John Cessna isn’t the first contributor to Now See Hear who has passed away. We lost singer-songwriter Michael Morales a few years back, and there may be others, though I hope not. John is, however, the only person so far who’s created a sculpture for Now See Hear. He passed away unexpectedly at his home in the Kansas City area in July.
John was a delightful artist, equally talented at sculpture, painting and landscaping. He became very excited about contributing to NSH once he heard the song Transistor Corazón, by astrologer-musician Melissa Greener, which was used as a “seed song” for this project. He absolutely fell in love with the song and with Melissa’s musical works. The art he created in response to the song is a fascinating piece of sculpture with changing lights, which he installed in his home.
John’s sculpture has so far inspired two songs: Mindy Dillard’s Dream Rocket and Jaeger & Reid’s Lights Flash Red. Those two songs have inspired, at last count, four more pieces of art and two more songs. There will be more as the thread grows, and that’s one of the ways that John’s work will remain among us.
John is also responsible for the image that I use on the welcome page of this website (see below). That’s the drawing he sent me as he was preparing to get underway on his sculpture.
You can find Melissa’s song, John’s sculpture, and all the songs and art that have followed them on the thread called The Thread With A Crazy Number Of Rockets In It. If you want to see a video providing a 360 degree look at John’s sculpture, backed by excerpts from both songs, click here.
