COVER
IMAGE AND SOUND BY JEZY J. GRAY
W
Rock ’n’ roll history comes into focus at Boulder art gallery
the daughter of the famous artist sharhen Katie Selvage stepped ing her last name. After learning about into an unassuming Santa Selvage’s own art space in Boulder and Fe gallery for inspiration to her husband’s ties to the music scene, take home to her own art space in the idea of hosting an exhibition of Boulder, she didn’t know she’d be leavthese images here on the Front Range ing with a trunkful of rock ’n’ roll history began to take shape. in tow. “To see how they were able to capSelvage had been exploring the ture these musicians, these vessels of southwestern culture hub with her husIMA owner Katie Selvage and photographer David Michael Kennedy pose with the image that would the divine, I was just in awe — starband Patrick, vinyl buyer at Paradise become the cover art for the 1982 Bruce Springsteen masterpiece, Nebraska. Credit: Patrick Selvage struck,” Selvage says. “And I was like, Found Records on Pearl Street, to ‘OK, this is it. I’m doing it. We need this gather ideas she might replicate as than landscapes and pastels,” she here in Boulder.’” standing around talking to his manager owner and operator of IMA on North says. “I wanted to bring something a litAfter spending more time with Pilar [Albert Grossman] in the solarium at Broadway. But things took an unextle bit more provocative, a little bit more and visiting Kennedy at his remote stuThe Castle, I just took pictures.” pected turn for the music-obsessed raw. I felt like our gentle hippie sensibilidio in El Rito about an hour north of Here Law is referring to the four-stocouple when they walked through the ties were ready for it.” town, the Boulderites drove back to the ry Los Feliz mansion where she lived doors of Edition ONE, a sleek contemPeople’s Republic with a carload of for a time with her late former husband porary gallery tucked away on the New Tom Law, then road manager for the Mexico city’s famed VIBE SHIFT folk revival trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Canyon Road. When it comes to She photographed the visiting musi“He took off for one shaping those “hippie room, I went to another sensibilities” in the pop- cians and artists who cycled through the lavish Hollywood digs, producing room, and we met up in ular imagination, few some of the most iconic images of the the middle,” she recalls figures loom as large era’s biggest rock stars, artists and with fresh enthusiasm. “I as Lisa Law. In addithinkers. was like, ‘You’ve got to tion to the big-time But when it came to her outsized role see this,’ and he’s like, musicians who found at Woodstock, Law did much more than ‘No, you’ve got to see themselves immortaldocument. In addition to helping with this.’” ized in her lens, she medical tents and security, she requestWhat had so stirred also captured key figed $3,000 from organizers to buy ingrethe Selvages was a ures and events definsmattering of works by ing ’60s counterculture, dients — rolled oats, bulgar wheat, honey, soy sauce, dried apricots, wheat rock photographers Lisa like psychonaut germ and almonds — to make muesli, Law and David Michael Timothy Leary, author which she and other volunteers passed Kennedy. From the forKen Kesey and the Janis Joplin sits with Bob Dylan’s longtime driver Tommy Masters after a night of out in Dixie cups to the hungry hippies mer’s candid portraits of earliest moments of lovemaking with “the mountain man” (not pictured). Credit: Lisa Law in attendance. It turned out to be a lifelegends like Janis Joplin Woodstock. images that would become the upcomline in more ways than one. and Bob Dylan to the latter’s iconic Regardless of her subject, each image ing IMA exhibition of works by the cele“The governor of New York was tryalbum covers for Bruce Springsteen, shares a disarming intimacy that draws ing to make it a disaster area, and we Muddy Waters and more, the era-defin- brated photographers. Running through in the viewer and makes them party to Dec. 16, the show marks a new gear kept saying: ‘No, we’re taking care of ing artists are together responsible for the historic moment caught in the everybody. We’re feeding everybody. some of the most memorable images in for Selvage’s NoBo gallery space and frame. represents the culmination of her misEverybody’s enjoying the music,’” Law music history — and it was all right “I’m really fast on the trigger. And sion to breathe new life into the city’s says. “If you call in the National Guard, there on the wall, staring back at them. what I’m trying to capture is the it changes the vibe.” Moved by it all, Selvage and her hus- visual art scene. essence of that person at that moment. “I want to bring something that really Law might have made the wheels of band struck up a conversation with galI don’t want them to pose,” Law says. inspires and shakes things up … history move during pivotal moments lery owner Pilar Law, a photographer in “Back then I was just documenting Boulder is ready for something more like Woodstock, but her work found its her own right who so happened to be what I saw. So when Bob Dylan was
14
NOVEMBER 16, 2023
BOULDER WEEKLY
