Starlight Lane by: R. Michael Wommack

Artwork Description

Artist Information

About the Pastels

I have been working on this new series of drawings for the past 4 years. A while back, I had a few dreams on different nights about being back in my childhood neighborhood in Levittown, PA. In one of the dreams, I was swimming in lit pools at night, that were interconnected, the sole source of light coming from the pools. This was a strange dream on several levels; I am not a particularly good swimmer, only one person in my neighborhood had a pool, and, no, I had not read John Cheever's short story "The swimmer", nor have I seen the movie adaptation starring Burt Lancaster. (I am looking for it on DVD. It is not available yet) We moved to Juniper Hill in the early 60's when I was six years old, the houses were newly built. As far as the eye could see there was the same house, in one of three alternating colors, in a gently curving and undulating artificial landscape. The trees were mere sticks, and no one had put up fences. Surrounded by plowed fields, on which Levittown was built, the visual impact was compounded when approaching this community of 14,000 homes in a car. As a first grader having previously lived in a country house, this experience was profound.

Inspired by these dreams, I immediately began putting them to paper. I pulled out my soft pastels, having not used them for years, and began drawing from memory. The colors in my dreams were incredibly vivid, and it turned out pastel was a perfect medium due to the pure pigment used in making them. I became interested in the idea of the subconscious and where working from memory would take me. It may be that our early impressions are made more vivid by the simple fact we have had fewer of them.  At the age of six our brains are uncrowded, the things we see and experience make a deeper impression on our minds. I am also interested in the fact that most Americans have lived in a place like this at one time or another, and the social ramifications of living in such a manner.

I don't care to deconstruct any of the dreams, but I am interested in tapping the imagery. I am not concerned with historical accuracy, but in the emotions caused by living in such a place at an early age. I am not interested in making a specific social statement. I like to keep aspects of the drawings ambiguous, to allow the viewer their own interpretation of what it means to live in American Suburbia.

Bio:

I received my BFA Tyler School of Art after attending the first session of the Pennsylvania Governor's School of the Arts. Since that time I have worked on my own and with other organizations in various artistic endeavors. In my early years I worked as a muralist for many private and governmental clients, many of the murals measuring 15 x 60 feet. The murals covered a wide range of subject material; some of them are whimsical, a few are silly, others are serious. In 1985 I was the colorist at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, working with well-known artists, such as Red Grooms, on specially designed fabrics.

In 1984 I began assisting internationally known architect Robert Venturi, airbrushing special furniture prototypes for Knoll International. This lead to painting wall graphics in many Venturi designed buildings, including The Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery of Art in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the Nikko Kifuri Resort Hotel in Japan, the Houston Children's Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For the past 15 years I have also worked on drawings for upcoming projects, such as the design of the unbuilt Philadelphia Orchestra Hall, the new State House in Toulouse, France and several projects for Disney. The most recent projects include large murals for the New Jersey State Aquarium, a muralized send up of an "A" Frame house on Mount Desert Island in Maine and a 30' tall Victorian "Temple" adorning a residential addition in New York.

My most recent exhibits include one person shows at Rowan University and The George School, and the most recent "Bucks County Artists - a Cross Section at BCCC". He is included in private collections in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Atlanta, Denver, Milwaukee, New York, Fort Worth, and Houston. This year prizes include "Excellence in Contemporary Art " award from the Greater Reston Center for the Arts, 2nd place overall at the Bayou City Arts Festival in Houston, one of five Fine Art Awards at the Lakefront Festival for the Arts at the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and "Best in Drawing" at the Bethesda Row Fine Art show.