P#44: The Damen Station on the Blue Line in Chicago

Inspired by the Latest Technology in Printers

Damen was my first panorama. That's a really big piece, and like I said before, it's the first painting that I did with the print in mind. It was inspired by the introduction of the printers, the 9600, and the 9800, which I'm looking at one right now.

It's a big printer. It prints 44 inches and I thought to print that big, it's the only way you're going to see the details in this painting so it's a really big piece. Damen's another good example of the depth of field problem because you're standing on this platform and way off in the distance, way down in the horizon there is Chicago. You see the Sears Tower. (click the image for a larger version)

Now, if I look at my original photograph, there's the Sears Tower. It's a big black monolith over there but in the painting, you look in every window and you can see the fluorescents of the office up above, and there's a cubicle over there, and you can see that there's stuff going on in those windows. This is something that you wouldn't see in the photograph but every detail in those buildings is there.

The reference for all that stuff was a little involved. I don't live in Chicago, and fortunately my friend Jeff Schewe, who I was having lunch with that day when I saw that painting is a photographer. Every now and then I would say, "What does that sign say over there?" He'd go and take a picture and send it to me.

The buildings in the city like the Civic Opera House for instance, in the photograph, it's just this beige blob with some little, little nuances in there. It could be film grain, who knows but if I didn't do it accurately, somebody would have written me and said, "Hey, there are five rows of windows there," and so on.

I went online, which is an incredible resource, the web, which is something I'm so thankful for. I used to spend days at the picture library at the main library in Manhattan looking through pictures for resources whereas now, I need the Civic Opera House, I just go to that site, and there's a picture of it.

For all the buildings there, I actually went to a specific website which has all the architectural buildings in the United States both proposed, demolished, and existing. There are a bunch of different pictures of each building. That's what I did.

I figured out what building that way by going to Google maps and looking at the street of what that building is, then going to that other site and looking at the building, and looking at different photographs. Then I could figure out, "There are five rows of windows," so I created five rows of windows.

How many windows down? There are 27 windows so I did 27 windows. That way I had resource material that I can use to get the proper details. The web is a valuable source. I'm using it a lot for this particular painting here.

In fact, just now I'm looking at a billboard that has this little logo. Now, I know what the company is and I can't quite make out what that logo really looks like. It's BOCA Wear so I went to the BOCA Wear website, and there's the logo so now I have exact reference of what the loco looks like, so when I recreate it, it's going to look the way it should.

The web is a valuable source for reference material. Anything you're trying to create or duplicate, there is a resource. You don't have to go in there and start looking for stuff. It's right on the web so you can easily download pictures. Now, make sure that they're public domain if you're going to use them, but it is a good resource so you have the basis of things that you might want to use.

Audri Lanford: You know Bert, when we decided to do this interview, I sent my assistant Andrea to your website. I had just gotten back from St. Mary's College as we talked about before. I was telling her about this painting, the Damen painting so she pulled up your website and looked at it, and said that she used to live in Chicago six blocks from this train station. She just said to me, "It's like you're there." (click the image for a larger version)

I've never been to this particular train station but when I was looking at the painting in the gallery, that's how I felt. I felt like I was at the platform but she said, "It's like this exactly." She was there everyday. It was just so fascinating to hear her response to it because all of the details are just spot on as a friend of mine says. It's really very exciting.

Bert Monroy: Yes, I've gotten a lot of people send me photographs that they took when they were there, and I get calls, "Hey, I was just on a train going to the airport, and it passed Damen. I had to get off and look at the station." Actually my wife's coworker, her brother lives in that big orange building that's in the painting so, yes, I've gotten a lot of comments on that particular painting.

Audri Lanford: I can imagine. Thank you so much! I know we could go for another hour on this painting or five hours on this painting but I just wanted to thank you so much for sharing these.

Bert Monroy: Actually, let me throw one little note about that painting. In fact, it's true of all my paintings. Somewhere in there are these little Easter eggs. Yes, everything in that painting is pretty much true to the way the actual scene was except I create my own rough, and my own little damages to the metal, and so on.

But the little signs that are on the platform, one is the main sign that is fairly large. When you look at it, it says, "Chicago Transit Authority," it says, "No Loitering," all that good stuff. It's all the real type, the way the real sign works but in that painting that's at the gallery, it's so big that you can actually read the other stuff.

One of the things says that this is the stop of my friend Jeff Schewe's studio. Right below that it says that this was the stop during her wild and crazy high school years, my wife. It says that this was her stop because her parents lived between this and the next.

Way at the bottom of that sign, it says, "This is the first panorama I have ever done." I'll throw in little stories. The kiosk where people stand under the rain, the graffiti on there is like my son's graffiti and my daughter's name is in there, so I'll throw in little things that personalize it. It's fun. It's part of the fun.

In Summary

The amount of work that goes into a panorama painting is absolutely stunning, but as you can see from this shot of Damen Station on the Blue Line, the end result is well worth the effort.