The final image submitted for my grant and it depicts the very first portable cassette player I ever owned. My dad brought it back from Japan in the early 80’s around the time the Sony machines mass arrived in North America. This machine is the highest quality and solidly built machine I own. The AM/FM “cassette” pack inserts where the tape would be and functions as a radio tuner. So cool!
Sony and Pioneer weren’t the only company that produced heavy duty, durable players, as Memorex joined the game with this heavy, near indestructible machine. Has an unique look to it that had me intrigued and interested.
Large painting of another variation of the bulky Sports Walkman line.
Another inside look at the inner workings of the machine.
Colour pencil artwork, especially on dark paper rarely photograph well. Trust me, this looks better in person, where the colours stand out more, the black background is darker and overall is less muted looking.
An unique view of the inside working of a Walkman. Lots of details and small gadgets inside made this an interesting piece to work on.
There are other colour variations of this image. The screen print didn’t turn out so well, with the colour and black outlines faintly visible. I hand-painted and redrew most of it to refresh the image.
Another non-functioning Walkman I got because of it’s looks. Most of the buttons on the front are for the AM/FM radio, but it’s smooth, rounded body looks cool!
At the time when I painted this piece, it was the largest I’ve ever painted. I like this particular model of Sports Walkman because of all the buttons and labeling, which made it more interesting and with it’s chunky size, it was built like a tank!
A non-Sony cassette player that attracted my eye with it’s sleek styling and striping. It doesn’t play, so I’m not if the sound quality is up to standard.
A larger size (16” x 20”) than the previous pieces during this time period.
This particular Walkman, I used to make live concert recordings in the 1990’s. It made decent recordings considering it wasn’t digital and was recorded on cassette tapes. It was reliable though and always gave me a big rush of fun when in action. Great memories!
Part of a fun series of bright, graphic-style small painting, before working on larger canvas. I own most of the portable cassette players I paint.
This is the first completed piece for The Walkman Art Project, created from the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society Grant I received in April 2024. This grant allowed me to work almost exclusively on this project, which was completed in July 2025.
The project studied and produced artwork based on portable cassette players/recorders, cassettes and the culture and music that surrounds it. It was an ambitious project that took a year to complete and this painting is the first of many that was part of the series. I’m pretty obsessed and driven by tapes and records already, so this was a wild, spontaneous and very enjoyable “mixtape” of fun!