them, Sadin said. If not, they will release the material themselves on cassette. The Seen members plan to send copies of this new material to col lege radio stations around the coun try, generate some airplay and get feedback from the DJs. “We feel that college radio is where it’s at today,” Sadin said. The album should be released in a year, and if all goes as planned, the Seen will start touring the country soon after. The band’s latest recording ven ture is the inclusion of its version of the classic, “Hey, Joe” on a Ger man compilation album. Sadin wanted to update everyone on lhe condition of the long-awaited Seen single: Keep waiting. Due to quality problems with the record’s pressing, it has not been released. There is no debut date set for the fr; *•:•::::!:•:.•:•:••••••••••• .••••••• • '. . ?,?•• - tr , e:'•••/.t..7 4. ••10.• • • • ..1 • IS' 7. ' • • t .L. • - . . . . . . that the more you paint the Ameri can landscape, the more you see it, and the more you see it, the more you realize you haven’t gotten it yet.” Born and raised in Long Island, NY, Mayhew did get an early intro duction to the creative conscious ness. “New York is the art market,” he said, “so it attracts the best artists. I learned how to creatively survive not just financially, but aesthetically. If an artist can achieve that, his life will be one of ecstasy. Of course, an artist must be 5.- '•-'|..;'^V record, which contains the originals “Stopping On Go” and “When I Was Young.” Finally, The Seen expressed its gratitude: “We appreciate WPSU playing our recordings as much as they do and we’re very appreciative of the support from our friends, known and unknown, in State Col lege,” Sadin said. Public Service State College’s liveliest band has also been concentrating on song writing, said John Patriarca, the band’s drummer. They played all original material for the first time at the 19th annual Central Pennsyl vania Festival of the Arts and got a great audience response. People stood in the middle of a downpour to cheer the band on, Patriarca said. “Every time we play, more people come to see us.” The band members are recording a demo tape that they will send to various record companies. They have been encouraged by MCA to send material and hope to get a recording contract with a label soon. Until something comes through for it, Public Service will play “a gig or two” locally, Patriarca noted. However, he added “We really don’t want to play in the bars.” Along with the Rock Against Hunger bene fit Saturday night, the band will play at an Anti-Apartheid rally on Oct. 11 on campus. The Weathermen The Weathermen, probably the youngest band in State College (the members are all about 15 years old), are now playing all original enough of a business person to be able to support his painting, and this involves knowing how to network exhibiting in national and group shows. This is the way people get to know you, get to know your work. Some people find the business of art retarding, but for me it was stimu lating.” More stimulating from a creative viewpoint was Mayhew’s acquaint ance with the Hudson Valley paint ers, a group of artists who came to Long Island every summer to paint the sand dunes and bay area. “As a teenager, I used to go fishing in the bay all the time,” he said, “just so I could watch them work. Finally they looked at me and said, ‘Let’s see you paint something,’ and I did.” So impressed with Mayhew was medical illustrator and land scape painter James Wilson that he took on the 14-year-old boy as an apprentice. Practicing his art diligently throughout his teens, Mayhew had become a virtuoso of form by the time he was 20. “I could draw and paint upside down and backwards. But it wasn’t part of my own crea tive process. I had to learn to be myself, and that took some search ing and growing.” In pursuit of that elusive element of self, Mayhew went to study at Columbia University, and later at the Arts Students League and the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York. Academia provided Mayhew with constant stimulation: He studied with such acclaimed artists as Edwin Dickinson, Hans Hoffman, Max Beckman and Rubin Tam. Mayhew further stoked the creative fires with the help of fellowships and grants: He spent four years wending his way about material after playing all covers at the first Rock Against Hunger last April. A relatively new band, The Weathermen made a fast change from playing songs of 1960’s bands such as The Monkees and The Who to featuring their own music, which is influenced by the Velvet Under ground and ’6os punk bands such as the Standells, the group’s lead sing er Nathan Calhoun said. Calhoun, who also plays guitar in the band; said that the group, which includes Jesse Mills on drums and Jim Hollis on bass, has been togeth er for about a year, although Mills just recently joined. Although The Weathermen per form mostly at local parties, the band did play the Arts Festival this summer. Their next gig is the sec ond Rock Against Hunger concert tomorrow night. The members of The Weathermen have no future plans yet. “We just want to have some fun with this,” Calhoun said. Earthtones Unlike Public Service, which plays a mixture of upbeat ska and reggae tunes mixed with funk and soul, the Earthtones perform a purer form of the folk music that originated in Jamaica, which the band calls “crucial” reggae. With Paul Young on guitar, Bill Wood on bass, Rodney Thompson, better known as R.T., on vocals, Terry Griffith on keyboards and Wallace George on drums, the Earthtones play cover songs of such important reggae artists as Bob Marley, Garland Jeffreys, ÜB4O, Black Uhuru and Bunny Wailer, among others. The Daily Collegian Friday, Oct. 4. 1985 Europe, contemplating Renais sance art and the contemporary art scene. When not busy studying or paint ing, Mayhew explored other outlets for his creative force. He went from a stint as a mime dancer to one as a professional jazz singer to an off- Broadway actor. However diverse these modes of expression, Mayhew said, each contributed to his paint ing style. “Mime is all about the illusion in gesture,’’ he said, “and dance about gesture and space. So these qualities seeped into my paint ing. When I was singing, I did a series of paintings based on music.” Mayhew’s style today is best de scribed as neo-American Impres sionism. He expresses the joy of life in such a lyrical manner that the New York Times recently called him “the painting poet.” On canvas, Mayhew evokes a sensitive, roman tic warmth by using all soft edges, no hard silhouettes. He melts one image into the next with nuances of color so that the subject becomes elusive. “I use a lot of colors and a lot of warm and cool tones,” he said. “Warm comes to the eye first, and cool is receding. So if you make them very close in intensity, the eye takes a while to see them, and you get a very subtle pulse.” To achieve the desired effect, Mayhew favors a scumbling-glazing technique, which entails dragging paint across the canvas with a brush and palette knife. Once he has completed a painting, Mayhew’s interest in it wanes to near oblivion. “When I put the brush down,” he said, “it’s like an actor walking off the stage he can hear the applause, but that joyful essence is gone. The moment of creativity is the only moment of truth.” . Billboard lists week's top pop singles By The Associated Press HOT SINGLES l.“Oh Sheila” Ready for the World (MCA) 2. “Money For Nothing” Dire Straits (Warner Bros.) 3. On Me” A-Ha (Warner Bros.) 4.“ Saving All My Love For You” Whitney Houston (Arista) s.“Part-Time Lover” Stevie Won der (Tamla) 6. 01’ Night” John Cougar Mellencamp (Riva) 7. “Dancing in the Street” Mick Jagger & David Bowie (EMI-Ameri ca) B.“ Cherish” Kool & The Gang (De- Lite) “The songs we pick are a wide variety of different kinds of songs, everything from dance hall rhythms, which are just a really happy kind of thing, to really biting, socio-political songs, all in a roots kind of vein,” Young said. The Earthtones have performed in some interesting places, but the most unique experience has to be their recent concert at Huntingdon Prison a maximum security insti tution where several members of MOVE, the politically radical Phila delphia group that created much controversy earlier this year, are imprisoned. The guards would not allow dancing, Young said, and in structed the band members not to encourage it. Despite this draw back, Young felt that the inmates enjoyed the show. Ordinarily, of course, the band likes its audience to dance up a storm. “We want people to dance, it makes the biggest difference in the world,” Young said. The Earthtones get people rock ing regularly at the Scorpion on Wednesday nights, and are sched uled to play at an Anti-Apartheid rally next Saturday on campus. They played at the Arts Festival this summer, as well as the Phyrst and the Brewery. More recently the band held two outside concerts at the Kern Building and had a gig at* Theta Chi fraternity. All these different engagements are evidence of the Earthtones’ uni versal appeal. Everyone from Deadheads to fraternity members enjoy listening to the band’s music. Young said the Earthtones’ small complement of fans is growing. “We have a lot of regulars,” he claimed, mostly when the band plays week end gigs. Friction hopes that video will its launch career including love, social affairs and politics. Despite, or perhaps because of the fact that the band’s primary goal for their songs is to reflect real life, it has been regarded as something of a radical punk outfit by some members of its audience. Hardcore enthusiasts made up the bulk of the group’s initial following in their home base of Harrisburg. “They wore Mohawks and everything,” Whiteman said. “They didn’t consider us a punk band musically they liked our attitude. I talked to one of We 11... life’s been pretty good to Friction of late. It wh ° told me ° f y ° U ’ re Friction's main venue, the quartet has found ite opi»rtu than any weaknesses or politics on the group’s part), but in oHdLI mateS you can catch this quartet >noneof its periodic local o“ sp ° t g" he ov ) ners - reticence, Whiteman is gratified that performances tonight at the Brewery. the group packed the Phyrst in the midst of a snowstorm Drummer John Whiteman reported that he and the at its j ast state College appearance. “We always attract other members of the band vocalist Craig Matthews, an auc Kence that appreciates music for its own sake, bassist Jon Mertz, and new guitarist Jim Gross are just ra ther than looking to hear what’s familiar,” he noted, about finished recording a new album that they hope to The band members feel it’s time to expand their scope release at the end of the year. Heartened by the positive of performance and find more of a following. They’ve reception given their all-original E.P. Dancing Now (it a i rea dy opened for the Members, Mari Wilson, and Dez charted at 93 in the college radio-oriented Gavin Report ), Dickerson (principal guitarist on Prince’s 1999.) A north they're taking more chances this time around. eastern college tour is on their agenda, as is a possible “We’ve always tried to mix our influences Talking relocation to New York or, better still, Baltimore, Md. Heads, the Clash, funk, jazz, rockabilly —to come up with They’ve created a video that they plan to submit to MTV’s something unique,” Whiteman said. “We’ll take a rhythm Basement Tapes competition as well as smaller television you’d think would go into a rap song, say, and mix it with stations in the Harrisburg area and clubs in New York more rock-oriented rhythms. We try to keep a strong and Canada. Hopefully, the new album will prove suc dance groove above all.” The upcoming record features cessful as an entree to a major label recording contract, some experimentation with horn sections and five-piece Were Friction to become a major success, Whiteman percussion. Part of the credit for the band’s greater knows what kind of band he’d like it to be. “I really eclecticism is due to Gross, who Whiteman praised for admire Talking Heads,” he said. “I like the way they “being able to do anything right off. He’s very flexible, keep the band going, even though they all do other adventurous.” His guitar playing reminds Whiteman of projects too. That way, they always have new ideas for avant-gardists Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp. when they come back to the band. I hope we can be that Friction’s lyrics deal with a variety of fruitful topics, way, too.” By PAT GRANDJEAN Collegian Arts Writer I'm sorry about your love affair that’s just gone sour I'm sorry 'bout your musical chairs. I'm sorry that your life is not a bed of roses But no one ever said life was fair. Friction, “Musical Chairs” The GUESS Watch 0 A Young Mens Shop EXCLUSIVE! 100 in stock. Water resistant and a 3 year battery. For him & her - $42 P.S. A great selection of paisley prints have just arrived ‘VounqlHmSlop \J fQBM'VASO"E» STATE COLLEGE- CALDER SO. II Shop doily 10 to 5:30-Thurs. to 8:30 ALTOONA- ON 11th AVE. Write a letter to a friend! Friction COMMANDO ' TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX«»i. SILVER PICTURES rar-o. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER ’COMMANDO” RAE DAWN CHONG "JAMES HORNER i£S JOSEPH LOEB III« MATTHEW WEISMAN “"'S STEVEN E DESOUZA JOSEPH LOEB lilt MATTHEW WEISMAN «STEVEN E. DESOUZA '“‘fJOEL SILVER MARK L LESTER R' 1 Minucrto