Hey diddle, diddle, a pineapple on a fiddle? An angel, a bird or tropical flowers -- on violins?
In the same spirit of whimsical fund-raising that brought cows to Chicago, lizards to Orlando, Fla., and giant fish to Baltimore, Annapolis will soon see the work of local artists on violins.
The violins are not oversized, nor fiberglass, and most of the artists -- 10 in all -- say they are shying away from kitsch, but the idea of the project sponsored by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra is basically the same.
The artists all start with a real violin -- sanded and with its strings and other hardware removed -- and are all charged with turning it into a visual masterpiece.
The finished violins will then be restrung and shown this spring at galleries and events in Anne Arundel County. In June, before the violins are raffled off to raise money for the Annapolis Symphony, they will be displayed at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.
"It is a fresh new way to give visibility and raise funds for our education and outreach programs," said Pamela Chaconas, the Annapolis Symphony education director who borrowed the idea for the painted violins from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.
Chaconas recruited some of the artists from the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, where the symphony also has its home. And Bonnie Roth Anderson, who has a studio at Maryland Hall, said the idea of collaborating with the symphony inspired her instantly.
"I firmly believe that the arts are connected," she said. "Painting and music have been an inspiration to people all over the world. It is very easy to lose the cultural arts that feed our souls, so we need to focus attention on it whenever we can."
With that in mind, Anderson chose to illustrate the idea that music is food for the soul: She painted a large pineapple with an apple and grapes on the back of the violin and folk-art-style hearts around the violin's sides.
Annapolis artist Lee Boynton said he took inspiration for his violin from Claude Debussy's symphony La Mer, which means "the sea" in French.
"I am envisioning the overall symphony of the sound of the ocean and the beauty of standing on the shore and feeling the emotional rush of the wave," he said. "I want to capture the essence of what I feel and see, in my mind, in the music."
For most of the artists, painting on a violin -- with its curvy shape, S-shaped sound holes and long neck -- presented a challenge beyond that of a blank canvas.
