Chris Tower

“When I was very little, television was my only escape from a world that I considered to be a very drab place. On Sundays, Channel 41 would broadcast movies all afternoon, usually starting with a light-hearted comedy and moving on to musicals, romances or the occasional western. One of those Sunday afternoons changed my life. The movie I watched that afternoon starred Rosalind Russell and was called “Auntie Mame,” not to be confused with the earlier Broadway pay or the later, inferior movie musical starring Lucille Ball. I sat in our living room watching it in a daze from the very first frame. This character and her world were unlike anything my young mind had experienced. Everything on screen was way over the top. Her clothes, her hair, her home! I was experiencing a visual feast the likes of which I had never seen. Every part of the movie was crammed with rich visual treats, textures, and colors. It was almost too much that was in fact, the whole point. I learned that day that I didn’t have to accept the dreary world around me in the way that it was presented. I learned a new way of looking. The most famous line in “Auntie Mame” comes when Mame declares,” Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!” I like to think that I live my life and create my work in that spirit. I believe that art should inspire and comfort and perplex and sometimes, show people a new way of looking.”