Marie Roberts | Amusing the Zillion

Posts Tagged ‘Marie Roberts’

New Coney Island Freak Show Banners Pay Homage to Past

Posted in art, tagged Coney Island, Dick Zigun, famous freaks, Marie Roberts, sideshow banner, Snap Wyatt on May 18, 2011| 4 Comments »

New Bannerline by Marie Roberts for Coney Island USA. May 14, 2011. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

Artist Marie Roberts, whose sideshow banners have adorned Coney Island USA’s building since 1997, has painted a new bannerline that pays homage to the landmarking of the building by acknowledging artists of the past. CIUSA artistic director Dick Zigun’s idea was “Marie Roberts channels Snap Wyatt.” Marie explains….

We chose Snap Wyatt – I always think of his forms as more Platonic and Piero like. We based the designs on his banners.

The central “Sideshows by the Seashore” banner depicts a stage with actual stars of the past… Bobby Reynolds, Jack Dracula, Sealo, Albert/Alberta, all performed in our building. The General Tom Thumb is for Dick’s past, Lionel is for mine.

The color is deep and rich recalling the polychroming on the Parthenon, the figures frieze-like, like Egypt perhaps.

The first time I wrote about Marie was more than a decade ago as part of a travel story for Islands Magazine. This third-generation Coney Islander spoke so vividly about her Uncle Lester, who had been a talker with the Dreamland Circus Sideshow in the 1920s, that I felt as if he were alive. Photos of him working and socializing with Lionel the Lion-Faced Man and other famous freaks left an indelible impression on Marie and continue to inspire her work.

Other sideshow stars portrayed in the frieze include…

–General Tom Thumb, who was 25 inches tall and weighed 15 pounds, found fame and fortune touring Europe with PT Barnum. He was born in 1838 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which is also Dick Zigun’s hometown.

–Bobby Reynolds, sideshow legend and self-proclaimed “greatest showman in the world,” brought his museum of curiosities to the now-demolished bank building across from Coney Island USA in the 1990s. He returned to Coney to perform this spring at the Congress of Curious Peoples.

—Jack Dracula was first tattooed by Coney Island’s Brooklyn Blackie in the 1940s. He had over 400 tattoos on his body, including his face, and was famously photographed by Diane Arbus. One of the shows where he found work was Dave Rosen’s Wonderland Circus Sideshow, which occupied Coney Island USA’s building in the 1950s and ’60s.

Weird Women Banner by Marie Roberts for Coney Island USA. May 14, 2011. Photo © me-myself-i/Tricia Vita via flickr

The first time I wrote about David “Snap” Wyatt was in the late ’90s, when I chronicled the movement of sideshow banners into high-art venues for Art & Antiques, New Art Examiner and other magazines. Wyatt was a virtuoso who was snapping up work with traveling shows long before he attended Cooper Union and became one of the few banner painters with an art school education. During his 40-year career in the world of midway art, he also created figures of zombies and other creatures for several of his own sideshows.

My favorite Snap Wyatt banner is his Strange Girls gaff banner in the book Freaks, Geeks & Strange Girls, which Marie has reinterpreted as Weird Women. Strange Men and the new banners of individual performers have yet to be hung.

Marie is teaching a banner painting workshop at Coney Island USA’s Sideshow School in August. She is also a tenured professor of art at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her painting student at FDU, Justina Cena, assisted with the pieces.

Halloween In Coney Island: Behind the Scenes at Creep Show at the Freak Show

Posted in amusement park, Events, tagged Coney Island, Coney Island USA, Creepshow, freak show, Halloween, Haunted House, Kate Dale, Marie Roberts, The Ride Inspector's Nightmare on October 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

On Friday night after a visit to Luna Park’s Nights of Horror, we made our way to Coney Island USA for the first Creepshow at the Freakshow of the season. Started by CIUSA artistic director Dick Zigun in 1998, the annual Halloween event takes the audience on a haunted tour of the 1917 Childs Restaurant Building which is the art organization’s home. “To be honest, this show, ‘The Ride Inspector’s Nightmare,’ is the best of them all!,” Zigun tells ATZ. “Other notables were ‘Phantom of the Presidential Wax Museum’ two years ago. Also Scott Baker playing a frozen Walt Disney… not to mention the first Creepshow about Childs Restaurant cooking the bodies of children.”

After purchasing tickets and drinks at the Freak Bar, guests are ushered into the sideshow theater for the chief ride inspector’s retirement party. Coked up and drunk, the zombie-like chief and his garrulous assistant reminisce about gory ride accidents and share the blame around. “No more reports!,” the chief barks repeatedly before sleepwalking us down a back stairway to the basement and then up another back stairway to the museum, where he is put on trial for negligence. Since this is an interactive show, the jury is the audience. Along the way, we’re treated to a series of macabre tableaux by Creepshow designer Kate Dale and spooky murals by artist-in-residence Marie Roberts. Photography is not permitted, but we did a Q & A with both artists, who give us a behind the scenes peek at the show…

We’ve been a fan of Kate Dale’s work ever since her homage to Fragonard’s Girl on a Swing in the 1999 Mermaid Parade. The Juilliard prop shop supervisor has won “Best Mermaid” and “Best Float” more times than anyone else in the history of the parade. For the past five years, Dale has been the Creepshow’s designer.

ATZ: Kate, how many sets or tableaux did you create this year?

Kate: Some of them bleed into each other, but I’d say there are 7. They vary in terms of complexity.

ATZ: Which one (or ones) is your favorite?

Kate: I have some favorites… I think I’ve been dreaming of the one I call the doll room the longest. It’s inspired by Disney’s “It’s a small world after all” and also Barbarella with a nod to Chucky. The dolls of the world have gone berserk and murdered a hapless family. The happy dolls always seem menacing. And the basement room’s water feature is one of the most inspiring parts of the building for me in for sheer weirdness. My other favorite was an afterthought, we built it in 20 minutes opening night. I won’t spoil the surprise.

Creepshow at the Freakshow 2010. Photo © Laure Leber via Coney Island USA

ATZ: Wherever did you find all those mannequins that were in the museum’s ride cars? They look like antiques!

Kate: They come for various sources, some were hanging around the museum already, some are loaners from friends. I’m always on the lookout for dummies and body parts. I got the little boys from Build it Green. Thanks Build it Green!

ATZ: Which one of Marie’s paintings is your favorite this year?

Kate: Well the stairway is pretty epic in scale, and repeated viewings really pay off. You discover different details each time.

ATZ: Which Creepshow was your favorite and why?

Kate: I loved the Phantom of the Presidential Wax Museum because I think it told a great story and the Presidential shooting gallery where patrons shot a cutout Kennedy with ping pong balls was probably the sickest most wrong thing I’ve ever been personally responsible for.

Creep Show at the Freak Show Banner by Marie Roberts. Photo © janquito2 via flickr

For more than a decade, Coney Island USA’s artist-in-residence Marie Roberts has painted the banners for the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. Her canvas advertisements, including one for Creepshow at the Freakshow, adorn the CIUSA building 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

ATZ: Marie, tell us about some of the murals that you painted for this year’s Creepshow.

Marie: My task was to turn the back staircase into a surreal nightmare roller coaster disaster, none of which I would choose to paint on my own. I studied paintings at the MET and MOMA for ideas and made drawings. I consciously put in homages to a couple of favorites. St. Sebastian pierced by arrows became the head of the stairs person impaled on rails. My two uncles who were at Dreamland the night of the fire are painted as little kids with zippered mouths, a nod to Magritte. I didn’t realize till I was laying the mural out there that there are elements of Picasso’s “Guernica” as well.

Conversely or weirdly, I saw the abstract expressionist show at MOMA before I painted the welcome to Dreamland sign at the head of the stairs in the basement, and the Hellgate devil burning the Creation angel are probably the most expressionist thing I have ever painted.

I love how the three dimensional ticket booth works with the staircase murals.

It is all too fresh for me to have any perspective all I can think of is how to make them better.

ATZ: Which one is your favorite of Kate’s sets or tableaux?

Marie: I love the way Kate transforms the building. This year I am amazed at how she transformed the basement. Every viewpoint in the first room hangs together, and there are surprises in every cut out and nook. The second room is also together visually, not an easy task. I am amazed at how she can think so three dimensionally. I can only think in terms of flat planes.

Coney Island USA, 1208 Surf Ave. Corner of Surf Avenue and West 12th Street, Coney Island. Creepshow at the Freakshow runs nightly from Friday, October 22, through Halloween. Check website for hours. Tickets are $10 at the door. On Saturday, October 23, CIUSA will host a party and the first-ever Sleepover at the Freakshow after the last Creepshow Tour. Tickets for the fund raiser are $40-$75.

One of the creepy characters in this year's Creepshow at the Freakshow. Photo © Laure Leber via Coney Island USA

Cutie & Patootie: Coney Island Kittens Up for Adoption!

Posted in Animals, tagged adoption, cat, cat rescue, Coney Island, Cutie, foster, kitten, Marie Roberts, Patootie on September 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

UPDATE December 19, 2010:

ATZ is happy to report that Cutie and Patootie were recently adopted into a cat-loving home. Their new names are Joan Crawford and Bette Davis! If you are looking for two cute (also too cute!) Brooklyn cats to adopt, please consider Spot and Dot. These sister cats are being fostered by our Coney Island Polar Bear friend Eric Weiss.

UPDATE October 24, 2010:

These sister kittens from Coney Island were fostered for the past month but are now back with Marie Roberts and need a permanent home. “Cutie & Patootie aren’t shy anymore and purr constantly. They like to be with each other, monkey see monkey do,” says Marie. If you’re interested, contact Marie at bitterwonder[AT]hotmail.com or leave a comment below.

Cutie: Female kitten, Tuxedo. Shy but coming around. Very smart

September 6, 2010…ATZ recently got a chance to cuddle the teensiest kitten in Coney Island. Marie Roberts, who paints the banners for the Coney Island Sideshow, took him in after he’d been abandoned by mama cat. The kitty was affectionate, alert, and lucky as all get out. After spending a couple of nights in her studio at CIUSA, he was adopted and is living in the lap of luxury!

Since then Marie was able to rescue his siblings. Now that Cutie and Patootie have been checked out by the vet, these two little girls need a home. Marie writes: “Female kitten, Tuxedo. Shy but coming around. Very smart. Needs home/foster situation by Tues am. Below: Female kitten, grey tabby. A little shy. These are siblings. Vet washed, wormed and they are on antibiotics.” You can meet them today at the Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue, 2nd floor. If you’re interested, contact Marie at bitterwonder[AT]hotmail.com or leave a comment below.

Patootie: Female kitten, grey tabby. A little shy

UPDATE September 7, 2010:

Marie Roberts, who rescued the kits, writes: “Cutie and Patootie are in foster care until Fri morning (Sept 10) but they are still looking for a home with that special human.” She also noted that Cutie is spokes kitten for Patootie! These two really should be adopted together.