The Akron Art Museum is exhibiting a series of scrolls that aren't so much ancient as they are eccentric. "Alfred McMoore: All This Luck in My Head" is the first solo exhibition for the late artist who has a major connection to two of Rubber City’s most famous sons.
The self-taught, lifelong Akronite created what curator Wendy Earle called "a huge body of work."
"Most of his drawings are 5 feet tall by 50 feet long," she said. "They're actually very difficult to display because they're so large."
Drawn in pencil and then colored using his trusty Crayola 96-crayon set, McMoore created hundreds of scrolls in his life.
However, there's only space for seven in the museum. One was donated by McMoore’s friend, musician Chuck Auerbach. The artist was also friends with former Akron Beacon Journal reporter Jim Carney. Years later, Carney’s and Auerbach’s sons formed a band: The Black Keys.
The group took its name from one of McMoore’s frequent exhortations when he would call friends, asking for a ride.
“He would call dozens of times and these voicemails got increasingly frustrated,” Earle said. “He would repeat these phrases that meant something was off in his world. ‘Your black key is taking too long. Don't be a black key. Don't get your black key on my white key.’”
The Black Keys played McMoore’s memorial in 2009.
While McMoore lived with schizophrenia, he was driven to create from an early age.
“People remember these elaborate chalk chandeliers that he drew on the streets of Akron,” Earle said. “Eventually, he was persuaded to move off the street and onto the sidewalk, because he would stop cars so that they wouldn't run over his drawings.”
At some point, that led to long paper scrolls, some of which are now in the museum’s collection. Earle said the exhibit, on view until Feb. 8, coincides with the city's bicentennial as a way to celebrate an unsung creative voice.
“I'm told that often Alfred did something called ‘Stop, drop, and roll,’ where he was carrying around a 5-foot scroll,” she said. “He would stop whatever he was doing, drop it in the middle of the street, unroll it, and just start working if the mood struck him.”
Much of his work depicts funerals, a pastime he indulged in whether he knew the guest of honor or not. Earle estimated that he attended thousands over his lifetime.
“He liked the catharsis of a funeral, because he was able to go again for a stranger and cry real tears,” she said. “I think so often in our society, we are told to suppress our emotions. For someone like Alfred, who was dealing with mental illness with schizophrenia, that was probably very difficult. But at a funeral, he could express those emotions.”
Other favorite subjects include people in specific uniforms: sheriffs, ministers, masons and even students at commencement.
“He really liked showing people a little bit differently than you might expect,” she said. “A lot of these sheriffs are shown with chandelier earrings … some of them have high heels.”
Earle said she isn’t sure whether it’s gender confusion, rebellion or something else.
McMoore spent his final two decades living independently with support from Akron’s Community Support Services. Social workers ensured he had meals, shelter and took medication.
Earle said she hopes museum visitors realize the importance of that sense of community.
“I want people to take away from it, ‘Who else in our community can we help?’” she said. “ We need to support our institutions that are doing this work.”
