Page 67 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2019

and mostly scrap steel at that. Over the years, I’ve created from the historic village of Antietam, MD, former site of the
sculptures small enough to fit into the palm of one’s hand, Antietam Iron Works. He utilizes scrap steel in his work as an
right on up to large public commissions – some over 20 feet environmental statement. His popular national works include:
high. My work is the physical extension and creative outlet “Blues Portraits in Steel,” Delta Blues Museum, Clarksdale,
for my rather lively imagination. I believe I was blessed, MS; “Siren Of TI,” Treasure Island Casino, Las Vegas, NV;
probably by my dear mother’s prayers, to walk down this and “Lingerie in Steel,” MTV’s Real World New Orleans.
path in life and do it long enough to tell about it. And that is Gallery Rep: Galleryat105.com / Artist: CawoodArt.com
a common thread I’ve come to believe I share with surviving
blues artists. Stan Street
At one point, I realized the need to bring a large I have always loved blues music – I developed a love for
presence of human emotion into my work. Steel by its it from an early age. My dad and uncle were percussionists
physical nature is rather linear, cold and impenetrable, for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, so I learned drums
so transforming it into an understanding of human first, and when I got older, I developed some skill on the
emotion was quite a challenge. I thought about it for harmonica and tenor sax. When I started a blues band, I
a long time and finally figured out that deep emotions eventually started singing also. I’ve always enjoyed drawing,
inside are quietly telegraphed to the outside world by the and my father used to tell my mom that I would be an artist
expressions worn on our faces, often without realizing it. one day. I started my family at a young age, so I had to put
It’s a human thing, something we project to other humans; my two loves, art and music, on the back burner in order to
a silent but universally understood communication. start a tree and landscape business down in southern Florida
My next hurdle was exactly whose faces were going to and support my family. But the music, of course, found me.
get me as deep as I wanted to go. I was listening to the blues After years as a recognized blues musician in Florida, I
one night while thumbing through Blues Who’s Who, and all visited New Orleans and was inspired by the art and music
of the sudden it hit me like a brick in the night. The emotion there. I started painting portraits in bold strokes and colors
I saw in the faces of those blues artists was what I had been
visually searching for all along.
Even though I love them all, the Delta blues spoke to
me more than other blues styles, largely because of its
uncluttered rawness and honesty. What I saw in their faces
and heard in their music was the language of despair of the
human soul, addressed the only way it could be – through
the invention of their own art form. They had nothing to work
with, so they reworked or reinvented the few scraps left to
them by an unjust white society. They created it solely out of
the human need to express it and find immediate relief from
it, if only temporarily. It’s in that emotional turmoil where I
found the human dynamic I was seeking to be the visual
voice for my “Blues Portrait” pieces – each speaking strongly
to the creation of an art form birthed out of the ashes of
despair from nothing but need and scraps.
I believe my “Blues Portraits in Steel” series of sculptures
on exhibit at the Delta Blues Museum owes much of its
effectiveness to the elements I just discussed, in combination
with the fact that I was able to personally experience many
of the old blues artists perform live and incorporate how
each artist’s music influenced me. So, in some small way,
each one of my “Blues Portraits” becomes a kind of self-
portrait. It’s my wish that everyone who sees them in person
come away with some feeling of that personal dynamic, and
hopefully through the magic of art, recognize some small
part of themselves in each piece. I think that the bluesmen
themselves, as true artists, would smile favorably upon that.
Scott Cawood is a self-taught metal artist and sculptor
“Baptized By The Blues” by musician and artist Stan Street. Ÿ Stan Street, 2014

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