Dennis Rothermel

Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) was an American musician who was the leader and co-founder of the Grateful Dead, a rock ‘n’ roll band that flourished with improvisational concert performances for thirty years until Garcia’s death. Like Paul Klee, Garcia was enthusiastic about both music and art in his youth, having chosen to pursue music, with art as his personal side interest – the opposite of Klee’s choice. Garcia revived that interest in art during the last ten years of his life, during which he created hundreds of works of art, including a small drawing inspired by Klee’s Twittering Machine. Looking carefully at the details of Klee’s drawing and Garcia’s drawing one can see how Garcia meant his as a tribute and an interpretation. Whereas most commentary on Twittering Machine as well as musical compositions inspired by it perceive the Klee drawing depicting mechanical birds, Garcia’s tribute depicts musicians, metaphorically rendered as birds. Examining carefully how Klee titles his drawing and taking a cue from Arthur Danto’s brief observations about the drawing, one can see how the Klee drawing, too, can be seen as about musicians, metaphorically rendered as birds.