Using large backlit sheets of clear plastic stretched across wooden posts on a stage as his canvas, Santa Monica lifeguard and shark-wrestler, Norton Wisdom, performs live improvised painting onstage with musicians, interpreting the music being improvised during the performance in real time. His paint is dilluted to stay malleable, so his paintings remain in continual motion, through Wisdom's use of paintbrushes, windshield wipers, sponges, and his own hands.
Unlike most painting, his live work does not aim for a finished image, but celebrates the process of fluid metamorphosis: a cornucopia of images emerging unpredictably from one another: clouds become bodies, bodies become musical instruments, buildings become rockets, and dinner plates become crowns worn by monarchs, in a labrynth of unexpected paths. The live experience of his work continually challenges your perception of what you think you are seeing, and your ability to predict how forms and shapes relate to each other.
A local gem of Los Angeles, Wisdom has been invited to paint all over the world, including Bali, Turkey, and Morocco. The venues for his painting performances range from punk clubs, to prestigious concert halls, to the Berlin Wall upon which he made guerilla paintings prior to its demolition. Wisdom performs regularly with Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction), Mike Watt (Minutemen), and Nels Cline (Geraldine Fibbers/Wilco/etc.), under the moniker, Banyan; however, he has also performed with a wide range of artists as diverse as the National Bamboo Orchestra of Bali, Beck, and my own band, The Autumns.
I conducted this interview with Norton Wisdom at his home in 2003, and took the accompanying photographs of Wisdom in 2003 and 2004.
Unlike most painting, his live work does not aim for a finished image, but celebrates the process of fluid metamorphosis: a cornucopia of images emerging unpredictably from one another: clouds become bodies, bodies become musical instruments, buildings become rockets, and dinner plates become crowns worn by monarchs, in a labrynth of unexpected paths. The live experience of his work continually challenges your perception of what you think you are seeing, and your ability to predict how forms and shapes relate to each other.
A local gem of Los Angeles, Wisdom has been invited to paint all over the world, including Bali, Turkey, and Morocco. The venues for his painting performances range from punk clubs, to prestigious concert halls, to the Berlin Wall upon which he made guerilla paintings prior to its demolition. Wisdom performs regularly with Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction), Mike Watt (Minutemen), and Nels Cline (Geraldine Fibbers/Wilco/etc.), under the moniker, Banyan; however, he has also performed with a wide range of artists as diverse as the National Bamboo Orchestra of Bali, Beck, and my own band, The Autumns.
I conducted this interview with Norton Wisdom at his home in 2003, and took the accompanying photographs of Wisdom in 2003 and 2004.
WISDOM: Well, I always feel like a jerk. I always wonder if I'm making an ass out of myself. I think, who needs this? I mean, self-doubt is inevitable. It amazes me when anyone comes up to me afterwards, and even wants to try to talk to me. It always seems like quite a phenomenon when the audience seems to have been on the same journey that I've been on. Even though I'm alone on stage, the whole room has been traveling on this special little planet in that theater together. Self-doubt is an important part of that process. Revealing that is an important part of what happens between you and the audience. It's part of the gravity that you share.
ELKINS: Can you articulate any "new paths" that you've discovered recently?
WISDOM: A rather unexpected one fell in my lap recently. Well, you've spent time in my backyard where I paint. The other day it started pouring rain on a bunch of the paintings I had left scattered throughout the yard, and the paint from each of them started to pool together into a river in the middle of my backyard. I can't even begin to tell you how beautiful it was.
ELKINS: The first time I saw you perform was with Nels Cline, and you've continued to work extensively with him over the years. How does he share in your appreciation of struggle onstage?
ELKINS: Can you articulate any "new paths" that you've discovered recently?
WISDOM: A rather unexpected one fell in my lap recently. Well, you've spent time in my backyard where I paint. The other day it started pouring rain on a bunch of the paintings I had left scattered throughout the yard, and the paint from each of them started to pool together into a river in the middle of my backyard. I can't even begin to tell you how beautiful it was.
ELKINS: The first time I saw you perform was with Nels Cline, and you've continued to work extensively with him over the years. How does he share in your appreciation of struggle onstage?
WISDOM: Well, I always feel like a jerk. I always wonder if I'm making an ass out of myself. I think, who needs this? I mean, self-doubt is inevitable. It amazes me when anyone comes up to me afterwards, and even wants to try to talk to me. It always seems like quite a phenomenon when the audience seems to have been on the same journey that I've been on. Even though I'm alone on stage, the whole room has been traveling on this special little planet in that theater together. Self-doubt is an important part of that process. Revealing that is an important part of what happens between you and the audience. It's part of the gravity that you share.
ELKINS: Can you articulate any "new paths" that you've discovered recently?
WISDOM: A rather unexpected one fell in my lap recently. Well, you've spent time in my backyard where I paint. The other day it started pouring rain on a bunch of the paintings I had left scattered throughout the yard, and the paint from each of them started to pool together into a river in the middle of my backyard. I can't even begin to tell you how beautiful it was.
ELKINS: The first time I saw you perform was with Nels Cline, and you've continued to work extensively with him over the years. How does he share in your appreciation of struggle onstage?
ELKINS: Can you articulate any "new paths" that you've discovered recently?
WISDOM: A rather unexpected one fell in my lap recently. Well, you've spent time in my backyard where I paint. The other day it started pouring rain on a bunch of the paintings I had left scattered throughout the yard, and the paint from each of them started to pool together into a river in the middle of my backyard. I can't even begin to tell you how beautiful it was.
ELKINS: The first time I saw you perform was with Nels Cline, and you've continued to work extensively with him over the years. How does he share in your appreciation of struggle onstage?
in this box: