Rock Rocking Artist’s Works in Lambertville and Trenton

Susan Van Dongen                         U.S. 1 Princeton    

September 19, 2018         

American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives,” but Hamilton resident Howard Michaels is proving otherwise.

Since he retired in June from Lawrence Intermediate School, where he taught art for some 17 years, Michaels is launching what might be the fourth act of his life.

Just in the past couple of years, Michaels has found an artistic niche with his one-of-a-kind graphic portraits of rock music icons like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, George Harrison, David Bowie, Tina Turner, Bob Marley, Prince, and Amy Winehouse.

The Harrison piece, “When He Was Fab,” was created using hand-cut stencils and spray paint on a wood panel, and depicts a serene, somewhat mystical, young George Harrison.

The Winehouse work, “Body and Soul,” was crafted with hand-cut stencils, spray paint, and traditional acrylic paint and brushwork on canvas.

These are just two examples of the art forms that had been percolating in Michaels’ imagination as he closed in on his retirement from LIS. He says if he’s not making something, he’s thinking about making something.

Other gallery partners — connected through Trenton’s creative community — include Trenton-based sculptor Bruce Lindsay, artist and West Windsor Arts Council executive director Aylin Green, artist/jewelry maker Alia Bensliman, and mixed-media artist Kathleen Liao.

There is also the gallery’s first guest artist, Abelardo Montano, a Trenton resident whose digitally enhanced drawings and photography will be on exhibit through Friday, September 28.

Michaels says it was through Bensliman that he first heard about and got connected with Visual Stream.

“I went to an exhibit by women artists at a new gallery at the old Broad Street Bank (The BSB Gallery),” he says. “I heard some people, including Alia, talking about a co-op that was in the works, so I asked about it, asked them to keep me posted, and possibly included. Visual Stream opened during the Shad Fest in April.”

Michael was born in Paterson in 1951. His father owned the kind of urban general store you rarely see anymore.

“My dad had a 5 & 10 called Michaels Variety, and it was a real community store,” he says. “He had everything from toys to sewing and school supplies and even a special Italian section with espresso cups and whatnot.”

“I used to work there, especially around Christmas time, up until my teens,” Michaels says, adding that his mom was a homemaker, but later worked in retail.

In addition, Michaels’ uncles in nearby Totowa had a drug store/consumer items store that was transformed into an art gallery in the late 1990s. Michaels eventually was invited to a show there and was surprised, “The gallery was in my uncles’ old pharmacy. I walked in, and I couldn’t believe it.

Michaels says he didn’t come from an artistic family, but he always seemed to be drawing anyway and had a knack for it.

“Everyone knew I could draw, but I didn’t take extra classes or anything. I was actually more into sports,” he says, recalling games of stickball, softball, and basketball staged on the concrete playgrounds of Paterson.

To prove his point he shows a couple of drawings he did as a pre-teen, reflecting pop and sports culture of the early 1960s, as well as history.

In his collection, there are drawings of Paul McCartney and the other Beatles, a dead-on depiction of his hero Mickey Mantle, and a thoughtful portrait of John F. Kennedy, which Michaels drew when he was in eighth grade, in 1964.

“I just had a knack for looking at photographs and drawing them, but Mickey Mantle really shows my passion,” Michaels says. He then tells a tale of a childhood obsession with the Yankees.

“In the early 1960s it was the New York Yankees and Mantle that became my baseball passion,” he says. “I still remember 1961, when Rodger Maris and Mantle had one of the greatest historic seasons for hitting home runs.”

“I played all the sports but baseball was my favorite, from Little League through high school,” Michaels continues. “As a youngster, I had many positions on the field: I pitched, played infield, and even caught as a (boy), then later in high school. Through all this, I always stayed creative, drawing and painting at home and school.”

Michaels’ skills and interest in art blossomed at William Paterson College, where he earned a BA in fine arts with a minor in art education in 1975.

After graduation, Michaels found himself Down Under, recruited to teach in a remote town and Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, for two years.

During his time in the outback he recalls having only about 10 students in a small classroom where, outside the windows, a herd of sheep might pass by at any time. He says some of his kids were partly Australian Aborigine in ethnicity, and he has maintained an interest in Aboriginal art and culture.

Sometimes he also uses Aboriginal design elements to accent his rock musician portraits, such as in his likeness of Prince.

On a hiatus from the classroom in the early 1980s, he and good friend Marsha Cudworth saw that Cape May was becoming a mecca for foodies and lovers of Victorian architecture, and the two artists/authors self-published two fully illustrated books about the town.

Then Michaels’ interest in historical scenes from the Garden State led him to develop a collection of original vintage Jersey Shore photographs, which he individually hand-tinted, using photo oils.

In addition to publications, Michaels has exhibited his hand-tinted works at locations such as the Noyes Museum at its former location in Oceanville, and elsewhere on the Jersey shore. And besides Visual Stream, Michaels also shows his hand-tinted pieces at venues in central Jersey, including the Brookwood Cafe in Hamilton.

He returned to the classroom in the 1990s, teaching art in the Manchester Township district, and was then hired by the Lawrence School District in 2001.

Another venture into pop art he shared with his LIS students was “King Tut.” This dazzling and realistic sarcophagus began as a cardboard box and, through Michaels’ imagination and skill, grew to become a labor of love.

His connections with the Trenton art crowd began several years ago when he got involved with Artwork. There he met DJ/promoter/activist Jacque Howard, who drove him around the East Hanover neighborhood and brought him to the SAGE Coalition building, just at the start of the Gandhi Garden.

“I met Will “Kasso” Condry there when he was painting the Gandhi mural,” Michaels says. “That was when I recognized that the portrait in the SAGE logo was an Aborigine, and we connected over that.” “That was the beginning of me hanging out in Trenton,” he says. “I met all the guys, but it was Jonathan “Lank” Conner whose hand-cut stencil work really influenced me and my art. Through Kasso & Lank, I too became involved with community activism and the ‘Windows of Soul’ project. I liked the young, energetic people I was meeting, and they didn’t judge me – I was their contemporary,” Michaels says. “All this energized me and helped me to focus on helping out as well as being part of the art scene, but I hadn’t started my own brand of art yet. I was more of an observer. ”Little by little, he experimented with painting and photography, showing some of this work at the Trenton Downtown Association’s now inactive Gallery 219 on East Hanover Street. Michaels also played with retro images of Twiggy and other fashion models from the 1960s, doing a combination of painting, photography, and montage. Michaels’ focus on musical superstars began after Prince died in 2016 and SAGE artists created a giant mural in tribute. Michaels was inspired to try and create a stencil of Prince but didn’t quite know how it was done. He says Conner gave him some artistic advice and moral support, telling him, “No matter what you do, it’ll be good.”

Michaels says he then “used the copy machine at school, made really big copies (of a Prince image) and pasted them on cardboard, then started cutting out around the lines. Leon Rainbow suggested I spray paint it at the tribute location. That was the beginning of me doing the music icons, spray painting hand-cut stencils. “The Prince piece is titled “1999” and was crafted from hand-cut stencils, acrylic markers, and spray paint on fiberboard.