By William Henderson / Correspondent
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Tony Fitzpatrick, a Chicago-based, triple-threat "actor-artist-poet" will be in town this weekend as part of Gallery Walk at Artists and Authors, 108 Washington St.
Besides exhibiting his etchings (just one of the art forms he professes a love for), he will also read from his published books of poetry and answer audience questions about both art and acting. But he also has questions of his own and has no problem posing them to the person supposed to be doing the asking.
"I've never been to Marblehead," he said by phone earlier this week. "I've shown some work in Boston, the Boston Public Library purchased 22 pieces, but I've never been to Marblehead. Is it nice? What should I expect?"
There are no easy answers, and he laughs. "That's OK," he says. "I don't always have all of the answers either."
Fitzpatrick was born in 1958 and says he has been "doing art" since he was 6 years old.
"I had always made drawings but got very serious about it in my late teenage years. In the mid-'80s, I had a big New York show, and a bunch of movie stars started buying my work. I've never done anything else since then."
Except continue to create art and continue selling his well-known images to movie stars, museums and galleries across the country. Kevin Bacon, Neve Campbell, Johnny Depp, Matt Dillon, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Bill Gates and Martin Scorsese, to name just a few, own Fitzpatrick originals.
You, too, may own a Fitzpatrick original and not even know it. The original, however, would be in video or compact disc form. Besides art, he's also acted in a few movies. You may have heard of them: "Philadelphia," "Mad Dog and Glory," "Hero," "Gladiator" and "Married to the Mob."
"Art and acting, it's about not having a choice," he said. "[Art is] always something that I just had to do. I would do it whether anyone supported it or not. Luckily, the fates smiled on me and I'm able to make a living at it. It's just something I had to do. It's like eating or breathing."
Fitzpatrick said he started making etchings in 1989 but had always found himself drawn to the medium without realizing it.
"It's labor-intensive and process-oriented," he says. "I like the idea of taking a very old process and bringing something new to it."
He said the series of "autumn etchings" on display this weekend were inspired by a trip he took to the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. He said he liked the idea of making the work about the land without making the work a literal landscape. He wanted to evoke the land, not drown the viewer in it.
"I stayed for 10 days, made some sketches, and went back to Chicago to finish them. It took about a year to complete," he said.
And now he will show this series in a Marblehead-only exhibition. For a sneak peek at what will be shown or to see what else Fitzpatrick is doing, visit www.tonyfitzpatrick.com. For more information about the two-day event, contact Thom Van Horn at Artists and Authors at 781 639-0400 or visit the Artists + Authors website at www.artists-authors.com.
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