This story is part of a series about arts and culture in Washtenaw County. It is made possible by the Ann Arbor Art Center, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Destination Ann Arbor, Larry and Lucie Nisson, and the University Musical Society.
Chera Piehutkoski, co-owner of 122 W. Washington St. in Ann Arbor, says a new mural there is an "ode" to her stepfather, Rick Burgess, who for decades owned the building best known as the home of the Del Rio Bar.
The mural, which was designed and painted by Lansing-based artist Brian Whitfield (who also designed Michigan’s
Mackinac Bridge license plate), depicts the great jazz pianist Thelonious Monk at play alongside a few other musicians
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Patrick DunnBrian Whitfield's new mural at 122 W. Washington St. in Ann Arbor.
Piehutkoski, who says Burgess "
was the Music Man," now co-owns the building with her mother (and Burgess’ widow), Karen Piehutkoski.
As a pianist, Burgess performed for years with the Rick Burgess Trio. Beginning in the '70s, the jazz ensemble frequently appeared across the street from the Del Rio, at The Earle, which Burgess co-owned. Burgess was also a record collector who introduced "free jazz" nights at the Del Rio not long after he bought the building in 1969.
"He always had a passion [for music] from the time he was in elementary school," says Karen Piehutkoski — and Thelonious Monk was one of his favorite musicians.
A relative of Burgess' once told Karen Piehutkoski that, as a child, Rick "would sit at the dinner table with a transistor radio at his ear."
In 2019, before COVID shut-downs, the Piehutkoskis began discussing the possibility of a mural installation with the
Ann Arbor Art Center and with Larry and Lucie Nisson, private benefactors committed to funding public art in Ann Arbor. Both Karen and Chera Piehutkoski say that the decision to hire a muralist was an easy one.
"Who doesn’t want more art?" Chera Piehutkoski asks. "I'll take a beautiful mural over tagged walls … any day."
Finding the right artist for the project took time, and when they finally landed on Whitfield, who is known for bold, vibrant colors, the pairing seemed "meant to be," Chera Piehutkoski says.
But the mural isn’t just a private ode to one individual. It also serves as "a nice nod to the history of Ann Arbor," Chera Piehutkoski says — and, in particular, to the Del Rio Bar. In the late ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, the bar served "an irreverent bohemian mix of artists, poets, musicians, and working folk," according to a 1994
Ann Arbor Chronicle article.
The mural "is art for the community," Chera Piehutkoski says, meant to reflect Burgess’ own commitment to that community.
"Anything that brings the art back to our own community is always a good thing," she says.
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When I painted Thelonious Monk"
For Whitfield, the "public" part of public art is especially appealing. When you're painting in a public place, he says, "people stop and talk to you about [your work]."
"People can be inspired by your work and [by] seeing [it] over and over again," he says.
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Ann Arbor Art CenterBrian Whitfield works on the mural at 122 W. Washington St. in Ann Arbor.
Whitfield says his work on the new mural drew a lot of attention from passersby.
"As the painting started to develop, more people stopped and wanted to talk about it, especially when I painted Thelonious Monk, and they saw his face. Then they really wanted to stop and have a conversation about what I was doing," he says.
As much as his interest in public art is driven by chance encounters with strangers, Whitfield says his devotion to musical subject matter is driven by shape.
"I especially like the shapes of guitars or upright basses," he says, as well as the way musicians "kind of get hunched over," with a look of "intensity [on] their face," when they play.
But Whitfield also likes the variability inherent to these musical scenes, the way that a complete whole may be made up of discrete, independent parts. He says that while "each musician is doing their own thing," each one producing "completely different sounds," the music they make comes together as a coherent whole.
"I like to portray that in art by having different styles mixed within one painting," Whitfield says. The varying styles cohere in the same way the different voices, each produced by a different instrument, do.
So while Whitfield depicted Monk in a nearly photo-realistic style, the figure playing the bass is rendered in a completely different style — much more angular and fractured. Taken together, though, all these different styles do (paradoxically, perhaps) coalesce.
Whitfield says the mural’s setting and surroundings also contribute to the painting itself. While he says "some artists just ignore what’s there" — like windows that interrupt the smooth surface of a building’s side, for example — he likes "to incorporate what’s there into [his] paintings."
That means the real windows on the side of the Del Rio, for example, were painted directly into Whitfield’s scene.
As for the finished product, Chera and Karen Piehutkoski both say they "love it."
Whitfield, Chera says, was "really interested in our history, and the history of the building, and the history of Rick [Burgess], and in some ways, he channeled that into what you see up there."
Natalia Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, and others.
Completed mural photos by Patrick Dunn. Mural progress photo courtesy of Ann Arbor Art Center.