Jacci Hammer

In the early nineties, I got this gig where I was to create rock and roll mural installations. These were to be located on 27 storefronts on Euclid Avenue for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame groundbreaking festivities. I was given monies to hire a half a dozen artist to accomplish this project. Stephanie Haynes, CIA graduate, was one of my choices. Due to the magnitude of the job, we desperately needed kind studio space. Stephanie approached Ron Naso ( Studio Gallery) and he volunteered his space. From there, was caught in a whirlwind of fluxism, the moment I set creative feet in Tremont. My art
seemed to have a motion of its own. The artist seemed to form another tribe. Jean Brandt and Sandy Rotkowski had organized this little art walk. At the same time, I was involved with the Wild Flower Cafe (in a role I will never begin to describe) and decided to do a solo show for the art walk. The essence of pure salon was a way of surviving.

The Literary Cafe was a juried school of its own. You were either meant in the movement or you flit, I flew. I became involved with so many strange community projects. The abstraction was often even beyond me. I had no idea what I was really trying to say in these pieces but somehow I had a burning passion to express it.

My first Tremont installation piece/performance was held in the primitive traditional basement in the Brandt gallery. I titled it “Holy, Holy, Holy.” During the opening, an unusual noise was heard out in the street. The guests rushed out of the gallery to find Greek Orthodox priests in parade and everyone was anointed with holy water. What a coincidence or an anonymous miracle. The freedom of unreined conception was the natural in Tremont at that time. There were uncanny thematic connections, I’ll never organize, I did not have to. Actually, embracing the chaos and structure seemed to feed my ideology.

The interrelationships of the artist were stormy but passionate. Even in the opposition there was acceptance as though the movement ad its own agenda and no one would dare interfere. Because of that undefined boundary, the capita and surroundings evolved. So be Tremont. Perhaps the creative founders would have chosen a different state if they
had any control but frictional creative output has a mind and energy pull of its own.