FM
Schill
Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1961,
FM was a half-breed, half German and half West Virginia
hillbilly. Dressed in orange on St.Patrick's Day by his mother,
FM was unsure how to fit in
with the local people of his blue collar suburban neighborhood,
known as Brook Park. But
his father raised him on sports and the values of hard work,
honesty, and obedience, and for
awhile FM was satisfied with this way of life. Typically,
once FM was enrolled in a university (Ohio Wesleyan U.), he
discovered that almost everything he knew about the world was
wrong.
In a lame attempt to drink himself
into sociability, FM discovered punk rock music. Still a virgin,
he found that he was not the only one with a personality crisis
and that the socially acceptable
behaviors he attempted to possess were just mind numbing trips
laid for the sheep to enjoy their
ride to the slaughter house.
Life for FM began to make sense.After
winning awards in college broadcasting for his skill at
programming music and for sowing the midwest cornfields with
the seeds of punk and
new wave vibrations and for his revolutionary radio show called
"the Circus Of Prophecy",
FM started work for the corporate establishment as a Promotion
Director for a FM Adult
Contemporary radiostation, WMJI in Cleveland.
With the words "sell-out" ripping
in his ears,FM left Cleveland,
changed his name to Fred and
began lifting and moving boxes in a warehouse. Fred
returned once more to radio after his circle
of work related acquaintances began to realize that he did not
drive a hotcar, or listen to AC/DC,
or get stupidly drunk
each night of the week,or tellgirls he loved them just to have
intercourse with them and then later marry them. He worked for
exactly one year in the cornfields playing adult
contemporary music, telling the time and temperature several
times an hour, and attending
various county fairs as a radio celebrity. He had a lot of time
to read and soul search.
He left his radio gig and ended
up in Claymont, a 4th way school based on the ideas of J.G.
Bennet, a student of G.I. Gurdjieff. There he met Robert Fripp,
Arthur Brown, Sarah Bennet,
Mrs. Bennet, Pierre & Vivian Elliot and others who had lived
life in an extraordinary manner.
After this experience and with a sureness he had not known before,
he returned to Cleveland
and the warehouse, box lifting world he had known before.He
was soon rescued by an old
acquaintance from Parma, Ohio, photographer and artist Dave
Cramer.
FM's next move was funeral homes.
He spent almost three years tending to the dead, an
experience that would help focus some of those "life meaning"
questions which continue to plague
FM. During these years, FM played bass and helped found a punk
rock band called "The Snyders
of Berlin." The Snyders
released two critically reviewed albums, "A Crash Course in Cleveland
Life"and "Rock-n-Roll in the Castle of Sin," in their brief existence
and toured Northern Ohio
with the likes of "the Afghan Whigs"and "the Vivians." Following
marriage to artist and hat
designer Melissa "Zoe" Fiala, and work in various meaningless
cafe jobs, FM graduated college
again from Cleveland State University and began to teach high
school in the inner-city. FM and
Zoe soon moved to Chicago and sought the better life, graduates
of Cleveland's underground,
hipster scene. FM was teaching in Chicago Catholic schools, working
in cafes with Zoe and
generally seeking something, but he didn't know what.
Somewhere during this time Dr.
Paul Swanson, an old friend from his days in Claymont called
and informed him of artist and teacher E.J. Gold's work. It
is and has been the work and
association with Mr. Gold's work which inspired FM to pick up
a brush, a pastel, a charcoal,
and enter the fine art
dimensions. Whether creating and organizing artshows in Chicago
with
his new partner Rosanna Ortiz, exploring himself with brush
and canvas, or navigating the macrodimensions, whatever the
moment looks like FM is attempting to penetrate it through
his work with others, whether it is a high school student or
a client or himself, theyare all the
same, the same projection
and his art is an attempt to leave breadcrumbs behind for himself
and the "others" as well as a forward glimpse behind the
veil which we call life.
to inquire, The Blue
Ladder
art
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