About the Gallery

The Merlin's Wheel Gallery is a visual art gallery that integrates three generations of rock and roll illustration and photography with new media design and the leading print reproduction technology. This site is a work in progress that grew out of an ongoing creative partnership between artist Mikio Kennedy and the inscrutable Shady Backflash. The site exists in conjunction with a travelling art gallery that represents the works of some of the finest visual artists to emerge from the Grateful Dead with that of different counterculture luminaries, notably, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and core member of the Merry Pranksters.

At present the gallery consists of four portfolios from Mikio Kennedy, but will expand in late fall following the completion of the Furthur Festival. In the near future, the site also links to Shady Grove, an archive of different mystical, counterculture and political musings by our resident wordsmith Shady Backflash and his altered ego, Matthew Rick.

The gallery was a popular installment with both audience and media alike when it made its debut at Woodstock '99. Promoters Terrapin Presents provided space for the gallery's encore at the Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, CT, where it was also warmly received. On site signings by featured artists and counter culture celebrities were popular features at each installment. Mikio Kennedy, William Giese, Mike DuBois and Susanna Millman were onsite for Gathering of the Vibes. Additionally, the ultimate Woodstock veteran, Wavy Gravy made a brief appearance in the gallery at Woodstock '99 where he shared some laughs with longtime friend Elliott Landy and appreciated the work of Mikio Kennedy.

The travelling gallery (appearing from August 22 - September 24 at the 23 show Furthur Festival) will contain work from San Francisco poster art legend Stanley Mouse and the best illustrators to emerge from the neo-psychedelic tradition: Mikio Kennedy, Richard Biffle, Michael DuBois and William Giese. In addition, two photographers of note, Susanna Millman and Elliott Landy are contributing prints which range from Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline album cover shot and the Garcia Grisman album cover shot to classic photos of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, The Band and the Grateful Dead.

Merlin's Wheel is both a historical record and a signpost to spaces still unchartered. Like all bohemias, Merlin's Wheel is a dream that exists between worlds. We remember the past and the records left by the earlier Beat, psychedelic and mystical luminaries who explored the lines between gnosis and psychosis. But we are also interested in pushing the envelope, enthusiastically encouraging the ongoing conceptual fusion that has emerged from the new digital counterculture and which is evident in the blossoming of such events as the Burning Man Festival.

Arthur Clarke once said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", a phrase we take to heart. We'll be growing and changing as time develops, rotating featured artists and adding different columns and features, so please check back often.

A Brief Historical Context of the Gallery

The tradition of psychedelic poster art collectibles gained prominence in the middle and late Sixties in the San Francisco Bay Area when many up and coming rock and roll bands were promoted by the (generally very low) pay of a local artist to design a promotional poster. Many of the posters for the early Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom, Matrix and similar "dance hall" shows are now highly sought collectibles. Galleries on both the East and West Coast have done extensive installments and also done detailed lithograph quality reprints of early classics, creating a whole rock and roll poster art industry. The popularity of this early work also, to a great degree, fueled the rock and roll commercial illustration industry. In the years since those early dance concerts, this industry has blossomed and also undergone numerous transformations. The artists who worked with the Grateful Dead created a unique niche that bridged a gap between fan generated and band commissioned art. Mikio Kennedy's silk screen designs achieved "underground" recognition among the Deadhead audience for years before it was brought in front of the band and he was commissioned to do album covers and promotional art. In the years that followed, he, William Giese, Michael DuBois and Richard Biffle were able to produce numerous licensed Grateful Dead designs, utilized for everything from a Rainforest Action Network benefit album cover to event shirts to Arista Records album release announcements. In addition, they've done work for Arlo Guthrie, the Allman Brothers, Carlos Santana, The Jimi Hendrix Estate and numerous others, creating portfolios of countless popular rock and roll and fantasy illustration images.

The advent of affordable archival quality ink-jet printing has allowed for a new revolution in collectible art. Independent visual artists, including photographers and illustrators, now have the ability to create low cost archival quality high resolution reproductions that can be produced on demand and sold directly to the audience. This advance is doing for independent visual artists what the mp3 is doing for independent musicians -- allowing for direct artist to audience interactivity and distribution.

Merlin's Wheel On the Road With Furthur

From late August through September, 2000, the remaining members of the Grateful Dead in conjunction with other premiere musicians will play a twenty two show concert tour, The Furthur Festival. The title Furthur was inspired by the playful misspelling of the Merry Pranksters' legendary psychedelic bus. The Pranksters remain involved with the Furthur Festival and are given space on each of the Furthur Festival shows. The Merlin's Wheel gallery, in collaboration with Key-Z Productions, will be an installment at each of these twenty three shows with audience capacities of up to 35,000. Each show, the gallery will feature signed works and most of the twenty two shows will have one or more artists on site doing signings directly and interacting with the concert audience. The gallery will work in conjunction with a retail vending crew, yet be something considerably different from what the audience is accustomed to seeing in the festival's vending area.

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