The Art of Dylan

Chris Parker, the original drummer on Bob Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour” when it began more than 30 years ago, told me that when he was on the road with Dylan the bus would often stop at old junk yards and Dylan would hop out to look at scraps of metal.

Often, Dylan would buy the pieces of metal and load them in the tour bus, overlaying cases of equipment with the unwieldy pieces. Never once did Dylan tell his band what he was doing. That is and was Dylan’s secretive nature.

A few years ago, we got an answer to what Dylan was doing when a new mask was revealed. The Halcyon Gallery in London displayed and sold “Gates,” metal sculptures by Dylan from his home metal welding shop in Malibu, California.

In 2016, MGM National Harbor, a casino in Maryland, announced Portal, a 26 by 15 foot archway iron archway, to its new facility. It was Dylan first work of art for a public space.

Said Dylan: “‘I've been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country—where you could breathe it and smell it every day. And I've always worked with it in one form or another. Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference.”

posted on the FaceBook page of The Art of Dylan on November 14, 2023