Yvonne Daley
“The King Is Alive In Vt. Elvis Wannabes Love Him Tender At White River Jct. Art Show,”
The Sunday Rutland Herald and Sunday Times Argus, August 28, 1994, pp. 1, 6
(with pl. p. 6, “Paul Laffoley of Boston talks about his paintings depicting the life of Elvis Presley at The Main Street Museum Of Art’s opening reception of its All-Elvis show.” A shorter re-write appearing in The Boston Globe, Sunday, 28 Aug., 1994, p. ):
Yvonne Daley
White River Junction—The King came to town last night. Elvis, that is. Debauched, fat Elvis. Young, svelte, sexy, pelvis-twisting Elvis. hired Elvis and Weird Elvis. Elvis’ toe nails. Elvis’ gall stones. Even side-by-side porcelain masks of Elvis and his twin brother, Jesse Garron Presley, dead in the womb just a half hour before a King of Rock ’n Roll was born.
And of course, Elvis Presley himself was there. In person or persona, depending on your level of belief. Back from stints in Las Vegas, or Brandon, or deep freeze, wherever it is he’s been.
This being the anniversary month of his death—er, self-induced exile—in 1977, the King decided to make his re-entry into public life. accompanied by a hot four-piece band, at the opening of the All Elvis Art Show at The Main Street Museum Of Art in White River Junction last night. It was half spoof, half adoration. All Elvis.
And the music wasn’t half bad either, especially Stephan Connolly and his band The Blue Suede Shoes. Connolly, an Elvis impersonator who has his act together, is something to see.
The crowd loved it. They oohed at the blue suede shoes. They adored the self-indulgence in the strut. They lusted for the sequins. They hollered for the lascivious lips.
For those who missed it, don’t check into the Heartbreak Hotel. You missed the performances by Elvis and the Elvis Wannabes, but the art show will be on display through the second week in October. It’s worth the trip. It is a trip. The Real Elvis: Vermonters still adore his memory.
The Main Street Museum of Art is, as its proprietor David Fairbanks Ford puts it, a “non commercial gallery and meeting place” located in the old south end of White River Junction’s downtown.
“Actually, it’s essentially my home,” said Ford of the “unpretending-ly shabby white-washed room that triples as art gallery, clubhouse and domicile. Ford, 33, is from Boston but has Vermont roots. His [great] grandfather founded Gillingham’s general store in Woodstock many years ago. An artist himself, Ford moved here two years ago and—decided that the two huge store-front rooms of his new home would make an ideal art gallery. Hence, The Main Street Museum Of Art. He says in his statement of purpose:
“Our primary goal is to provide visibility to those artists not usually seen in local gallery exhibitions.” The idea for the Elvis show, he said, was born as he was working on a painting of the Good Samaritan for a Catholic church in New York City. Ford’s Good Samaritan kept coming out looking like Elvis. Alas, the priests didn’t want it, but it now adorns a wall at the gallery.
A while ago, Ford began sending out requests for other Elvis art to display in an all-Elvis show. The response was eclectic. Among the most interesting pieces and the best in the show are two large canvases by Paul Laffoley of Boston. Part of an eight-canvas study commissioned by Country Music Magazine, the canvases depict two phases of Elvis’ life.
They’re designed to be covered with velvet drapes, to be drawn with much fanfare at the appropriate moment. Unfortunately, the drapes haven’t been hemmed yet...Laffoley, dressed in black yesterday, described the two paintings—one detailing Elvis and his twin brother’s horoscopes, complete with a bird’s eye view of Graceland—the other honors Elvis in his chubby Vegas days.
Laffoley’s paintings explore one of the current theories about the King, the one in which Elvis is said to be stored in deep freeze to be thawed on his mother’s birthday sometime in the next millennium.
“He will live his next life as Jesse,” explained Laffoley, referring to the stillborn twin brother. “He always said he had to live for two people. When he comes back, he won’t be a singer. He’ll be a religious leader.”
Laffoley’s art includes words that spell out Elvis’s forms of self abuse—codeine, amphetamine, caffeine, antihistamine, Demerol, placidyl, Valium, pentobarbital, butabarbital, cocaine, ground meat, bacon, peanut butter, bananas.
Among the other works on display are Elvis’s toe nails, reportedly retrieved by an alert chambermaid, and his gall stones, also saved from destruction. Both are now tastefully mounted on velvet, of course.
There’s Sam Sebren’s bad dream of a painting of his bad dream about Elvis. “I dreamed Elvis was my lover,” Sebren writes across the canvas. “He was sitting in a pool and I was kissing his stomach. Later, we were in a basement and I was talking to a vampire about what groceries to get for Elvis.” Oh well. And, there’s David Powell’s whacked-out display called “Ninety-nine Bottles of Genuine Shroud of Memphis Holy Water on the Wall.” You can buy a bottle of The Kings Own Holy Water for $9.99. It’s guaranteed to [be] wet.
Last but not least, of course, there is Li Shen’s porcelain masks. Unknown to the tabloids, the Thetford artist has unearthed startling sculptural representations of Elvis Aaron and his little twin brother. They’re weird.
And—for all you hound dogs out there—the best part yet. The show is free.
