Here’s To OL’ Blue Eyes!

HERE’S TO OL’ BLUE EYES!

Some people collect records.

Juno Santos paints them.

For this exhibition, Juno has chosen 65 albums from the extraordinary recording career of Francis Albert Sinatra—Frank, Frankie, The Chairman of the Board, Ol’ Blue Eyes—and translated their covers from vinyl record to canvas.

But these paintings began with listening.

Juno listened to Sinatra day after day as he worked, moving through decades of recordings from Columbia, Capitol and Reprise. It was not simply research. It was immersion. Because Juno does not merely admire Sinatra.

He loves him.

That love began when his grandfather, Jose “Pytz” Santos Jr., introduced him to Sinatra’s music as a child. His grandfather passed on a voice he had loved all his life. Juno, in turn, has found his own way to carry that music forward.

With a paintbrush.

And with a piano.

Juno is an artist who moves between two worlds of expression. He paints what he hears; he plays what he feels. The image becomes music. The music becomes image.

Sinatra interpreted songs. Juno interprets Sinatra.

The paintings are silent.

Juno is not.

A grandfather introduced a little boy to Frank Sinatra. That boy grew into an artist and discovered that art could open a window between generations, between music and painting, between what we inherit and what we make our own.

Sixty-five canvases later, the conversation continues.

Here’s to Ol’ Blue Eyes!

Text by Dolores Cheng

Founder

The Center for Possibilities Foundation Inc.