A portrait of Ralph Stanley has been commissioned for the Ralph Stanley Museum, to be created by renowned portraitist Kenneth Hari. The finished painting will be unveiled this summer at the museum in Clintwood, Va where it will reside as a part of their permanent collection.

Hari is a long-time fan of country and bluegrass music, who has painted portraits of Bill Monroe, Chet Atkins and Hank Williams in addition to other celebrities like Dustin Hoffman, Salvador Dali and Norman Rockwell. He traveled to the museum in early April to do sketches of Dr. Ralph in a live sitting, Hari’s preferred and universal policy on creating portraits of living subjects.

We spoke with the artist recently, and he shared some thoughts about meeting the good doctor.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Clintwood to see Dr. Stanley and create my sketches. The countryside is beautiful and the people were all terrific.

The museum itself is a jewel, and meeting Dr. Stanley was a great pleasure. I recall standing with him amidst the exhibits, and he looked up at me with a smile and said ‘Can you believe this? In my lifetime to see this?’

The man just has an aura about him… an elegance, and a wonderful way with people.”

Hari said that the commission was paid by an anonymous donor specifically with the condition that the painting be given to the museum. He hopes that he will be able to create several portraits from his sketches, and indicated that the museum portrait will depict Ralph with his signature Stanleytone banjo.

Larry Pierucci, Hari’s business representative, tells us that there are loose plans for poster prints from the Stanley portrait, which would be issued to benefit the Stanley Museum. Prints of a number of existing Hari portraits are available online.

An unveiling is planned for sometime in August at the Ralph Stanley Museum.

Museum director Aaron Davis is understandably eager to have the painting hanging on the wall.

“We are extremely excited to see the final product, as we’ve seen Mr. Hari’s work and know that this will be an incredible addition to his portfolio and a wonderful new item for the Museum & Center. Mr. Hari mentioned that this portrait will be here long after he and Dr. Stanley are gone, and that’s one of the great things about working with an artist of Mr. Hari’s caliber–this portrait will remain as a one-of-a-kind piece that helps to tell the story of mountain music for many years to come. The only difficult part of this process is waiting for it to be completed! We have some idea of the final version based on work we’ve seen, but it doesn’t make the waiting game any easier as we move towards the unveiling. We’re looking forward to being pleasantly surprised!”

We all know that bluegrass music is a performance art, but here’s a story that puts a new twist on that.

Brenda Behr is an artist in the paint and canvas sense of the word. But she also loves bluegrass music. She’s combined these two art forms by arranging to paint bluegrass band Kickin’ Grass while they perform at a fundraiser for people with disabilities.

I have been looking for a venue in which to paint more performing bluegrass musicians…I’ve painted blues musicians for two consecutive years at the Fargo Blues Festival in Fargo, North Dakota. The fans love it, and are very willing to pay on the spot for the watercolors.

Behr has agreed to donate a portion of her profits to help the fundraiser, which is to benefit Bear Creek Center, a not-for-profit center run by RHA Howell Care Centers, supporting and educating 125 people with mental and physical disabilities.

The event will take place on the grounds of Hinnant Family Vineyards located in Pine Level, NC on Saturday, May 10, 2008. Activities will take place between Noon and 6 PM. Admission is $20 per adult, children under 12 are admitted free.

Our friend Bob Yonke over at Appalachian Studio (and his blog The Bluegrass Painter) was commissioned last year to create a piece of artwork for this year’s (2008) IBMA World of Bluegrass event. He emailed over the weekend and sent along an image of the completed artwork, including the textual graphic components.

You’ll be seeing this art a lot more as IBMA sends out their promotional materials throughout the year. Nice work Bob!

The 28th Annual Black Hills Bluegrass Festival, just outside Rapid City, South Dakota, is looking for a good t-shirt design. The festival is scheduled for June 27-29 this year and a design has yet to be chosen for this year’s festival t-shirt.

The festival is coordinated by the Bluegrass Committee of the Rapid City Arts Council, along with a large staff of volunteers. This year the Committee decided to have a contest for the t-shirt design. They say designs should be based on “music, musicians or other images of bluegrass or folk music culture.”

The winning design will be used on this year’s festival t-shirt and the winner will receive $300. Two weekend passes to the festival will be awarded to the second place entry.

Entries must be submitted by February 22, 2008, with the winners being announced on March 9, 2008. You can find the official entry form highlighted in blue toward the bottom of this page.

To learn more, call 394-4101 ext 200.

The Idaho Falls Arts Council has an ongoing program called Art You Can Sit On. The program commissions local artisans to create benches that are art forms. These benches are created out of a variety of materials and are placed at various locations throughout the historic downtown district of Idaho Falls. Currently there are over 20 of these benches, depicting items like trout, skateboards, and musical instruments.

The latest addition to the collection is a giant fiddle head bench that has been placed outside the Willard Arts Center. The bench replaces a piano art bench that was destroyed by vandals two years ago.

Created by Robert Carter, the new fiddle head bench is constructed of steel and weighs 1500 pounds.

This may not be a bluegrass fiddle, but rather a heavy metal fiddle!

Modern Guitars Magazine is currently featuring a two page interview with Chuck Erikson, nicknamed The Duke of Pearl.

Erikson got his start as a banjo builder, but soon developed an interest in inlay. Discovering that small shop instrument builders did not have a reliable source for quality inlay material, Erikson began a quest to find, and provide, such materials. He soon became the go-to guy for custom luthiers seeking inlay materials of all kinds.

He still does inlay work himself, and is quite an accomplished inlay artist.

According to the article, Erikson has done personal inlay work for artists like the Kentucky Colonels, Pat Cloud, Herb Pederson, Doug Dillard, John Hartford, Don Parmley, The Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, Bernie Leadon, David Lindley, Larry McNeely, Alan Munde, Geoff Stelling, Mark Platin, John McEuen, John Hickman, Bill Knopf, and more.

His primary business, however, seems to be providing inlay materials to other builders and inlay artists.

His website is a wealth of information on all topics related to instrument inlays. He has informational pages about various inlay materials, mostly shell, and for every product he sells there is an accompanying informational page about the material, the art, etc.

The article includes a lot of great information about acoustic instrument inlay that would be worth reading for anyone interested in doing inlay work, or having a custom instrument built with inlay on it.

If you’ve paid attention to liner notes or photo credits for any length of time, you should be familiar with the name Jim (Senor) McGuire. McGuire has taken many of the great photos in recent years of bluegrass and country patriarchs and stars that have graced magazine and CD covers. If you missed some of those photos, never fear, McGuire is taking many of his best loved photographic portraits on a national road tour.

Jim McGuire: Nashville Portraits hit the road in May, 2007. The first leg of the journey has taken the exhibit no further than Nashville itself. The Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, TN is playing host for the exhibit’s first stop, where it will stay through September 9, 2007.

The exhibit is comprised of 60 black & white photographs (go here for a web preview) that were shot over the last 30 years, including shots of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Doc Watson, Benny Martin, Emmylou Harris, Sam Bush, Marty Stuart, J.D. Crowe, Ralph Stanley, and others.

In addition to the 60 portraits traveling with the exhibit, a new book of McGuire’s photographs, by the same name as the exhibit, will accompany the tour during 2008. The book is being published by Lyons Press and will be available early 2008.

If you have an interest in booking this exhibit for a stay in your town, you can contact Smith Kramer Fine Arts Services for more information. Dates are still available through December of 2009.

Thanks to one of readers, who pointed out yet another artist who uses musical - and often bluegrass - themes in their work.

The artist is Karen Cannon, and she offers prints, posters, cards and even coffee mugs using her original musical paintings. Karen spent many years working as a designer in the greeting card industry, and now offers her art directly through her web site, Art Strings Publishing.

Her style is traditional, “small town” Americana, which she acknowledges without reservation.

“A Norman Rockwell influence is evident in the illustrative story-telling theme of the cards. My love of paiting and playing has been brought full circle with these cards. Hope they send a smile to you and your friends.”

I received one of her cards this past Christmas - of Santa playing a mandolin - and was immediately struck by the warmth of the image and the skill of the artist.

See all her works on the Art Strings web site.

Brance has posted a number of times recently about artists who have bluegrass music as a recurring theme in their work.

Earlier this week we found another, William H. “Scoot” Dryden, Jr., whose large oil paintings are far more abstract than the watercolors of Bob Yonke, who Brance mentioned last week.

Scoot’s work is quite colorful and perhaps a bit macabre, with many involving bluegrass instruments and musical settings.

If you would like to see a large gallery of his work, visit his website.

We previously told you about Bob Yonke, The Bluegrass Painter, and his work depicting bluegrass in watercolor. If you didn’t check out his work then, I would encourage you to do so now.

Bob very kindly sent me a print the other day. The painting is of a jam session under the yellow tent at the Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, VA. The painting captures the colors, the crowd, and the fiddle sounds of Galax.

He tells me this is part of a new series he is working on. This particular painting is not represented anywhere on his site at this time so I can’t show it to you. The print is nicely matted in a double matt and ready for framing. I just happen to have an extra frame laying around so this piece of art will be going on the wall here at the studio today.

With this painting, I’d say this new series is off to a good start. Once the project is completed and available on Yonke’s website, we’ll bring you an update about it. For now, you can browse his other offerings, including The Bluegrass Collection which represents classic bluegrass in muted earth tones. The picture included in this post is the painting Kentucky Mandolin, from this series.

We recently told you about The Bluegrass Painter and his work in and around bluegrass music. I liked the idea of artists who represent the music in their work and thought I’d share with you another wonderful artist in the world of bluegrass.

Adam Carlos is a Tennessee native who grew up in an artistic family. His dad only recently retired from a 37 year career teaching art at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. Adam began as a photographer and then developed a love for drawing. He now depends on his art for his living as he pursues a full time career as an artist.

He is also a bluegrass musician who spends his free time playing mandolin when he’s not drawing. What is it with mandolin players and art? Does playing the mandolin somehow unleash a creative gene? Both of these artists are mandolin players!

Adam’s work, which he calls Hands of Music, is on display at the Nashville Airport through this Sunday, March 4th. If you have any reason to be in the airport, stop by the fine dining area and check out his drawings. Adam also attends a number of bluegrass festivals each year as a vendor, with a booth where you can view and purchase his artwork.

The Hands of Music series of drawings are also available for purchase on his website, either as originals, prints, or on tee-shirts.

Adam has written a thorough explanation of why he draws the hands of bluegrass musicians. If you like his work, you should read this.

We’re all bluegrass fans here, and if you are also a fan of original artwork in the form of paintings, then Bob Yonke is a name you need to hear. Yonke is a bluegrass musician himself (mandolin is his instrument of choice), performing with groups based in West Virginia, but he’s also an artist in watercolor.

Yonke has combined his love of bluegrass and old-time music with his love of painting. It all started when friends encouraged him to capture the scenes of rural Appalachia in a coffee table book. He started painting and was soon giving the works names based on classic bluegrass songs such as The Old Home Place and Old Joe Clark.

From there he moved to painting scenes of bluegrass bands during performances. Even with these paintings though, he has continued his naming scheme. The one pictured here is titled Big Mon for obvious reasons. Yonke explains what he sees as the purpose of these works of art.

These paintings are not intended to replace photography as a tool for documenting this style of American roots music rather to offer an interpretation that will have meaning beyond its decorative value to bluegrass and old-time country music fans.

All of his paintings are available for purchase from his website AppalachianStudio.com as prints. Originals are also available from time to time and all of the works can also be purchased for use as greeting cards, CD covers, posters and more.

As cool as all this is, it gets better. Not only is Yonke a bluegrass musician and an artist, he’s also a blogger! You can visit his blog The Bluegrass Painter where he writes about art and his love for music.