Earlier this month, Bill Warrell — an institution on D.C.’s music and arts scene since the 1980s — hosted what he called a “firehouse sale” at Outer Space, his decommissioned firehouse-turned-studio in Brentwood, Md., as he prepared the building to be sold.

Warrell was a founder of the legendary experimental-music venue d.c. space and of the nonprofit presenting group District Curators, which operated during the 1980s and ’90s — and he has never stopped creating opportunities for creative music to be heard. He’s also a talented painter, whose canvases feature images of jazz greats and close friends (often, that’s the same person) in a mix of personal and political settings. This month’s art sale brought together those two sides of his artistry: He was selling his work to raise money for an upcoming music festival in his current home of Milton, Del.

Seemingly every time Warrell hosts a gathering, the core of the DMV’s creative-music community turns out. This sale was no exception. The “friends and family” pre-sale on Saturday, March 1, felt like a warm hug of community and understanding, as local stalwarts like Myrrh Cathen, Bobby Hill and Yusef Jones basked in each other’s company on a cool, pre-spring day. The main “firehouse sale,” which occurred that Sunday, radiated a similar energy.

CapitalBop staff photographer Keith Butler, Jr. documented the public sale and gathered some words from Warrell, who reflected on his history on the D.C. scene and the presenting work he continues to do in Delaware. All photos below are by Keith Butler, Jr., of original artwork by Bill Warrell and ephemera from his collection.

Bill Warrell: I bought this firehouse [in 2017] … with the intent of making it my own studio, and also hosting performing arts and cultural activities. … When COVID hit, the local municipality [of Brentwood, Md.] came down on me about not having the right certificate of occupancy. I couldn’t be living here, and I had to get these new permits where I couldn’t do any activity here. But [the permits] got stalled, and P.G. County shut down [amid lockdown], so I came back and started doing things. We did a 98th birthday celebration for Marshall Allen here. And Luke [Stewart] put a group together. It was great.

We had a series of things all planned out, and some friends of friends arranged to have a birthday party for their son here, and… some young people came and got in a riff, and somebody got shot outside in the leg. Nobody died, but that’s irrelevant to the town sheriff, [who shut down Outer Space] that following Monday morning. The irony is that Sunday, I had already loaned the place out to a memorial service for a woman that made documentaries for years and everybody knew in D.C., and she was a Buddhist, and it was an amazing crowd. There was singing, and humming, and chanting. That was the Sunday after this had happened.

So I ended up staying out at this place on the shore and fell in love with the Town of Milton, Del. Right after COVID, there was a lot of fluctuation in the property values, and I needed to reinvest some of the monies from this transaction. So I bought a house in the town, and I moved there, and I’m currently getting ready to build a studio building there, once we sell this building. The people [who are selling this building] are putting it on the market this month, and want it emptied out. …

They shut the building down for commercial use and put me through hell trying to get it reopened. They didn’t want artists here. They want to be ready for the future. They want a restaurant, or somebody to build condos.

[During the interview, an anonymous attendee approached Warrell to chat. The person looked around and exclaimed: “This place was lived in. Man, look at all this artwork here! This place was love.”]

We started calling this place Outer Space. And really, I did see it as the next generation [of d.c. space]. But it didn’t last very long. I have Buddhist tendencies. I’m not going to say I’m practicing, but — nothing’s permanent. To try to force it to become an institution, to become permanent, just ruins things.

The portraitures are of people I know. Even the politically charged ones … are friends of mine. Like the repainting I did of the Renoir here are all of my lesbian friends, bathing and celebrating the new change in laws in 2015. My artwork’s always had a political twist to it. The trees are all assault units and drones, and they’re in a pond of Blue Dream [marijuana], which had just been legalized in D.C. that same year.

I have a block of paintings that I did, but most of them I want to keep together. There’s eight or nine of them that are … what I call “new fakes” — rather than “fake news.” They’re retellings of famous artworks that I loved as a kid. The woman in white [“The White Girl”] is a Whistler at the National Gallery; “The Uprising” is a [Daumier] painting at the Phillips Collection. So they’re all things I saw as a kid. I had stories going in my head, seeing those paintings. I’ve remixed those stories and spit them out as political contemporary.

I wasn’t planning on doing any more presenting, but I met the mayor [of Milton] and I asked him, “Would it be okay if I had Ensemble Volcanic Ash play in my yard?” Anthony [Pirog] and Janel [Leppin] had just played down there for my daughter’s wedding. We started talking, and he said, “Well, if you could make it an event that could be a little family-oriented.” I said, “Fine — local arts guild, we’ll partner with them. We’ll make an arts fair out of it, and include kite flying.”

So we named it the New Music and Wind Festival. We’ve had some great music for three years there. And for this year coming up, I’ve dedicated all my sales of music-related paintings to finance it.

It’s nothing but selfishness, because it’s music I want to hear and I want to see. We celebrated Marshall [Allen] last year. It’s celebrating people I want to celebrate. This year we’ll do Terry Riley and lots of other great music. And as far as I’m concerned, they’re nothing but barbeques in my yard.

Bill Warrell invites anyone wishing to support the New Music & Wind Festival in Milton, set for May 31, to reach out to him directly at warrell215 (at) gmail (dot) com, or to visit miltonartsguild.org.

Comments

comments