Sculptor creates silent ‘tactile’ piano

It was just over a year ago that sculptor Drake Cunningham acquired a certain piano from musician John Maher, aka Petaluma Pete.

“The noted Grateful Dead annotator, David Dodd, put Pete and I together,” Cunningham explains. “Pete was looking for artists to decorate the next batch of ‘street-art-pianos’ in their particular style, and I needed a new project.”

Inspired at first by many of the other pianos that become downtown decoration every year, Cunningham began by painting the surfaces, which the majority of other artists do, in a variety of styles, in Petaluima’s now-annual showcase of stand-up art-pianos. But when he learned that this particular instrument was essentially non-playable, he instead wrapped the instrument in flowing, white plaster shapes inspired by the late English abstract artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

“I started with plaster-impregnated burlap over a chicken wire frame,” he explains. “Then I cut holes in it so people could see the beauty of the keys and fine woods underneath. My intention is to create a tactile experience. If you cannot hear the piano, you can at least touch it. So I finished off the piece with waterproof gesso super-smooth pearl finish.”

Cunningham has always been artistic, and majored in fine art at the University of Baltimore.

“I met my wife, Anne, at the U of B, got married in Carmel, moved to San Francisco, and bought in Petaluma two years later,” he says. “The area where we lived in Baltimore — around the Maryland Institute of Art — is a very arts-centered place, and we had a large number of artistic friends. We knew we had found our new home when we discovered that Petaluma has many familiar types of people, those who encourage and support each other’s creativity.”

Cunningham adds that the pandemic has allowed him the time and freedom to focus on his art again.

“I had owned my own construction company — and we lived for 10 years with sporadic paychecks,” he allows. “But when I re-branded myself by self-publishing some of my writing and showcasing paintings and other art works on Instagram, it was very freeing. Fortuitously, our son Zander arrived offering a new perspective. He is incredibly talented.”

Zander began actively drawing when he was only two-years-old, the proud father reports.

“He has grown to become my chief critic — offering undiluted appraisals of works in progress,” Cunningham says. “He likes working with different media, and is now creating ‘Webster the Worm’ comic strips for the Live Oak Charter School’s newspaper, ‘The Boredom Times.’”

As part of his recent change of focus, Cunningham recently joined the Board of the Petaluma Art Center and now serves as Board President.

“Everything for me is having a balance,” he says, “which is why I also joined the Board of Rebuilding Together Petaluma. This way, I can use my skills to repair homes, revitalize communities and help rebuild lives.”

Cunningham’s goal with the Petaluma Art Committee, he adds, is to increase the visibility of Petaluma’s artists.

“We are extremely fortunate to have a mixture of the old and the new in town, and this mixture has resulted in gathering incredibly talented artists to the city,” he says. “I just think they could be more vocal — by becoming actively involved in more prominent activities. Pete’s piano, and his music, are just a tiny part of the artistic diversity that makes Petaluma unique. I invite residents and visitors alike to savor the opportunities to experience how art fits the fabric of who we are.”

(Gil Mansegh can be reached at 45gilmansergh@gmail.com)