The intersection of "The Jam Part I – A history of rock and roll" Pointillism and motorcycle art
The home of Canadian pen-and-ink artist Michael Keirstead has echoed a rhythmic ratta-at-tat for the better part of the last two decades; the delicate tapping succumbing to the occasional chrome roar of a four-stroke from the garage. Naturally, the neighbors appreciated the important musical accompaniment and the constant murmur of conversation and laughter from the ever-present family and friends.
In this home, everyone is drawn to the ratta-tat-tat of the Art Studio, and the driveway had a continuous stream of two-wheeled traffic. The Art Studio is where it all happened. You see, while the rest of us were playing around with our motorcycles and doing that 9-5 thing, Mike was busy studying him with an added passion: stippling. Ratta-tat-tat.
This madman came up with the idea of designing a drawing that would bring together the faces of over a hundred of the most influential contemporary musicians and chronicle the evolution of rock music. It wasn’t just going to be a drawing though, “The Jam” would be a HUGE drawing: four feet tall and eight feet wide. Big enough to shake a piece of plywood in your boots. Mike would spend months selecting which musicians to include and where to place them in relation to each other so that a story would be told.
“The Jam” followed Buddy Holly and Elvis through Motown, Folk, British Invasion, Heavy Metal and Punk, including classics like The Stones, Doors and Beatles. Mike soon discovered that a task of this scope would not be completed in a single summer, especially since the gigantic masterpiece he envisioned would not be a sketch, but a stippling: a pointillism, made up of tiny dots made with a black ink pen.
Ratta-tat-tat is the sound your pen made as it touched the canvas. Ratta-tat-tat is the sound muffled by melodies when they are started. Ratta-tat-tat was the only sound that could be heard late into the afternoon when Mike worked in solitude, hoping that one day his vision would be complete. Each little dot worked with another little dot to create the shading and shape that tricks the eye into seeing an image. The further apart the dots are, the lighter the tones will be; the closer together the dots are, the darker the tones. The project, started in 1979, took him eight years and would have driven him crazy if it weren’t for his motorcycle.
You see, Mike was working on another project; A 1973 Triumph Daytona 500 is rebuilt to feature a custom tank, six foot forks, stunning chrome and an exquisite Springer front end. The Triumph also made a ratta-tat-tat (oops!) sound, but he expected a purr, a buzz, and was willing to push himself and put in effort and learn more about bikes in the process. Talking to Mike about it now, he says that the detail in rebuilding and customizing his Triumph paralleled the attention to detail that he went into completing the faces in “The Jam.”
As each bolt was chromed, the bike was slowly put together in the same way that with each finished face the artwork came together. Sometimes, when the artwork seemed too slow, it was refreshing to do something physical with your body: welding, lifting, sweating, getting dirty, using your mind for something in 3D, instead of sitting still, having a hand cramp, be ultra clean and spotless, and working in two dimensions. Mike would dope for a while, then build his Triumph for a while, then dope and then take a spin on his 1978 Shovelhead hardtail.
Towards the end of that eight-year tacking period, after numerous bolts were removed for re-chroming, the finished Triumph was given the reins and Mike was finally able to take it on those much-needed revitalizing rides. The theory was that if the chopper could be finished, so could “The Jam”: Mike perked up, but there was one nagging thought in his head: Will his custom classic bike ever really be completed? Isn’t there always more tinkering to do?
This same conflict is what Mike faced with his artwork. There were too many talented musicians to recognize that they could fit into “The Jam.” Rock music hadn’t stopped and exciting bands were springing up everywhere. The canvas was full, but the history of rock was incomplete. There was only one solution: “The Jam” would have to become part of a series of artworks, its full name would be “The Jam Part I – A History” and Michael would eventually have to dot a “Part II”.
In 1986, “The Jam Part I – A History” was finished and Mike sold thousands of poster-size versions and 300 original size 4 x 8 foot limited edition screen prints to people at rock festivals and his fellow bike enthusiasts. . Every self-respecting music fan seemed to want one or have one hanging on their walls. The sales of these prints took away the “hunger” from the “starving artist”. As a reward for his artistic efforts, Mike soon acquired a 1985 Heritage Softail and headed to BC to spend his time cruising the Coquahalla. In BC he puts up his boss, a fellow bike enthusiast.
His sponsor’s first commission was a “Jam” motorcycle – a custom paint job based on Keirstead’s copyrighted “The Jam Part I” artwork, airbrushed on a framed Kenny Boyce 108 cu in SS . Permission was granted and Todd Goggal sprayed the tank and fenders magnificently. Sweet! The bike was on display at the former The Dayton Boot Co. Ltd. location on Granville Street in Vancouver.
Once established in BC and with the help of his Medici-esque patron, he began the intensive work on the second artwork “Jam” full time. While splashing around the second “Jam,” Mike picked up the custom 1982 Harley FXR (which he currently rides) and also began to rekindle his boyhood love of dirt bikes. He started collecting Honda CT70 and Honda Enduro. When he was 9 years old, Mike would bomb his family’s farm in Uxbridge, Ontario, in a Honda CT70, and now he was teaching his two sons and his girlfriend to ride. It seems that some things are passed down from generation to generation. His girlfriend Lola has mastered the CT70 and now she has switched to Enduro. He is now teaching his friends to ride a bike on the paths of his house.
History repeated itself again when Mike was doing his second piece “The Jam Part II – Long Live Rock & Roll” as he spent many years doing ratta-tat-tat interspersed with a bicycle. But this time, he was riding the dirt trails near his home in the Okanagan Valley that provided the much-needed release from his painstaking art. “The Jam Part II” was started in the mid-1990s and completed in 2002. It continues to tell the story of rock music and again depicts more than 140 musician faces in addition to elements of the rock lifestyle. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Kurt Cobain, Tom Cochrane and many others grace this masterpiece.
For those in the know, “The Jam” has become a legacy, and now that the second in the series has been completed, it has built a bridge for generations of music lovers. Plans are underway to order another “Jam” motorcycle; Mike is thinking that maybe “The Jam Part II” will be airbrushed on a Road King this time. Or maybe he’ll airbrush it on his first love, his old Triumph?