Michael Costelloe
Ask Michael Costelloe to describe himself, and you probably won’t get far. Painter? Singer? It’s not that he’s elusive or that he minds interest. Father? Teacher? It’s just he’d rather talk than answer. Irishman? A label’s in there somewhere, if you delve deep enough. But who needs labels?
Though he is likely best known to readers of this magazine as the painter of the medium-heavy scenescapes hanging in local bars, or as the loose-hipped & quiver-lipped singer of the late Elvis, Michael Costelloe is not the same man to all peoples.
To his students at Wellspring, the alternative high school where he’s taught art for the past seven years, Costelloe is likely better known for being a kickass art teacher. And to his ten-year-old son Conor, he goes simply by “Dad.”
“I got Conor an electric guitar for Christmas,” says Costelloe excitedly, explaining that he’d already picked one out before letting the the boy play every guitar in Smash Your Guitar. But when he fetched the Dan Electro he’d had in mind, it was clear from his son’s reaction that this was the one. Kinda like destiny.
Kinda like. Or else he was just lucky. He is Irish, after all.
Costelloe’s Irishness is an elment of his persona that permeates all of his work, without dominating it. It is present in the folk music of the Elvis, and also in his painting, but not to the point where it’s patronizing. His accent is still strong, but dude is as much Bellingham as he is Irish.
Born “without an e” on the fourth of July in Dublin, the son of a devout Catholic mother and a Republican father (“Republican in the Irish sense…”), his early inclinations were toward soccer. But by the time he was Conor’s age he was making his own comics, and by the early 1990s he was far from home in Bellingham, Washington, piecing together a living with a paintbrush that, even then, was very powerful.
“Bellingham has been good to me,” he says, stepping back to gain perspective on his latest painting, a 9’x5’ commissioned mural for the Grand Street Ale House. The piece features the likeness of the Sweethearts of the Rodeo, captured live at the bar, and is scheduled for completion when it’s finished. You can’t rush it.
Like “Boundary Sketches,” the series of less-developed oil and pastel pieces featuring the Monday Night Project twang and Tuesday jazz scenes at Boundary Bay, this new mural is an example of the sight-specific, moment-in-a-bottle style that has become one of Costelloe’s signatures. Along with his extensive works featuring various mayhems at the 3B, Costelloe’s work has become a kind of visual history to which the music scene in Bellingham has added the soundtrack. A soundtrack that has often included himself.
Though the Elvis broke up over a year ago, Costelloe has continued to work on his chops. And just this past New Year’s Eve, he brought them back out of the living room and onto the sticky planks of the 3B stage. It wasn’t planned as a 75% Elvis reunion, but the coincidence that Peadar had just rolled back into town after six months in Spain (I’m sure it wasn’t just his arms that were tired) was pretty hard to overlook.
“It was great,” Costelloe says of the imprmptu set that also featured Elvis upright player George Hossaphatt. “Just completely off the cuff, you know. What key is it in? It was New Year’s Eve…”
That was New Year’s Eve. But tonight is just another Monday night. Just another pound of acrylic. Costelloe does not skimp where paint is concerned. There is enough on the coveralls he is wearing to paint the YMCA. But his brand new adidas, a Christmas present, have nary a fleck on them. This will change before tonight’s session is done.
Breathing through a cigarette, reclining in a chair adjacent to the work area in his waterfront studio, Costelloe is surrounded by his art and the art of others—paintings, blockprints and sculptures of wood, clay, metal and soapstone. He shares the space with longtime friend and co-conspirator Francis X. Donovan and the principal of Wellspring, also a sculptor. Though none of his spacemates are working tonight, there is a spirit of cooperation present in the long, tall room. There are no barriers between stations. A newly-released CD of unreleased Bob Dylan recordings plays politely in the background.
Micheal Costelloe dances with his painting.
“It’s gotta be physical,” he says, pacing the floor in front of the mural, applying cottonball-sized globs of paint at seemingly random locations on the scape. “You just gotta kind of dance around it.” Splat.
Up close, the piece has a rugged texture that almost defies comprehension. But as you move away from it, its lines become more logical, and you can almost hear the melody and taste the second-hand smoke. A record of time; art of music.
If there is some kind of magical recipe for the mixing of visual art and music, it is a mystery to Costelloe. He digs making both art show and rock show, but does not necessarily envision a way to integrate one with other. “They’re the ultimate compliment of each other,” he says of the brothers of different fathers. “They definitely come from the same wellspring of the body and soul.”
Splat.
It’s late. Micheal has discovered a spot of yellow paint on his new adidas and, giving up trying to rub it out, switches to pen and ink. As we talk, a nude emerges, rolled over on her side. His pen works lazily, yet with great decisiveness, and I ask how in the world he ever knows when something is finished.
“It’s been said,” he says, pouring a little beer on the drawing and smearing a line between her thighs, “that any work of art can be created with twelve strokes. Any more and you’ve done too much.”
“You gotta know when to stop,” he says, stopping. “Especially with nudes.”
“Done.”
-- Callous French
If they keep making paint, Micheal Costelloe will have already unveiled the Grand Street mural by the time this book goes to press. Stop in for a stiffy and check it out. Then head over and buy a guitar at Smash your Guitar and dig another of Costelloe’s latest, a snap of holder of the key to the city, Bob Logg III, who will probably just kick the fucking door down like he always does when he visits Bellingham later this month, key or no key. If you’re not in the market for a new ax, then you can always just enjoy the painting for free. It’s on the cover of this magazine.