This is a true story. Well, there is truth in this story.
It was 1968, I was 5 years old, and my family was driving to Niagara Falls for our annual long distance family vacation from our home in St. Louis. My dad was an adventurous sort so at the last minute he decided that we should change our itinerary and include a couple of days in New York City. I was 5 years old, so I don't remember much, but one scene made an impression on me that has remained etched on my brain my entire life. We parked somewhere in the East Village and decided to go for a walk. Mom and Dad ordered hot dogs for the family from a street vendor and decided that we'd just eat them on the street. We found a place to sit on the east side of second avenue just north of 6th street.
Directly across the street from where we were sitting was an oddly proportioned yet extremely cool looking marquee theater entrance. Something was going on that afternoon, there was a big line forming. The line stretched to the south in front of the corner grocery store and continued to the west around the corner. There was a dark-haired man near the front door that was in charge. Everyone knew him and enjoyed talking to him.
On our side of the street and to my left was a mustachioed man with glasses wearing an ochre-colored shirt that was talking to a woman in a red full-length fur lined coat. I figured out that she was the singer in a famous rock band. He couldn't stop talking about light shows, he offered to show her how he creates amorphous brightly colored blobs of color with curved glasses, shines bright lights through them and projects on to a screen. She seemed interested in what he had to say but politely told him that her band had their own light show artist that travels with them on tour and that they would not require his services. To my right was a young photographer busily loading and unloading film and taking photos of the theater entrance and the people standing in front of it. She was really nice but serious and seemed really focused on what she was doing so I tried not to bother her.
Then something really unusual happened. The distant northern tall buildings shifted 90 degrees counterclockwise and became the western tall buildings. They totally lost perspective and became two dimensional. Their parallel lines elongated to three times their normal length and stretched from their base at second avenue to the sky. I remember gazing upward and seeing the eyes of a face formed in the clouds. I couldn't see a mouth but somehow, I knew that the face had a smile on it. In fact, the eyes looked very much like the eyes of the dark-haired man at the front door of the theater that was in charge.
Ok so the straight scoop is that I am an architect that become obsessed with analog psychedelic light shows about 3 years ago. After learning about the great light show artists that performed at the Fillmore East, I then became obsessed with the venue and started researching and recreating the architectural drawings for the building. I planned to create a poster that presented the architectural drawings in the spirit of the psychedelic posters that promoted upcoming shows during the Fillmore years. Here it is! The poster includes three floor plan levels, a longitudinal section through the building and a perspective elevation of the famous 2nd Avenue entrance. I also decided to include four people that I felt really supported and inspired me with my work as foreground figures in the composition. Joshua White is in the bottom left corner of the poster. He is the namesake for the Joshua Lightshow and is talking to Grace Slick (I didn't get to talk to her unfortunately). Joshua is very active in the Light Show community and mentors and inspires many younger artitsts. Amalie R. Rothschild is in the bottom right corner of the poster with a camera. She took many of the most famous photos of the Fillmore East during it's three year run from 1968-1971.. She is also directly responsible for getting me copies of some of the original construction drawings for the building. Marc Rubinstein is in the upper right corner of the poster. His Pig Light show performed repeatedly at the Fillmore East. I made my first FE videos based on his light show. Marc was very generous with his time and attention, and I am very grateful to him. Allan Arkush is in the upper left corner of the poster. He was the lead video mixer for Joe's Lights at the Fillmore East before moving to Hollywood to become a successful movie and television director. When he found out about my research project wanted to make sure that Joe's Lights was represented and volunteered to talk to me on a 2 hr zoom call.
The poster measures 17" by 31" (2 1/2" frame shown in photo not included). I sought out the highest quality printing methods and materials that I felt didn't get stupid expensive. The poster is in reality an archival quality premium giclée matte art print.
Please allow 2 weeks for delivery.