COWBOY MIKE KEEVER: At Circus Sarasota

Art meets the circus life at Art Center Sarasota

By NANCY CHAPMAN
CORRESPONDENT
nancy.chapman@heraldtribune.com
2/16/2006


Life is a circus.

That's the slogan of Circus Sarasota this year, and Chuck Sidlow says it's directly tied to its creators' feeling about what they're doing.

"The circus is an art form," he said to a select group who had been invited inside the tent Friday morning for a special presentation.

It was, therefore, totally natural that they, visual artists from Art Center Sarasota, were there, continuing a collaboration that has proved fruitful for both sides.

It's the second year artists have been invited to come and photograph or sketch performers.

Sidlow, a veteran clown and performance director for Circus Sarasota, invited his "chosen brother" Cowboy Mike Keever in from Missouri to be the star of the event.

Keever, who performed with Sidlow for years as part of the Ringling Circus Red Unit, has recently turned to expressing himself with acrylic paints, and the show began with an exhibit of Keever's work set up on the circus ring.

All of the colors in his paintings evolved from clown colors, with brilliant blues, reds and yellows emoting in sometimes surrealistic canvases.

Then he set about showing the artists how he uses his face for a canvas, and the artistic deliberateness with which he designed his cowboy clown character and makeup.

As Madeline Ferraz and Joan Bisser sketched Keever's transition into "real-life cartoon," Sidlow sat down next to his longtime buddy and waxed poetic to the intimate gathering about the difference between entertainment today and then.

The two also entertained the crowd with the story of their visit to the White House lawn -- their mule got loose and they did an unintentional comedy act, trying to save the animal from a very nervous Secret Service.

The event ended with an athletic performance by Damien Boudreau and Genevive Cliche. The gymnasts methodically stretched before doing a series of moves and answering questions. It was just part of the "behind the scenes look" that Marilyn Olsen, one of the artists, said she loved about the presentation.



If you're curious about Keever's artwork, please click the title of this post to visit website of the CEL-EBRATION Art Gallery in Red Bank, NJ