by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
His “other life” continues to garner a local lawyer honors and an opportunity to represent the City.
Thomas Farrell’s acrylic painting “Trio Jax” was chosen from an international field of artists to be the image for the 2009 Jacksonville Jazz Festival poster. No stranger to creating the face of an event, Farrell has produced images to be displayed on posters for the 35th Annual Riverside Art Festival, first Amelia Island Fall Art Festival and Second Annual Legal Artwalk. His work was also featured on the label of a limited edition production of wine by the San Sebastian Winery in St. Augustine.
To this day, Farrell isn’t sure how his name found its way on to the City’s list of artists, but he received an e-mail from the City’s Office of Special Events calling for submissions from artists for the Jacksonville Jazz Festival poster.
“It was funny because I never really new how Jazz Festival posters were selected,” said Farrell. “There were very little criteria as far as rules. I guess they wanted a wide variety of entries.”
Staff from the Office of Special Events attend art shows and community events on a regular basis to make contact with artists, normally picking up business cards and adding them to the City’s list, said Christina Langston, public relations manager for the Office of Special Events.
“We normally have an international field that submits work for the contest,” said Langston. “We’ve received entries from all over the world, places like Ecuador and Spain.”
This year there were 160 submissions.
After Farrell decided to be a part of that field, he started to research what he was going to create.
“I had to go and get books about jazz because I had never painted an instrument before,” said Farrell. “I had to study them and understand their form. I tried to compose it so your eye is drawn to the center of the painting.”
The contest may have been the first time Farrell painted an instrument, but it wasn’t his first experience with jazz. As a 10-year-old boy, Farrell would ride his bike down to the Ocean’s Landing club in Cocoa Beach, where he grew up. He would draw caricatures of the entertainers and sell them in the lobby. The owners of the club liked Farrell’s work so much, they invited him and his family to come to the club and enjoy the performance of notable jazz musician Dizzie Gillespie.
“I sketched two pencil drawings of Dizzie and I gave him one and he signed the other for me,” said Farrell, who has the sketch framed and hanging on the wall at Farrell & Gasparo, a law firm he founded. “He looked at it, nodded his head and smiled. He said, ‘Yeah...that’s nice.’”
Farrell didn’t know a lot about jazz when he met Gillespie, but has become a fan.
“I like older jazz. The more spontaneous stuff, rather than today’s smooth jazz,” said Farrell. “I’ll listen to Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker.”
Spontaneity also permeates the piece Farrell created for the contest, “Trio Jax.”
“I wanted to create a feeling of spontaneity in the painting,” said Farrell. “Carefully crafted spontaneity.”
He has taken to using acrylic paint over water colors these days.
“Acrylic is the best of both worlds,” said Farrell. “You get the colors and the flexibility with the acrylic paint. Also, it doesn’t stink up the studio either like solvents you have to use with water colors.”
Those colors are part of what caught the eye of the selection committee.
“It is a departure from the type of work we have accepted previously,” said Langston. “It offered very bright and vibrant colors.”
The phone call he received from the Office of Special Events created some excitement for Farrell when he learned his submission had been selected for the poster.
“I’m very proud to represent the City and the festival in this regard,” said Farrell.
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