Happy Birthday Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge! We’ve been saving this pic of the seldom seen Hall of the Presidents in the Coney Island USA Building for Presidents Day. CIUSA artist in residence Marie Roberts painted the murals in a back stairwell for the 2008 Creepshow at the Freakshow . The artwork still exists though it will be painted over next Halloween. The theme was Phantom of the Presidential Wax Museum. The mural is meant to be viewed under black light as seen in this superb photo from jamie nyc’s flickr set of the haunted freak show tour.
While the Hall of the Presidents is not in a public area of the building, you can celebrate Presidents Day Weekend in Coney Island by watching the Polar Bear Club Swim on Sunday at 1 pm. Join the Bears for brunch afterward at CIUSA’s Freak Bar. Bagels, cream cheese, coffee, espresso and cappuccino will be available for purchase at Sunday’s Polar Bear Brunch.
While America honors Presidents Day with sales galore, Coney Island USA continues its online gift shop sale of Mermaid Parade, Film Festival and Creepshow posters; Funny Face, Madame Twisto and Serpentina T-shirts; and Dreamland Bar & Grill tokens. Winter hours at the Coney Island Museum and Gift Shop are Saturday and Sunday, 12-5 pm.
Coney Island USA, 1208 Surf Ave, Coney Island. B,D, F, Q trains to Stillwell Ave.
Beginning on March 14, Coney Island USA’s artist-in-residence Marie Roberts will teach a four-day, hands-on workshop on the art, technique and history of banner painting. For more than a decade, Marie has painted the banners advertising the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. You can view her work 365 days a year on the CIUSA Building at Surf Ave and 12th Street.
According to the course description “Each student will be furnished with one 5 x 4 inch blank, and the use of materials to execute it. Traditional banners will be discussed, sideshow banners from the collection will be on view for reference, instructor will be present at all sessions. Emphasis will be to help the student achieve his/her own large format composition, using the instructor’s years of painting experience. Professor Roberts will paint along with students to demonstrate method.” For more information on “Banner Painting 102” and other sideshow school classes– including fire eating, sword swallowing and glass walking!—visit CIUSA’s website.
The pix that appear in this post were taken on New Year’s Day when we visited Marie Roberts studio. The works-in-progress in the first photo are for a banner Marie is working on for Ringling Circus commemorating last year’s performance of the Coney Island Boom-A-Ring. If you look closely, you’ll see Justin Case riding through the miniature ring of fire on his tiny bicycle! The mermaid banner shown below will be up for auction at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s upcoming silent auction.
Coney Island USA’s artist-in-residence Marie Roberts is an accomplished painter who is best known for her banners for the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. Her canvas advertisements for Donny Vomit, human blockhead; Heather Holliday, the youngest female sword swallower; Serpentina, the snake charmer; and guest freaks like the Lizard Man adorn the CIUSA building 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The Coney Island banner line is a year-round tourist attraction and fave subject of photographers. During the off-season, the artist continues to produce banners for private clients as well as other genres of paintings. On the weekend of December 12-13, you’re invited to Marie Roberts’ Open Studio to meet the third generation Coney Islander and view her watercolor “tondos” of the old amusement district.
Astro Tower from Studio Window by Marie Roberts. Watercolor/gouache, 8 x 8 inches, 2009
“I received a faculty research grant from Fairleigh Dickinson University last summer,” says Roberts, who is a professor of art at FDU as well as at CIUSA’s Sideshow School. “The project was to compose in round, or “tondo” format. I intended to do invented figure compositions, but became enthralled with the views from the studio window.”
The artist’s studio on the second floor of Coney Island USA’s Building has a view of the Wonder Wheel, Astrotower, Old Bank of Coney Island and Luna Park … the furniture store! The studio location is 1208 Surf Avenue at West 12th Street in Coney Island. Open Studio hours are from 1- 4 pm on Saturday and Sunday, December 12-13.
The artist also paints banner portraits for folks who do not perform in the sideshow, but enjoy having their own banner at home or to promote their work. How does the Coney Island banner painter decide what kind of banner to paint for someone? “It depends on the client,” Roberts says. “Some know they want to be ‘The Feejee Merman’ and know the exact pose and what will be included in the painting. Some have no clue and I try to see what they want from their words. ‘Anything you want,’ said one client. It’s usually a collaboration of what they want and I can do.”
Tommy Couteau, pictured above with Marie Roberts, won the “have yourself painted any way you want” package at Coney Island USA’s gala auction. He decided he wanted both a mermaid banner and a “Guy from Coney Island” banner.
Says Roberts,“I have had to make banners where I don’t know what people look like. In one for a photographer, I covered her face with a camera. In another, for a group of people, they wore masks painted to look like the cast of a sideshow they had seen.”
Roberts recently completed banner for artist and “photo reader” Stephanie Diamond is on display in Miami at the Scope Art Show’s Covet Garden marketplace through December 6th. Diamond’s art project is “Snap Sharing, which uses psychometry, an intuitive technique that involves holding or touching objects or photographs to gather information.”
You can visit with Marie Roberts and her Coney Island banners via Sideshow Picasso, a documentary by Marilyn Agrelo filmed earlier this year and viewable on YouTube…
Marie Roberts Open Studio, Coney Island USA, 1208 Surf Avenue at W 12th St, Coney Island. December 12-13, Saturday-Sunday, 1-4 pm. The Coney Island Museum, which is on the same floor as Roberts studio, is open weekends year round and will be open from 12 – 5 pm.
Amusing the Zillion 