A lot of people think Ken Ellis is a vampire. “They never see me in the daytime,” he says. “I’ve been sitting at doors at different clubs for years, so people probably wonder what else I do.”
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“I find it very soothing for my nerves to sew late at night when there’s nothing in the street,” he says. “It’s especially therapeutic after coming home from the bar and listening to blaring music and people talking. Since I don’t drink, I need something to lull myself to sleep.”
He started painting and sewing on T-shirts, which he and Marilyn sold at art fairs, and doing small portraits of gangsters. Gradually the pieces got larger and more elaborate, depicting obscure figures from African-American history like Colorado mountain man Jim Beckworth and Old West lawman Bass Reeves. More recently he’s done local bands–some members of which are his coworkers at Rainbo–including Pegboy, Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater, and Tortoise. For his current Haitian-voodoo series, he’s incorporated beads, feathers, and shells. Some quilts depict violent historical episodes. The Hate Quilt shows a Klan lynching, goose-stepping soldiers, Hitler (who sports a real Iron Cross), prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp, kids in Doc Martens, and a swastika dripping blood. It was inspired by Marilyn’s niece and nephew, who were skinheads when he made it ten years ago.
