Jan 13, 2009 5:56 pm US/Central
A Chicago Artist's Vision Inspired By Obama
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Chicago artist Andre Guichard created a multimedia project inspired by Barack Obama and his supporters.
CBS
The election of Barack Obama has inspired a lot people in a lot of different ways. For one Chicago artist, it's the creative force behind an ambitious new work.
CBS 2's Jim Williams reports that when Barack Obama made his victory speech in Grant Park, a Chicago artist, one of the thousands in the crowd on election night, was inspired. Everyone in Andre Guichard's eye was the same color.
"Everyone was experiencing and expressing their feeling of happiness, joy, love - all simultaneously," Guichard said.
For two months, Guichard's vision was only in his mind.
"If you got a great idea in you, it just keeps bubbling inside of you," Guichard said.
Finally, just one week ago, it started to bubble out onto the canvas - a multimedia creation - sculpture, wood and paint.
Guichard says it was the president-elect's fast-approaching inauguration that motivated him to work furiously for 18 hours a day.
"I knew it was something that I needed to document because I just felt like it was the first and might be the last time I might feel something like that," Guichard said.
That, Guichard says, is the inspiration he gets from Mr. Obama and the people who voted for him.
Now, Guichard would like something else from the new president - help from the economic stimulus package for the Arts community - including the artists and galleries, like Guichard's own in Bronzeville - a short distance from Mr. Obama's home.
"I know he's looking at doing a lot of things with the public works and infrastructure and changing how we're doing things with energy, but I don't think we can forget culture," Guichard said.
Guichard points to the Federal Arts Project, which was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's WPA program in the 1930s as something that might be done today.
Guichard will not be in Washington for the inauguration. Instead he and others in the Bronzeville neighborhood will have their own inaugural party at the Parkway Ballroom to celebrate the momentous occasion.
You can see his work at Gallery Guichard at 3521 S. Martin Luther King Dr. For a link to the gallery,
click here.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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