Marty Olson, owner and proprietor of Do's Deluxe hair salon at 416 East 9th St in Lawrence is an artist. This fact is distinct and separate from his tonsorial skills. Olson is a visual artist working in a variety of media including printmaking processes such as intaglio.
Currently, the entrance lobby at the salon is the site of a two-man show of work by Olson, and that of his father, the late Orrin Olson. The elder Olson, who passed away in 1995, was an artist for most of his life and worked creating window displays for Weaver's department store in downtown Lawrence.
This creative background resonates strongly through both his own pieces on display and in the work of his son. After developing an intense interest in pen and ink drawing, in part to improve motor skills following a heart attack, Orrin Olson's interest in perspective led him to create three-dimensional assemblages made from layered pen and ink drawings mounted behind glass. These too are window displays of a sort.
Orrin Olson's drawings are of still lifes, landscapes and architectural details.
The work, which Marty Olson has chosen to display with his father's, is a set of pieces entitled "The Book of Orrin." Each piece is a graphic representation of an episode or story from his father's life, incorporating textual elements. Like his father's assemblages, the pieces are in three dimensions. Each is presented as the open pages from within an open book with space between the book and glass.
Marty Olson's own background as an artist includes two years as an art student at Northwest Missouri State University before a change of career aspirations led him toward hair. An active artist, Olson shows his own and his father's work by appointment and also shows his own work in non-traditional venues. Olson will have two monotypes in the Langston Hughes exhibit at the Lawrence Arts Center in March and he'll be showing work at Wheatfield's bakery later in the year.
The father and son show will remain up at Do's Deluxe until February 1. For more information call 841-2254.
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