“When the Jazzman’s testifying, a faithless man believes.”
- Jazzman, by Carole King
Ron Anderson isn’t a typical jazz artist. He plays horn on occasion, but he generally keeps his music to himself within the comforts of his own home.
"I don’t want to insult any real musicians out there. When I play, it’s sort of like when someone sings really well in the shower," he says.
Anderson’s artistic dexterity has more to do with translating the music onto a blank canvas than his playing prowess. A longtime painter, most of Anderson’s pieces reflect a funky, soulful vibe inspired by seedy underground jazz clubs in the 1940s and ‘50s, when bebop was king and Miles Davis defined cool.
“I paint the feeling of how I’d like to play music,” he says.
One of Anderson’s series, “The Lady in the Red,” pinpoints this objective, revisiting nightly club scenes complete with smoke, musicians, lingering patrons, flowing spirits and a recurring focal point of a woman wearing a red dress. Anderson is drawn to red because of its symbolic power. The woman’s purpose in each piece, however – whether she’s dancing, singing or simply fading into the crowd – is left up to the viewer’s interpretation.
“I intentionally try to leave my paintings open-ended so you can look at it and interpret something, and then look at it later, and interpret something completely different,” Anderson says. “I just want to create a mood and tell a story and keep coming back to that story. I was inspired by a dance teacher, who was the model and who wore a red dress, in this series and I kept coming back to her because it intrigued me.”
Anderson also tells his students at the Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD), where he is an adjunct instructor in fashion design and oil painting, to try and follow a theme. Every major artist, he says, is “major” because of repetition: they produced a body of work with one familiar concept.
His own “Red Dress” series is just the surface of a larger collection he’s produced in more than 20 years behind the easel. Other persistent themes in Anderson’s repertoire include urban scenes (Lafayette Street, for example, is a manipulation of a specific corner in New York City’s SoHo District), boxing, baseball and, of course, more jazz.
"I think a lot of these themes tie in together – the jazz, the underground boxing, the city and its energy and the places that always have moments of drama. I’m telling stories that don’t get told easily so I can hopefully get your attention and keep you involved,” Anderson says.
Some of Anderson’s paintings are indeed bold, particularly his “Edge of Midnight” series, which he simply describes as “a little seedy.”
“These have scenes that focus on people doing things they may not normally do or in situations they may not normally be in. It might be because it’s 11:59 p.m. and in that minute before midnight, things sort of change; we’re on the edge,” Anderson says.
Anderson has three public art projects, including “The Rule of Law” at the Supreme Court of Ohio and “George Washington Williams” at the Ohio Statehouse.
A third, his “Cargo” series, was completed in 2001 and is on permanent display at The King Arts Complex. The series is split into three panels, each depicting scenes on various parts of a slave ship and each measuring 4 feet by 23 feet, which represents the space slaves were allotted on a typical vessel.
“That was the most emotional work I’ve ever done – from the research of the history through the exhibit opening, in which I had a woman approach me weeping,” Anderson says.
Still, Anderson tries to avoid “making statements” with his work, which has also been exhibited in New York City and all over Central Ohio. His objective is simply to put on some classic jazz music, pick up his paint brush and tell a story every day.
“I don’t want my work to be too complicated,” Anderson says. “My paintings, even though they’re stills, are animated. I want them to be living, moving. I want them to keep you thinking and keep you interested in the story.”
To view more of Anderson’s work, visit www.ronandersonstudio.com.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Anderson says he wants his paintings to be “living and moving.” He does so with the “painterly” technique, in which there are visible brush strokes.
“I prefer painterly because it is not overly controlled, it’s not polished,” Anderson says. “It is slightly out of focus and I think it adds more animation, more movement, to the piece. You can see the brush strokes and you can tell the artist has been there.”
Anderson walks CityScene through his “She Loves to Dance” series, which entails three paintings:
“This series was directly influenced by a song She Just Wants to Dance by blues musician Keb’ Mo’. The song has this feeling to it – it takes you back to the juke joints, the speakeasies, the underground clubs and their bootleg whisky. The song talks about this woman who comes into the place and she just wants to dance. She isn’t there to pick up a man or anything like that; she’s just there because she loves the music. And she’s going to dance and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her. That idea was very powerful to me and inspired me to paint this series.”