Project in satire
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on March 30, 2016 1:46 PM
"The Satire Project: An Exploration of Satire in Contemporary Society" is a culmination of works by three University of Mount Olive instructors.
Larry D. Lean, professor of art and artist in residence; Lenard D. Moore, associate professor of English and director of the college's literary festival; and William F. Gross, assistant professor of music, produced the project.
Lean did 12 acrylic paintings. Moore wrote a poem about each of the paintings. And Gross put music to each poem based on the painting.
The project began last fall when Sarah Merritt, director of the Arts Council of Wayne County, received a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council. She told the men the Arts Council wanted a show on satire.
"The Satire Project" mixes satire with art, poetry and music.
"It started out in a really infant-like style and has blossomed like nothing I could ever imagine," Lean said. "Working with these two accomplished artists gave me a chance for my paintings to have a new life that they never had.
"Franklin is so talented with what he does with the piano. With Lenard reciting his poetry, I was in awe. Not only was I honored, but the purple dog (his first painting) was honored also."
Lean said his paintings are satirical.
Like Man on Bicycle with Square Wheels.
"People don't ride bikes with square tires in the rain," Lean said.
Or Overfed Dog with Underfed Woman.
"People are underfed and have their dogs overfed," Lean said. "But it kind of states something about society. It reminds me of hearing about people who take such good care of their dogs that their own health goes to shambles."
There's also Ugly Gun and Beautiful Bullets. And Overkill where several guns are aimed at one little bug.
"It's a little bit of serendipity," Lean said. "But parts of it you realize that there's a real message here about guns and overkill, shootings.
Throughout the project, the three men pushed each other beyond their limits.
"Professor Lean was able to push my creativity and move me outside of my usual, and propel the imagination and create works that I hop make the audience feel something," Moore said.
Moore said he was compelled to do different things with his poetry while working with Gross.
"I didn't know I would sing some of my poems," he said. "The music led me to do that."
Lean's paintings and Moore's poems also encouraged Gross to experiment with music for the project.
"One of my personal goals for this, which I think they embraced, was that I was going to play piano with as many unique things as possible, whether it was using a pom pom to create a swishing sound and kind of draping it over the strings to get a light sense of pitch," he said. "Or slamming the tambourine on the strings to get kind of a boom when the purple lady gets struck by lightning. I also used percussion mallets, a squeegee and lots of combs from Walmart."
And one day, Gross walked in to the music department's copy room looking for something for the Overkill piece.
"I saw this idiophone, which is a percussive instrument that you shake," he said. "I struck it on the low strings and it sounded like gunshots.
"It was very much a stream of consciousness thing. The things that I saw in my daily life or the things I didn't see that I went out and bought, those are the things that created the sounds.
"At one point we have a bike in the rain, I took a glue stick and scraped it across the edge of the white keys of the piano and it creates a sound like a bicycle and raindrops, too."
University of Mount Olive student artwork will be on display in the TA Loving Gallery in support of the Satire Project.
There will be an opening reception April 1 from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibit will run through May 13.
April 11 at 7 p.m. at the Arts Council, the three artists will give a live presentation about the project, complete with a DVD and a book relating to the project.