William T. Wiley, âFunk Artistâ Who Spurned Convention, Dies at 83
Rooted in the Bay Area, he disdained commerce (and the New York scene, mostly), produced an eclectic kind of figurative art and imparted his âWiz-dumbâ to disciples.
William T. Wiley loaded up his art as if it were his scrapbook, depicting figures, landscapes, perhaps images of nuclear reactors and the despoliation of the natural environment.Credit.William T. Wiley/Hosfelt Gallery
By Deborah Solomon
Published May 5, 2021Updated May 18, 2021
William T. Wiley, the influential artist and educator who helped found the funk art movement and establish the San Francisco Bay Area art scene as an unfiltered alternative to what he saw as the flagrant commercialism of New York, died on April 25 in a hospital in Greenbrae, Calif. He was 83.
Jerry in Hawaii 1988
Jerry Garcia Photo by Elliot Newhouse
The environmental element of the art release will use the carbon offset tools made available by Aerial, an ecologically driven platform focused on alleviating humanity s carbon footprint. This particular release will support Aerial s forest conservation work, verified by the American Carbon Registry and Climate Action Reserve. We re excited to help creators, including Jerry Garcia Music Arts, understand and mitigate the carbon footprint by supporting meaningful projects, said Aerial cofounder and entrepreneur Andreas Homer.
Jerry Garcia, best known as the lead guitarist and vocalist of the Grateful Dead, considered himself an artist who played music. The visionary Garcia began creating art as a young child and later studied formally at the San Francisco Art Institute. The many mediums Garcia chose to create with oils, watercolor, ink and digital were as versatile as his talents. Garcia s fine art has traveled thr
Aidin Vaziri May 5, 2021Updated: May 6, 2021, 1:40 pm
Jerry Garcia readies his art for an exhibition in San Rafael in 1992. Photo: Vince Maggiora / The Chronicle 1992
A rare piece of art created by late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia became available as a non-fungible token, or NFT, on Wednesday, May 5, to coincide with the 56th anniversary of the first time the band played together, as the Warlocks, at Magoo’s Pizza Parlor in Menlo Park in 1965.
The one-of-a-kind digital piece titled “Gift” was created by Garcia in 1990 and is being released by the Jerry Garcia Foundation, which is run by his fourth wife, Manasha Garcia (nee Matheson), and youngest daughter, Keelin. It is available for auction on the peer-to-peer SuperRare website, with carbon offsetting by a company called Aerial.
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William Wiley, ‘I Wish I Could Have Known Earlier that You Have All the Time You ll Ever Need Right Up to the Day You Die,’ 1970; Ink and watercolor on paper.
(San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; photo by Mary Ellen Hawkins)
William T. Wiley had many names over six decades as an artist. There were his alter egos Mr. Unatural and Zenry. Critics called him the Zen Cowboy, the Metaphysical Funk Monk, the Dude Ranch Dadaist and Huckleberry Duchamp handles that conjured California’s brew of folly, spirituality and rugged individualism. Few other West Coast artists inspired so many nicknames. One could chalk this up to Wiley’s thick mustache, blue jeans, boots and bolo tie. But there was something more elusive that aroused the image of a folk hero and that needed some kind of special name. He worked against the grain in a way that was knowingly oblivious, like someone slightly out of time or in possession of ancient wisdom. For many he was a sort of art world frontie