The following interview with artist Gil Jawetz was conducted via email and Yahoo Instant Messenger in August 2009. Gil's wife, Tracey Middlekauff, is a free lance journalist. Both are pictured above.

TOM: Let’s talk voodoo paintings. Of all the paintings in your new series “Voodoo Wedding”, do you have a favorite?

GIL: Well, since the show is so personal and is so wrapped up in my life and my experiences over the last few years, if I think about it my favorite piece will change based on my mood. I have maybe a dozen pieces in the show that are my favorites and some of them have very involved, emotional stories behind them. But when you asked me that question, the one that popped into my head is "That's When I'll Come Back To You.” Oil 18” x 18” (below).

It doesn't necessarily have a story, it's more of a mood painting. Once I really started to figure out how to approach the "Voodoo Wedding" show, I gravitated towards mixing the sort of romantic elements with a sense of the weight of personal history, even if it wasn't drawn out explicitly. The New Orleans cemetery imagery really let me mix in a lot of elements, from getting a sense of the specific setting of the series to adding a bit of an edge to the show to let you know that it wasn't just a wedding album but that it reflected more complicated experiences. I like that the show can be so much about a specific thing, but then still have a sense of mystery, which was fitting. This painting sort of speaks to me if I'm in a bit of a funk.

TOM: That's a great collection there. Lots of paintings. I looked through once quickly.

GIL: Thanks. I went a little nuts.

TOM: After taking a slower look, I notice some of the paintings are more detailed than others. What do you think about details? Or I mean...how do details fit into this series?

GIL: I like details if they serve a purpose. I don't know if I have a strictly defined style, so I let each painting sort of dictate its own terms.

TOM: I can appreciate that.

GIL: Sometimes the details aren't necessarily where you expect them. Like the carved face on the Carousel Bar painting. It's just the way the light hits it that looks sort of joyous and garish at the same time. So I thought it was important to get that detail in there but not necessarily to focus on every other little ornate carving. Or like the faces in the jazz paintings. I stopped myself from drawing them in in too much detail because it wasn't about that. But if there was a particular little reflected highlight on a brass instrument I made sure to get that in there.

Carousel. 16” x 16”

Dr. Jazz 18” x 18”

A lot of the paintings are about special places. So if you get the vibe of being there more than a postcard impression of exactly what it looks like then I feel like I succeeded.

TOM: I get the feeling that it is a fun place. Vibrant.

GIL: Definitely.

TOM: Is there a piece that speaks to the darker side of life though?

GIL: Are you talking about the Carousel bar or New Orleans in general?

TOM: New Orleans in general.

GIL: Yeah.

TOM: I've never been but people love it. Even the skull has colors radiating from it.

GIL: Yeah, the thing about this series and the experiences that inspired it is that I think there's a little of the light and the dark all throughout it. Tracey and I had our lives very deeply changed by death a few years ago, and that was something that really kind of became the organizing experience in our life together. We wouldn't have probably articulated this before the voodoo wedding, but the connection in voodoo between the living and the dead, ancestors and spirits and all that, ended up being a very strong component of the experience. And New Orleans itself really is a city that is very strongly connected to death, in the recent past and in the distant past, with some very serious disease outbreaks.

So a lot of the show sort of has influences of both the light and the dark. There's a lot of cemetery imagery but it's not grim. It's romantic but not in an Anne Rice sort of way, I don't think.

TOM: What role did your wife play in this process?

GIL: In the painting process? She's a very strong influence on the work. Not just because she's in so much of it, but because I constantly bounce ideas off her. She gets what I'm trying to do and is very honest about whether or not I'm heading in the right direction.

I had a more allegorical approach in mind early on, to sort of challenge myself, and she was with it even though I was having trouble articulating what I wanted to do. When it wasn't working she had no problem telling me so! She was right and I started off in new directions and ultimately ended up with the right show.

She's a creative person, too, so really she's like an extra set of eyes throughout the process. It's easy to lose perspective when you're dealing with dozens of canvases.

TOM: That is great to have someone creative to bounce ideas off.

GIL: I wouldn't even be painting at all if it weren't for her. I was sketching in notepads on the subway and she was the one who suggested I go to Art Students League and see about taking a class.

TOM: Does she paint?

GIL: She doesn't paint regularly but she does come up with strange pieces every now and then with collage and drawing and painting elements. She actually sold a piece at Maryland Art Place's Out of Order this year. It was awesome. We met in Baltimore. We moved to NYC together and she had the idea that I should take a painting class. We met when I was directing the first JHU Film Festival and she was writing for Baltimore magazine.

TOM: Ok. So you started off sketching and Tracey says, “Hey, take a class.”

GIL: Pretty much. I needed a personal creative outlet and she suggested I try that. Pretty good suggestion.

TOM: I am glad it worked out. Never know what effect a suggestion can have on a person.

GIL: Exactly.

Tom: So you have been involved with the arts in Baltimore for a while now?

GIL: I did film in Baltimore in the mid-90s. I worked on some pretty cool indie features and made a short of my own which was also sort of about New Orleans. It was called "Mardi Gras, Baltimore" and it was about a pizza delivery guy who gets kidnapped by a bank robber and decides to take him to New Orleans. It was ridiculous. But Mark Crispin Miller said it was better than Clerks, even though he didn't like either.

TOM: Gil, that doesn't happen everyday. Usually the robber shoots the guy or ditches him. Haha.

GIL: This was a particularly bad robber.

TOM: Well if it’s on Youtube...I will take a look.

GIL: His getaway car got a boot on it for parking illegally so he had to think on his feet. It's not [on Youtube]. It did kick-start the JHU Film Program, which is kind of a real program at this point.

TOM: Gil you are too much for one interview. I can tell that. We will
have to do another one. I mean it.

GIL: Haha. I've done a lot of weird shit.

TOM: Well Gil it's been swell. Thank you for sharing thoughts. If the reader is interested in learning more about the “Voodoo Wedding” series, there is a complete catalog and prints available that can all be found at: www.buskerdog.com/voodoo-wedding

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