From October 2017 to February 2018, I installed a wall drawing at an historic apartment building in Shreveport, Louisiana.
I’d been working in my “multi-panel” series for a couple of years, and had been incorporating tiny colorful lines for a little while, and I wanted to experiment with the form of my work. I’d also been inspired by Sol Lewitt’s wall drawings, and wanted to try one of my own. So in early summer of 2017, I offered to create a drawing in the home of one of my local collectors, at no charge, as a kind of thank-you for patronizing me and my work. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough empty wall space to accommodate a large drawing.
The good news was that she just happened to work at a downtown development/revitalization group called Shreveport Common, and suggested we think about installing a drawing in a downtown building (not specifically as a part of Shreveport Common, but as a privately funded, not-for-profit gift to the community). She offered to pay for any costs, and to introduce me to the building management, and get my proposal to the owners. Her choice of property was the Fairmont Towers Apartment building, a 1950s-era high-rise.
The building owners and staff were happy to let me install a free public art drawing in their lobby (or anywhere else I wanted to scribble), so I set to work in the first week of October.
Here’s the resulting work.
Community Lines
Wall Drawing for the Fairmont Towers Apartments
Oct 2017 – Feb 2018
Artist: Anthony Reans
Assistant Artists: Jason Phipps, Owen Phipps, Rush Phipps
Media: Colored Pencils
644 Squares
Approximately 50,000 lines
About Community Lines:
This work expresses a sense of community while insisting on a new way of seeing. Perceptions change as the viewer experiences the piece from near and far, from directly in front of the wall and from the side. The lines, in just four colors (orange, Spanish orange, violet, and light aqua), meld into one another, generating a wide spectrum across the fourteen-foot-wide, twelve-foot-high wall. “It’s at its best when the sun lights up the room on a clear day,” attests the artist. “Isn’t that how life really is? Shine a light on a community, look at it from a new perspective, and you can see everyone’s true colors, and the best qualities shine through.”
The straightforward grid of squares speaks the universal language of rock-solid foundations, while the delicate lines yield a sensitivity that is welcoming and peaceful. The overall effect creates a sense of permanence, of certainty, and of belonging – just how a community should feel. It’s as if the drawing were a part of the wall since its construction, so inseparable is it from the space now that it’s installed.