PORT ANGELES — Brush in hand, ears full of music, Johnny Rickenbacher doesn’t hold back.
At the Vern Burton Community Center during Memorial Day weekend this year as well as in 2011, he and fellow “performance painters” Jeff Tocher and Doug Parent splashed color across canvases as if supercharged by the music swirling around them.
Night after night, the painters painted as the musicians — from the Paperboys to Baka Beyond to singer Allen Stone and his band — held forth from the main stage of the Juan de Fuca Festival.
Also during this year’s festival, guitarist-singer Paul Chasman of Joyce laid out a set of new songs on the intimate Chamber Stage next door.
“I had a great time,” Chasman said, “because I felt like the audience did too.”
Rickenbacher’s festival experience was also a heady one: The energy flowed from audience and band, he said, “so I was halfway in between, getting it from both sides.”
While painting to live music, Rickenbacher added, “my feet aren’t on the ground.”
Tuesday night, the three performance painters and one player will reappear, courtesy of the Port Angeles Arts Council, in an event titled “Sound and Vision.”
Admission is free and the venue is Keegan Hall, Room M125 at Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
The 6 p.m. presentation will feature Rickenbacher, Tocher and Parent displaying art made during those festival shows, as well as Chasman giving a 25-minute concert of his originals, which range from a salute to Muhammad Ali to a love song for his wife ,Anna.
This showcase of artists both visual and aural is designed to invite other local residents to learn more about the Port Angeles Arts Council, said Chasman.
He’s a board member of the council, which is in its third year holding meetings and promoting local art shows and classes.
“Sound and Vision” will be just an hour long, and “our hope is that this type of program will be of interest to the greater Port Angeles community, attracting people who would not attend a monthly art business meeting,” said arts council president Eric Neurath.
“We want people to participate,” said Chasman, adding that prospective arts council members can find plentiful information at www.PortAngelesArtsCouncil.com.
Details are also available by phoning 360-452-5911 or emailing Neurath at fotos@olypen.com, or council member Bruce Hattendorf at bhattendorf@pencol.edu.
“Sound and Vision” is the first of a series of arts council presentations, Neurath said. The council hopes to offer them quarterly or every other month.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345 ext. 5062 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
