Lost Artwork Recovered—by Me!

What would this blog be without self-aggrandizing? I would think there is enough self-deprecating humor thrown in as well to counter-balance it.

Anyway, one time during my senior year of high school, I was on a jazz band trip to Bismarck, ND. We were playing at some university jazz festival, probably the U of Mary, you know, one of those things that high school jazz bands do. I shared a room at the Radisson Inn (which was becoming quite familiar to me by that point from many other trips to various state-level student events and competitions those days) with my good friends Matt Crummy (and check out his music), Josh Killfoil, and Brian Palay. Around 9:27 PM we started to feel a wee bit peckish, so we traipsed over to a nearby Applebee’s. Serendipity dictated that we keep the crayons from our table. And later, someone noticed that our room had little notepads of paper… and a movement was born.

The Apple/Fran Clan school of artistic thinking had few real goals or characteristics, but nevertheless enjoyed relative popularity during 2002. Many visual works of art were exhibited in the hallway of the music wing of Red River High School in the spring, and in the fall, the exhibition moved to the renowned Room #302 Gallery in Stephenson Hall. Poems written in the Apple style also surfaced periodically in this time period.

Defining characteristics of the visual art side of the movement include use of crayon, pencil, pen, and other so-called “primitive” or “elementary” artistic utensils as a medium. In general, the works were relatively small, often about 3”x5”. A variety of subjects were covered, including still-lifes and portraits, with numerous Surrealist tendencies. In a way, the style of the works can be seen as reacting to some of the more esoteric and less audience-friendly aspects of Abstract and Postmodern (PoMo, to you hipsters) art; Apple/Fran Clan art basically always came with a sense of humor, although the poetry could be more serious.

Although the movement was originally thought to be limited to high school students at Red River High School, research by art historians revealed that quite a few celebrities (including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, veteran Democratic advisor James Carville, former NASA administrator Daniel Goldin, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf) had painted works in this general style for Debra Trione. These have been collected in her book called A Perfect World: Words and Paintings From Over 50 of America’s Most Powerful People.

The two names associated with the movement have different origins. but are equally applicable. “Apple” refers not to the manufacturer of iMacs and iPods, nor to the Beatles’ music company, but rather to the good ol’ American Pie fruit, which is a common theme in a number of works from the school. “Fran Clan” is a name given to the collective of artists that contributed most of the works: Jason Melin (Francesca), Matt Crummy (Francine), Josh Killfoil (François), Joel Abrahamson (Francisco), and Brian Palay (Francesca the Lesser). As you can see, they all have “Fran” in their names.

After the Stephenson Hall exhibition closed, the location of most of the Apple/Fran Clan works of art was unknown for some time, until I stumbled upon them in an excavation of certain boxes in a storage room in southern Grand Forks, North Dakota. Now, for the first time, these works will be exhibited electronically (at least as fast as I can scan them) at Turing Test THIS!! Prepare for your brain to be challenged and your face to be contorted. From laughter. It is recommended that you keep in mind this disclaimer that was presented with the previous exhibitions: “Don’t ask what anything means, cause we don’t know. No, we weren’t on drugs.”

Our first piece is by François and is titled “Blue stop signs mean go!” (crayon, 2002). I used it as the cover art for my debut album, Joeliosis, released by Harriman Enterprises in 2002.