Art in Bars

As a bar or restaurant, featuring different artists’ works every few months provides both an advertising opportunity and a change of scenery to regular patrons. It’s a low-cost way to stay artistically current and create a supportive feeling of community.

But a few area bars take an opposite yet equally rewarding approach, displaying permanent art pieces that take up large swaths of wall space. While installed or painted at an initial cost to the businesses, the pieces also attract a following, mostly by word of mouth. In addition, the large pieces, made by local artists, often create or contribute to the atmosphere of the bar. 

“Birds of Wisconsin” at Blackbird

Past some puffy-painted road signs, a photo booth that takes Polaroid pictures, and some pinball machines, visitors to Blackbird will find an array of birds painted on the back walls.

An illustrated crow, duck, and barn owl-among other birds-loom over large semicircle booths, their long talons extending out of the painted frames as if looking for something on which to land. The title of the series, “Birds of Wisconsin,” is also painted on the wall, with the artist’s alias, LChappelle, underneath.

Blackbird’s co-owner Holly DeShaw said of Luke Chappelle’s work, “His stuff is pretty unique; people mention it a lot.” She expressed surprise at how many people have come in just to see the birds.

DeShaw is a friend of Chappelle’s, who is a resident of Bay View, and commissioned him to paint the back walls to complete the “up north, cozy” feeling of the bar’s atmosphere. That the birds tied into the bar’s name, chosen for its organic qualities, was even better.

The birds possess ornate coloring with deep hues over a golden background, inspired by the Oriental Theatre. While this could be likened to imaginative illustrations in a children’s book, DeShaw noted the “mechanical” quality also present in the birds. From afar, the pieces look anatomical, like looking at a diagram, but the scale and colorful line detail of the pieces raises them to art status, where they demand a closer look. A well-deserved look, since Chappelle worked on the birds for two months.

In addition to the concert posters that Chappelle creates for local shows, he also created the puffy-painted road signs, worth examining upon leaving the bar, even if only to compare his different styles.

Bison Mural at Lee’s Luxury Lounge

In contrast to Blackbird’s backwoods Wisconsin theme, Lee’s Luxury Lounge contains a curious landscape not indigenous to Wisconsin. Just across the street from the birds, bison roam over snow-capped mountains in a mural created by Amy O’Neill, a former Milwaukee resident and UW-Milwaukee graduate.

Owner Deanne Wecker travels to South Dakota every summer, and asked O’Neill to paint the mural based on a favorite Polaroid picture Wecker captured.

Taking up four large panels, the mural contains few colors and the oils are painted on so cleanly that the result is reminiscent of a silkscreen.

One part of the mural isn’t so clean, however, and many discerning customers notice Wecker’s favorite detail of the mural. “I like that she made one of the bison well-endowed,” she said.

Other than the depiction of the South Dakota prairie, parts of Lee’s don’t diverge far from Blackbird’s feel. Lee’s has wood paneling reminiscent of a basement “up north”-a purposeful intent. With her bar, Wecker was going for the atmosphere “of being like your dad’s den in the ’70s without having a lot of dead animal heads on the walls.”

She saw the inclusion of the mural as a good way around this, as it was the last addition to the bar. And, noting the inherent contradiction, described the overall feeling of the bar as “’70s modern.”

As with Chappelle, more of O’Neill’s works are scattered around town. O’Neill’s works adorn walls at La Perla, Trocadero, and Café Hollander.

Figures of Women at Burnhearts

Two glowing, plastic renderings of anatomic hearts flank the cash register, and here, the non-specific gender décor ends. Burnhearts’ building used to be a brothel, a historical fact the owners used as a launching point for the design.

Co-owner Tanya Bruski commissioned Mike McGuinness, her friend and former Bay View resident, to provide the main focal points on the walls of both the front and back room.

The flowing, womanly figures that adorn the front room tie in well with the theme, and are bathed in soft colors. But with often dim lighting, the figures can go unnoticed, especially in the presence of the piece in the back room.

Created in plaster and paint, a woman with a tossed-back head resists the harsh materials in which she was cast. In the untitled piece that McGuinness describes as a “mural relief,” the woman’s painted face transitions seamlessly into three-dimensional windblown hair that occupies most of the wall.

The space influenced McGuinness’ mural in that the owners wanted him to work off of the present rust color. The color and lighting convey warmth in the back room and provide a contrast in temperature with the soft, cool colors in the front of the bar. The warmth immediately draws a visitor’s eye in from the cold, but not harsh, elements in the front room. This contrast and visual movement works here, because the similar thematic elements provide cohesion.

McGuinness also acknowledged that his piece has a contemporary feel, but to tie the mural in with the storied history of the bar, he used techniques to make it “look more aged, like an ancient Tuscany type of wall.”

Drink with Celebrities at the Newport

With its wall-sized mural depicting Jack Nicholson, Lana Taylor, and Sammy Davis Jr. laughing while drinking cocktails, you’ll never be drinking alone at the Newport. Painted by Jennifer Espenschied, these drinking partners don’t ever get old, sloppy, or uncontrollably verbose.

“The previous owners wanted to make [Newport] into more of a cocktail lounge,” current owner Frank Creed said. In the mural, everyone is formally dressed and the painting looks as if it could have been adapted from a photograph-like at Lee’s-if not for one detail. The previous owners “interspersed pictures of their friends into the mural.”

A neon Schlitz sign casts a warm red light over the painting, silently announcing the working-person’s bar the Newport is now. Newport is truly a neighborhood bar-a shot-and-a-beer kind of place where neighbors convene, sit around at the same table after work like a family, and decompress. Creed likes how the mural fits in with this atmosphere. “It’s a nice conversation piece,” he said. “It sets it apart from corner bars.”

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