Robert Curry’s motto, “one for the money, one for the love,” succinctly expresses his philosophy: Earn enough to eat, then feed the artistic soul. By day he’s a successful muralist and sign painter and one of many talented artists lured from California to our burgeoning metropolis during the fat years of themed megaresort construction. And his handiwork seems to be everywhere, from Texas Station’s casino to the Love mural at the Mirage. But what if an artist’s job becomes the source of his passion?
That’s exactly what happened when the National Finals Rodeo rode into town last year bearing sticky, vinyl-lettered banners with sponsors’ names emblazoned across them. When a horse accidentally scuffed one, the letters came loose and stuck to its body, freaking the animal out, so organizers decided to replace all 15 of the 10-foot banners with hand-lettered versions—24 hours before the start of the event. Luckily, they found Curry, who packed four days of work into a single night by improvising a table out of drywall, creating pounce patterns (traced versions of logos perforated with tiny holes and dusted with chalk or powder) and hiring hands to paint.
The Details
- Monday-Saturday, 7 a.m.-6 p.m.
- Bridger Professional Building lobby, 701 Bridger Ave., 384-8587
- Robert Curry Studio
After the banners were removed, Curry noticed that the pounce patterns had left a chalk palimpsest of overlapping logos on the drywall. Curry was inspired. Using the “table” as his canvas, he painted each logo in a different hue, leaving the layers of paint buildup from the banners around the edges. The resulting layer after layer of logos (e.g. Coca-Cola, Justin Boots, the Horseshoe) in just the right color and shade to be discernible and harmonious is beautiful and mesmerizing. This “happy accident” kick-started a latent interest, and lettering became the basis of Curry’s new series, on display Downtown in the lobby of the Bridger Professional Building.
Up to now, Curry’s abiding interest in design and lettering was separate from his fine-art endeavors, although you can see the seeds of his current work were planted long ago. After finishing his studies in design and fine art at SUNY Buffalo, where he evinced an interest in lettering, Curry apprenticed for five years at Knott’s Berry Farm in Southern California, learning mural and sign painting. As a professional scenic artist he is called upon to paint in many styles, from Michelangelo to abstraction. His own early fine-arts efforts were dark, figurative compositions until he noticed only “dark things” were happening to him and made a decision to paint just what he finds beautiful and sunny.
What he finds beautiful are letters with all their graceful curves, elegant lines and bold forms, which he puckishly refers to as “sticks and circles.” Whereas most contemporary artists who use text in their paintings do so to subvert established orthodoxies, Curry uses words to coax the viewer into a more positive outlook, what he calls “modern optimism.”
His upbeat attitude is particularly evident in his series of nine canvases—one for each color of the rainbow—bracketed by a white canvas with the word “Inhale” and a black canvas with the word “Exhale.” Each colored canvas contains a feel-good message like “Follow your bliss.” Different typefaces are carefully chosen to be resonant with the messages and provide that déjà vu feeling.
“I AM WEALTHY BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS” employs the same font as the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. This would just be an exercise in feeling good if Curry hadn’t challenged the viewer by painting the words in enamel on a background of the same color, but in acrylic. Viewers walk back and forth and cock their heads until they get in the right position for the light to bounce off the shiny enamel and make the words legible. He enjoys watching people “do the dance” as they try to make out the words. Making the viewers active participants gets them to pay attention to what they might otherwise ignore.
Curry’s affirmative thinking and knowledge of commercial art processes came together in his serpentine wall sculpture “Me We,” inspired by the world’s shortest poem, recited by Muhammad Ali during a speech at Harvard many years ago. The words struck a chord with Curry, who scribbled them on a piece of paper, scanned them into a computer and watched as the programmed mechanical saw did the work. Who said life had to be hard?
Curry’s optimism may be justified; I know I felt better after seeing his work.
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