Flynn: Bonus Pints Bowie painting a sign of home

Jan. 6—The portrait of David Bowie stood tall, a vibrant beacon welcoming me to Logansport.

I was in Logansport for the very first time to apply for a job at "The Pharos-Tribune." I drove right past the newspaper and immediately pulled into the Bonus Pints parking lot to regroup.

And there was Bowie, attached to the side of Bonus Pints, his Aladdin Sane lightning bolt slashing across his face. After I completed my task at the newspaper, I returned to take pictures of him and the neighboring portraits of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton.

I didn't start listening to rock music until I was almost a high school graduate. I discovered Bowie while searching through oldies radio stations. Instead of "Rocket Man" I was given "Space Oddity."

I could hear the same type of catchy melodies that were in the musicals I grew up watching and listening to in older songs like "Life on Mars" and "Starman."

Standing before the giant portrait of Bowie I could only think one thing.

This was a sign, I thought. I'm meant to be here.

Dying is an art

On Jan. 8, 2016, David Bowie released his final album, "Blackstar," on his 69th birthday. Two days later he was gone.

Three weeks prior to the album release, Bowie released a music video for the song "Lazarus." The video began with Bowie slowly pushing open a cabinet door from within. Then a quick cut showed Bowie, a cloth tied around his head with button eyes sewn onto it, in bed, clutching blankets up to his chin as if he is frightened.

Bowie looked old, I thought. I never considered the end was so near.

Only those closest to him knew he had cancer.

The final song on the album was called "I Can't Give Everything Away." In the song's first verse Bowie sang, "I know something's very wrong/ The pulse returns the prodigal sons/ The blackout hearts, the flowered news/ With skull designs upon my shoes."

Later he sang, "saying no but meaning yes," a phrase I would come to understand better three years later during my stepfather's final months.

There is video on Youtube that collects footage of fans mourning Bowie's death. The video is preceded by punk legend Henry Rollins talking about "I Can't Give Everything Away" on his KCRW radio show.

"Listen closely, if you don't mind," he said. "Listen closely to the lyrics of this song you are about to hear. I think, in this track, David Bowie was giving us full disclosure and I also think it's why he made it the last track of the record."

Bowie was making art all the way to the very end.

A wall of art

The paintings arrived to Bonus Pints in July 2021. Owners Matt and Katya Swisher had posted a poll on Facebook so locals could vote on the musicians who got portraits. Along with Bowie, Cash and Parton there was also Joey Ramone and Ozzy Osbourne.

Art students at Logansport High School, under the guidance of Amy Werner, painted the portraits based on images the Swishers selected. In the case of Bowie, it was his iconic cover portrait from his 1973 album "Aladdin Sane."

The students projected the images on to boards and then painted them in a pop art style. There were four to five students to a painting and they worked four to five hours a day for two weeks during summer school.

Werner said her students had some idea of who Dolly Parton was but they didn't know Bowie and Cash.

A year later, the Swishers let Werner's summer students pick two more musicians to paint. They chose jazz musician Louis Armstrong and Lemmy Kilmister of the metal band Motorhead.

Matt Swisher said his friend Jason Myers suggested they keep adding portraits until the side of Bonus Pints is decorated from top to bottom.

"I don't know if we'll do that but Katya and I would definitely like to see Ozzy Osbourne and Joey Ramone up there," he said.

Werner said that public art allows students to feel a piece of themselves is invested in the community.

"Especially in a place like Bonus Pints," she said, adding that she thought Bonus Pints was a destination for people visiting or returning home after a long absence.

A sign comes

A few months after starting work at The Pharos-Tribune I met one of the students who worked on the Bowie painting. She humored me as I excitedly told my story about pulling into the Bonus Pints parking lot and seeing David Bowie.

Looking back, the painting still feels like a sign.

I've floated around Indiana throughout my life like Major Tom floated through space in his tin can, unsure of where I was going, what I was meant to do or why I should bother.

That sense of hopelessness began to leave me one year into my career at The Pharos-Tribune.

As I approach year three at The Pharos-Tribune and year eight without Bowie, I've never felt so certain about anything in my life.

In the last two months, I've encountered Bowie in some of my favorite places and with some of my favorite people. I heard the Logansport theater students sing a version of Bowie's "No Control" during "The SpongeBob Musical." I listened to "Space Oddity" during the Pioneer theater production of "A Trip to the Moon." I watched Eli Bault and Payton Mucker sing Bing Crosby and Bowie's "Little Drummer Boy/ Peace on Earth" during a Christmas recital at Black Dog performed by the students of Tim and Susan Cahalan.

I've never been so sure that in Logansport I've finally found the home and family I've always wanted.