After a nearly 50-year career, Dennis González has turned his attention toward cataloging his 70 past exhibits that have spanned the globe and his output as a performer and recording artist.
“I think that life has been pretty good,” he told me. “I wake up in the morning and think, ‘Wow, what a life. I’m still here, and it’s an amazing thing.’ ”
The acclaimed jazz trumpeter will perform his most recent release, the album Nights Enter, on Saturday at the Grackle Art Gallery. The show that will be up through February at the multidisciplinary space includes new art by González and his 8-year-old granddaughter, Isabella Anais Sisk-González. The start of the series Five Years of Collaborative Works began after González’ 2007 decision to pause his busy touring and recording schedule. He shifted his focus to a new series of large-scale works on paper and cardboard, The Doctrine of Hieromancy, that is characterized by images of insects that fascinated the artist as a child and iconography from Egyptian hieroglyphs.
After booking a show at Mighty Fine Arts in his hometown of Dallas in late 2015, González was finishing up what he thought was his “masterpiece” when his toddler granddaughter grabbed a gold marker and started scribbling over the near-completed work.
“I thought, ‘What am I going to do?’ ” González recalled.
Isabella, whom González affectionately calls “Issy,” had picked up on her grandfather’s love of drawing, and the veteran artist realized that he needed to trust her artistic instincts.
“She knew what she was doing,” he said, “so I used her work and incorporated it. When we opened the show in October, it was the first piece that sold.”
Courtesy of the artist
The popularity of the collaborative works and the joy of working together prompted González to start Five Years of Collaborative Works. About a third of the 25 pieces in the series have sold so far, he said, and the remaining works that capture Issy’s artistic development from ages 3 through 8 will be on display Saturday. González said he donates a portion of sales to the gallery and puts the remainder in a college fund for Issy.
González modeled the early works in the series after the first spontaneous scribblings. He would create a largely finished work that featured collages of his previous work, and then his granddaughter would use pens or pencils to add her own signature lines.
“She would do her own stuff,” González said. “It looked like Jackson Pollock.”
As Issy grew older, she would begin new works, and her grandfather would follow her lead. Many of the most popular pieces in the collection, González said, were initiated by Issy.
“The pieces that she begins are the ones that people gravitate toward,” he said. “We are still children inside. I think the child in us connects to the childlike and innocent” way she conveys things.
When González shared images of some of the works on Facebook, the owner of Ayler Records in France responded that he “dug the cover art” but wondered where the music was. That led to the recording of Nights Enter at Klearlight Studio in Dallas throughout 2020. The eight-track album features Jess Garland (harp), Jagath Lakpriya (tabla), Drew Phelps (bass), and Derek Rogers (keys) in addition to González on trumpet and percussion.
In the liner notes, former Weekly writer Ken Shimamoto says the music “is unlike anything else in Dennis González’ substantial discography. The confluence of organic and electronic elements is seamless, and the swirling blend of textures has a dreamlike quality. Dennis proves himself once again to be a master of melody — a trait he shares with the greatest jazz musicians. On Nights Enter, [González] and friends provide a healing balm for troubled times.”
Grackle music director Kavin Allenson said the alternative art space is ramping up the 2022 season with art shows on the second Saturday of every month. The artworks can be viewed by appointment in the days and weeks following each opening. The gallery, he added, also serves as an alternative performance space for non-mainstream music through the monthly Grackle Live! house concert series.
González has shown work in several dozen galleries and art spaces here and overseas, but he said the Grackle, a repurposed house, offers something special.
“It’s more like hanging stuff up in my own home,” he said. “It’s a very giving and warm space. It has this spirit of having absorbed a lot of positivity over the years. They have been very supportive” of my career.
