In the summer of 2007, I was asked by a friend to be the featured, monthly art walk artist at a restaurant she owned in Jerome, AZ. I was under the impression that she knew what kind of artwork I did at the time: jewelry, little wire sculptures, windchimes, fanciful dreamcatchers, and other three dimensional work. I assumed she just wanted me to set up a table the evening of the art walk. She asked me three weeks prior to the night of the show, so I started to work building more sculptures, making more jewelry, and about a week later I get a call....
My friend called to ask when I would be coming to hang my artwork. Confused by the word “hang”, I asked when would be good for her, figuring I would get more details in the conversation. We decided that the day before the art walk would be good. I then asked, which of my artwork she wanted. She replied, “you know, your paintings, and photography.” It was then I realized my friend had confused me with someone else. I played dumb, and said “Perfect! See you in 2 weeks.”
I had always wanted to try painting, so I went to the art store, picked up some supplies, came home and started painting. The first couple of days I was really worried and stressed about it, mostly because I didn’t know how, or what to paint. Jerome is a ghost city, with a population of 15,000 in 1929, down to about 80 after the mines closed. I began brainstorming about what would be a good theme for such a town when I remembered a pen and ink sketch I had done 18 years prior in high school, based on a picture hanging in my grandma’s house, of a woman looking into a mirror, but from far away, it looked like a skull, entitled "Vanity". I decided to paint more pictures of skulls and skeletons, to continue the theme. While looking around on the internet for pictures of skulls as inspiration, I found a picture of two skeleton doll sculptures, a bride and groom, and decided to paint them (entitled "The Bride and Groom"). I was pretty happy with how it turned out, so decided to try another, (entitled Las Senoritas). And then another (entitled House of Joy), featuring a famous bordello of Jerome, AZ in the background.
My friend called to ask when I would be coming to hang my artwork. Confused by the word “hang”, I asked when would be good for her, figuring I would get more details in the conversation. We decided that the day before the art walk would be good. I then asked, which of my artwork she wanted. She replied, “you know, your paintings, and photography.” It was then I realized my friend had confused me with someone else. I played dumb, and said “Perfect! See you in 2 weeks.”
I had always wanted to try painting, so I went to the art store, picked up some supplies, came home and started painting. The first couple of days I was really worried and stressed about it, mostly because I didn’t know how, or what to paint. Jerome is a ghost city, with a population of 15,000 in 1929, down to about 80 after the mines closed. I began brainstorming about what would be a good theme for such a town when I remembered a pen and ink sketch I had done 18 years prior in high school, based on a picture hanging in my grandma’s house, of a woman looking into a mirror, but from far away, it looked like a skull, entitled "Vanity". I decided to paint more pictures of skulls and skeletons, to continue the theme. While looking around on the internet for pictures of skulls as inspiration, I found a picture of two skeleton doll sculptures, a bride and groom, and decided to paint them (entitled "The Bride and Groom"). I was pretty happy with how it turned out, so decided to try another, (entitled Las Senoritas). And then another (entitled House of Joy), featuring a famous bordello of Jerome, AZ in the background.
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| "House of Joy" |
When I went to hang the artwork, my friend loved it all, and mentioned that she had never seen these pieces before. She still had me confused with someone else. I told her that I did these special for her restaurant, with a smile on my face, being rather happy that I was able to learn how to paint, and able to create 15 pieces in two weeks. In addition to the 4 original Day of the Dead paintings, I had several photography pieces of Jerome that I had taken over the years, having had grown up in the town.
Within a few days, several of the pieces had sold, and she wanted more. I was the first person to ever sell a piece of artwork off the walls, and her customers just kept talking about how much they loved them. I kept painting, and making specialty frames for the prints. I had never heard of Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead before I did the show, but each time I went to hang more pieces at the restaurant, people would tell me all about the holiday, and what it meant to them. The collection proved so popular, that my work remained hanging at the restaurant for three months, and I kept adding to it. The show only ended because the restaurant was closing for a couple of months to remodel. A coffee shop in Jerome took over the show and continued to sell prints for several more years.
It wasn’t until almost two years later that I painted the next series, for a gallery in Sedona that carried a lot of my jewelry and smaller sculptures. The gallery owner wanted landscapes of Sedona. I painted a few, but quickly discovered people didn’t talk about landscapes with the same excitement as they did the Day of the Dead paintings. I talked the owner of the gallery into trying the day of the dead prints for a couple of months, and to his surprise, they sold great. He was not a fan of them, but I was his biggest seller at the gallery, so he gave them a chance. He really wanted to sell artwork of Sedona, so I combined the two, and painted Day of the Dead figures, with Sedona backgrounds, finishing the last piece in the fall of 2009. Shortly after this, I illustrated a cover for a book entitled "The Return".
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| "The Cigar Smoker" |
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| "Archway Bride & Groom" |
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| "Coffee Pot Senoritas" |
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| "The Return" |
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| "The Bullfighter" |
I didn’t have time to paint again until 2012, when I was able to take 6 months off from work, to do nothing but paint, and finished 16 new pieces.
Brief bio: Born in 1973 into a long line of folk artists and jewelry makers, Dennis Mead moved to Northern Arizona as a young child. At the age of six, he began working at his parent’s arts & crafts store in Arizona’s most famous ghost town, Jerome. He quickly displayed a talent for creating items that visiting tourists and locals would buy just about as fast as he could make them.
Over the next twenty five years, before starting his own company Dizzybear Creations, Dennis learned the skills of jewelry making, painting, woodworking, sculpting and most everything anyone was willing to teach him. His work demonstrates a colorful combination of Arizona life experiences that are evident in the expressions of his artworks.
Living in Northern Arizona, Dennis enjoys a renaissance man’s life: reading, writing, hiking, biking, creating art, karaoke singing, welding, silversmithing and traveling as often as possible … all the while, causing as much mischief as he can.
Dennis is best known for his whimsical Day of The Dead paintings, his turquoise jewelry and his unique silverware creations, including his colorful windchimes that employ the principles of “up cycling” combining found objects to create beauty.
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Contact me at dizzybear73@gmail.com
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https://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com
Direct link to the paintings shown on this page and the Sedona landscapes mentioned, click here.
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