Disruptions & Transformations: The Movies

When we began this project nearly two years ago, the working concept was transformation. Eventually, we shifted the creative ground a bit to disruptions and transformations in deference to a well-publicized transformation project our HQ city of Rockford had undertaken of its own.

Whether or not you own a copy of the Thinkpad that preceded these mini documentaries, know this: it was Mike Farris and Chris Silva who inspired us to make these movies.

Farris underwent his own near-fatal life disruption, and was transformed into a completely different kind of musician. His road has been a rocky one, but he has risen from great defeat and now helps make the lives of countless fans more meaningful, joyous and fulfilling with every show he performs. Silva brightens the lives of others through his public art - often using a signature melding of traditional graffiti and sculpture using discarded wood and other found materials.

Both innovate and draw outside the lines of their crafts’ conventions. Each is an outlaw of sorts, feeling his way through the shifting sands of a constantly changing world, never worrying how he is categorized, each taking his emotions and everything he has to say directly to his people.

Choose a movie and get to know them yourself. If you wish, you can find Mike’s Grammy winning album, SHINE: For All The People here or look for it where you live. If you’re interested in reaching out to Chris Silva about his art - public or studio, please visit his website.

If you’d like to give us at GrahamSpencer your feedback, please lay it on us here Or, visit our website.

Enjoy,

Your Friends at GrahamSpencer

Chris Silva

Graffiti Artist, Painter, Sculptor, Spacial Interrupter and Transformer.

It is often said that Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. The Windy City’s neighborhoods are a mixed tapestry of race, culture, socio-economic levels and opportunity. It is the city’s strength, and in some cases, its weakness. Like all major cities, Chicago has signature neighborhoods which flourish, as well as its fair share of those that struggle. It is Chicago’s inspiring melting pot of diversity that attracts unique, talented artists like renowned public artist Chris Silva, and forces a wide array of artistic expression and themes.

While Silva has created high-profile installations and art in burgeoning venues such as Chicago’s technology incubator, 1871 (aptly named after Chicago’s raging 1871 fire, which caused the city to rebuild from the ground up), it is on the streets of the city’s working class and down-trodden neighborhoods that his work makes the strongest impact. 

Such areas of Chicago contain seemingly endless numbers of grand as well as modest structures that have seen better times. The buildings, with their rotting wood frames and sooty, decaying brick facades, have become Silva’s canvases, and are graced with his one and three-dimensional bursts of energetic, beautiful disruptions. 

Unlike many artists of his caliber, Silva enjoys integrating community members in the design and execution of his work. This approach is deeply respected within the community. While implementing great art, he makes meaningful connections, allowing neighborhood residents to play a role in the creation of the work and creating new human networks along the way. He collaborates with other skilled artists, and invites the participation of “at-risk” neighborhood teens to help create his projects, instilling pride in the participants, project and community.

Another signature Silva technique is his penchant for working beyond a flat surface. More than a one-dimensional, “writer,” or graffiti artist, he often sculpts using found objects, pre-cut wooden forms and other material elements designed to interrupt passersby and make them stop, look, enjoy and think. 

Many of Silva’s themes are naturally inherent in Amor (Love). Tucked neatly inside a Chicago Transit station on the city’s heavily Latino southwest side, this mosaic integrates Silva’s themes of love and community in a public setting. The mosaic tiles— a medley of disparate shapes, sizes and color—become metaphors for coexistance and form a vibrant, cohesive artwork. The birds, like many of the passengers that ride Chicago’s rails every day, seemingly track their own migration pattern—from one heart to another. If there’s a message to be taken from Amor, it’s to love the journey; to take in the beauty from one’s own travels.

Like Mike Farris, Chris Silva is a deeply gifted, one-of-a-kind artist. He plies the streets of the City of Big Shoulders, eyes wide open, adding sprinkles of beauty and inspiration, hoping to transform the world one wall, one neighborhood, one viewer at a time.

Mike Farris

Hard Rock Singer Transforms Himself, Audiences.

Some special artists transcend genres, defy categorization and illuminate stages with unearthly power and grace. Their musical gifts can shake their audience to its core, and inspire people to change.

Mike Farris is such an artist. But he didn’t start out that way. In the early 2000s, after years fronting Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies and Double Trouble—and rarely performing sober—Farris committed himself to a healthy new direction in his life, and a new calling in music. He came out the other side of addiction recovery a different kind of artist. The new comfort he found in soul and gospel music blossomed into a way of life–and a determination to forever abandon drugs and alcohol. Instead, he poured his energy into the creative process.

His first solo record, Goodnight Sun, released independently in 2002, had one foot in his musical past and one leaning toward his, new, true “voice.” In 2007, he released the critically acclaimed Salvation in Lights, which married old timey roots gospel sounds with his own unique arrangements, inspired by New Orleans, Stax and blues origins. The music dealt with his individual struggle, but also allowed him to connect with fans from all walks of life. In 2008, he won the Americana Music Associations’, “New & Emerging Artist of the Year,” award and began to make a name for himself (again) as a dynamic performer. In 2008 and 2009, Mike Farris and The Roseland Rhythm Revue performed monthly residencies at Nashville’s world famous Station Inn, the beloved, Sunday Night Shout! The official live recording of the Station Inn shows, Shout! Live, was released in 2009 and won the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Award for “Best Traditional Gospel Album of the Year” in 2010.

When the “1,000 year flood” hit Middle Tennessee in May of 2010, Mike was moved to help those affected. He gathered up some of the finest musicians in town, including Sam Bush, Ketch Secor & Gill Landry (Old Crow Medicine Show), Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart), Byron House (Robert Plant) and members of his Roseland Rhythm Revue, including the fabulous McCrary Sisters. Six songs were recorded in six hours at Nashville’s Downtown Presbyterian Church. The music was a redemptive blend of old time country, gospel and blues with Mike leading the “Cumberland Saints” with singular energy. In October of that year, the EP was released as The Night The Cumberland Came Alive, with proceeds donated to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

In late 2014, Mike Farris released an exciting and critically acclaimed new album, Shine: For All The People, on Compass Records (for which GS created the album art and packaging). He continues to amaze audiences whether he plays solo or with any one of his different configurations, from the stripped down Cumberland Saints to the full 10 piece Roseland Rhythm Revue. His voice connects and mesmerizes in such a way that it doesn’t matter if the songs are his own compositions or those written 200 years ago. He owns them all.

Farris, of course, doesn’t take credit for his gift. “This music we make—it’s so beyond us—it’s my privilege to sing it night after night.” That may be true, but Mike Farris is a conduit for something truly special, a singular comet streaking across the sky, blessed with a his own gravity. If you hear him live (and you should) you’ll feel his gravity, and hear the gospel truth.