No Vacancies. Painting by Bob Dylan

The photographs/images that it seems inspired this painting

No Vacancies. 2019. Acrylic on canvas. 91.2 x 121.6 x 4.5 cm

I have been interested in this painting for a while. The road, the blue mountains, the sky, the close up part of the painting, the cracks in the pavement. Often though when seeing this painting something about that sign would seem out of place.. how it is painted… the black lines on the lettering and next to the stars. I thought it maybe represented an older painting of the lettering that had been painted over on the original sign. Also it seemed to me like something around the moon had been painted over. One of the reasons I kept finding myself looking at this painting was because over the last few years I would look for paintings by Bob Dylan that had the moon in them. So far, this is the only one that I have found that has a moon.. There is another painting, moon related, from 2017, titled Staring at the Moon. This one doesn’t have the actual moon in the painting either.

This painting is from a scene from the 1988 film Rain Man. Another motel.

Yesterday I was considering again the No Vacancies painting. I had recently posted the Theme Time Radio Hour episode ‘Moon’, using this painting as the image to go with the sound.

Something about the landscape seemed quite barren — almost like the surface of some kind of moon (although I suppose there aren’t roads or motels on the Moon)… I was also considering how this painting without the sign, but a natural crescent moon in the sky would look pretty good… Following on from this I had the idea that the painting of the sky around the moon on the sign, was done to make the moon and stars seem to be not quite attached to the sign (I suspected the actual sign would be different). At this point I hadn’t yet searched for images of this motel sign, but after this consideration I was interested to look further into this. After a bit of searching I found that the Sky Ranch Motel is located at 2009 Fremont Street, Las Vegas. The sign has been there since 1956. The motel opening in 1955, with a different sign for the first year. The photographs below are from May, 1979. By Toon Michiels from American Neon Signs by Day & Night. 

https://vintagelasvegas.com/post/178365019804/sky-ranch

… As can be seen from the photograph taken in daylight, the sign is blue. In Bob Dylan’s painting it is kind of a burnt red orange colour. In the painting the red upright part of the sign isn’t there, and the base of the sign is different. There are three metal uprights, with one at an angle, inside what looks like some kind of wooden base. ‘Air cooled’ ‘Vacancy’ .. (I had noticed previously that the painted sign said ‘Vacancy’ and the title of the painting was ‘No Vacancies’ /..which seemed to line up with how I saw the rest of the painting.)

Of course it could be that there was a different version of the sign (It appears that the sign is still there to this day), but all the ones I could find were the same colour, and all had the red upright part, holding the moon and stars in place (which led me to the idea that the sign in the painting was actually two signs put together).

Further investigation led me to the conclusion that there wasn’t another Sky Ranch Motel with a similar sign, located somewhere else.

The lower part of the sign in the painting by Bob Dylan — the wood, the metal uprights, to me seemed to fit in with how the ground was — they appeared naturally part of this scene, where ever it was (by this point I had searched around the internet to see if any other references to this painting, the motel, the ‘source’ of the painting, but I couldn’t find anything).

I found all this quite interesting as it seemed connected to the idea I have had for a for a few years that Bob Dylan is making a point of not painting the moon… I’m not sure why that could be. Maybe he hasn’t painted the sun directly either. Just the light that comes from it. The other painting that had moon in the title, called ‘Staring at the Moon’ .. didn’t contain a moon. Which to me seemed like some kind of pointer to something. Years had past by, many paintings, and still no moon painting (that I’m aware of.. although I would guess Bob Dylan has painted the moon many times, and he has paintings of the moon at home or where ever he keeps his paintings).

The scene in the background, the road, the dark blue mountains, the blue yellow azure… almost begging for a yellow crescent moon to be there..

Two of the stars have been painted the blue colour of the mountains — the sign behind, holding them in place, has perhaps been painted over with the colour of the sky. Either way, the lower part of the painting it seemed to me, was part of an original scene.. and the moon part of the sign was there because Bob Dylan wanted to have a moon in the scene… Considering this reminded me of some quotes from Bob Dylan from the 2023 Retrospectrum exhibition catalogue,

“This exhibition is meant to provide perspectives that examine the human condition and explore the mysteries of life that continue to leave us perplexed. It’s very different from my music, of course, but every bit as purposeful in its intent.”

Artworks on display highlight the motifs that have always been part of Dylan’s imagination as a musician and that also return in his paintings in the form of drawings and colours.

As he himself writes in the exhibition catalogue (curated by Shai Baitel and published by Skira), his visual artworks narrate “the American landscape—how you see it while crisscrossing the land and seeing it for what it’s worth. Staying out of the mainstream and traveling the back roads, free-born style”. As in his songs and poems, Dylan makes the depths of the US poetic in his paintings. “I chose images because of the meanings they have for me”, he writes. “These paintings are up to the moment realism—archaic, most static, but quivering in appearance. They are the world that I see or choose to see or be a part of or gain entrance to. However, that’s my doing”.

..Either way, having more of a sense of which part of the painting I was likely looking for, and after a few different kinds of image searches of parts of the painting, I came across this photograph,

The angle of the mountains, the road, the colours.. the hazy yellow fading into blue… “I hear the aging footsteps, like the motion of the sea”… Bob Dylan’s painting it seems is inspired by this marvellous photograph. (My first impression of this photograph was a sense that I could breathe the air of this place). El Morocco Motel. Air Cooled. Vacancy. The rusty orange of the sign. The yellow part of the sign replaced by the yellow moon. “Sun down, yellow moon, I replay the past … I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast” … The stars take the place of the three pigeons..

The photograph is by Ed Freeman (I don’t know if he is aware that Bob Dylan was inspired by his photograph), El Morocco Motel, Bakersfield, California.

“This image is a part of my Desert Realty series - pictures of old and sometimes abandoned buildings, mostly in the southern California desert, that have been digitally retouched to isolate and highlight their unique character.”

https://www.edfreeman.com/products/el-morocco-motle

I really like the photographs from this collection. Thank you Bob Dylan for leading me to these!… This one especially — Church, Mojave, California

More here: https://www.edfreeman.com/collections/desert-realty

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I notice that Bob Dylan has moved the ‘Air Cooled’ (with the covered/faded ‘l’ .. ‘Cooed’ .. The pigeon cooed. Hmm..) and ‘Vacancy’ further up the metal post so that it looks more in place on his painted sign. Also, looking at the original photograph by Ed Freeman, there looks to have possibly been another sign or part of the sign over the top of the ‘El Morocco’. Something about his ‘Desert Reality’ series photography reminds me of Bob Dylan’s ‘Deep Focus’ series, which came after The Beaten Path.

“A natural progression from Bob Dylan's earlier and ongoing series The Beaten Path, Deep Focus confronts figures rather than landscapes using source material from films to present arresting images that evoke documentary candour and the camera's potential to manipulate reality. For Deep Focus Dylan selected scenes from films and transformed them into paintings, like film stills, another expression of Dylan's acute ability to fix a moment in time.”

https://www.halcyongallery.com/news/bob-dylan-deep-focus/

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The ‘No Vacancies’ painting currently features on the Beaten Path section of the ‘Bob Dylan Art’ website:

https://bobdylanart.com/artworks/categories/6-the-beaten-path-dylan-s-america/

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The photographer, Ed Freeman, used to be in the music industry..

“Ed Freeman’s early career was in the music industry; he performed as a folk guitarist and classical lutenist, worked as a road manager on the last Beatles’ tour, played guitar on dozens of pop recordings, wrote orchestral arrangements for artists including Carly Simon and Cher, produced and arranged over two dozen albums, including Don McLean’s American Pie.”

https://www.edfreeman.com/pages/about-us

He worked for Columbia records in the 1970s:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/283458-Ed-Freeman

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There is an ‘Eddie Freeman’ mentioned towards the end of Bob Dylan’s “11 Outlined Epitaphs” (1963) .. (The liner notes of the album The Times They Are A-Changin’)

So at last at least

the sky for me

is a pleasant gray

meanin’ rain

or meanin’ snow

constantly meanin’ change

but a change forewarned

either t’ the clearin’ of the clouds

or t’ the pourin’ of the storms

an’ after it’s desire

returnin’

returnin’ with me underneath

returnin’ with it

never fearful

finally faithful

it will guide me well

across all bridges inside all tunnels

never failin’ . . .

with the sounds of Francois Villon

echoin’ through my mad streets

as I stumble on lost cigars

of Bertolt Brecht

an’ empty bottles

of Brendan Behan

the hypnotic words

of A. L.. Lloyd

each one bendin’ like its own song

an’ the woven’ spell of Paul Clayton

entrancin’ me like China’s plague

unescapeable

drownin’ in the lungs of Edith Piaf

an’ in the mystery of Marlene Dietrich

the dead poems of Eddie Freeman

love songs of Allen Ginsberg

an’ jail songs of Ray Bremser

the narrow tunes of Modigliani

an’ the singin’ plains of Harry Jackson

the cries of Charles Aznavour

with melodies of Yevtushenko

through the quiet fire of Miles Davis

above the bells of William Blake

an’ beat visions of Johnny Cash

an’ the saintliness of Pete Seeger

strokin’ my senses

down down

drownin’ drownin’

when I need t’ drown

for my road is blessed

with many flowers

an’ the sounds of flowers

liftin’ lost voices of the ground’s people

up up

higher higher

all people

no matter what creed

no matter what color skin

no matter what language an’ no matter what land

for all people laugh

in the same tongue

an’ cry

in the same tongue

endless endless

it’s all endless

an’ it’s all songs

it’s just one big world of songs

an’ they’re all on loan

if they’re only turned loose t’ sing

lonely? ah yes

but it is the flowers an’ the mirrors

of flowers that now meet my

loneliness

an’ mine shall be a strong loneliness

dissolvin’ deep

t’ the depths of my freedom

an’ that, then, shall

remain my song

there’s a movie called

Shoot the Piano Player

the last line proclaimin’

“music, man, that’s where it’s at”

it is a religious line

outside, the chimes rung

an’ they

are still ringin’.

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Bob Dylan

..It looks like this is a different person though!.. I found this on an old Expecting Rain page:

“Ed Freeman, our Class Poet, met an untimely death at the age of 23 on November 27, 1962, in the crash of a Varig Airlines jetliner on a craggy peak in the City of God Region in the Peruvian Andes Mountains. Ed was flying to Lima, Peru after spending the summer in Brazil researching television scripts.

Ed attended Hill School and St. Paul's School before coming to Yale. At St. Paul's, Ed was the Captain of the wrestling and tennis teams and President of his class. He was an outstanding scholar during his undergraduate years at Yale. He was elected to the Board of the Literary Magazine, a Ranking Scholar and graduated magna cum laude. Ed studied at the Sorbonne in Paris during his junior abroad. He had expressed the intention of becoming a professional writer after doing graduate work in world literature at the University of Copenhagen where he was intending to enroll. Ed never married. He as a member of Silliman College and a native of Baltimore, Maryland.

Classmate Toby Berger recalls Ed arriving at Yale laden with notebooks full of poems he had penned. He organized a poetry reading in Sterling and authored an avante guarde play which was performed in Silliman. Ed frequently disappeared to Greenwich Village where he befriended a young Bob Dylan. Lines of Ed's poetry influenced some of Dylan's songs. An example was the 4th line in the 4th stanza of the singer's famous "A Hard Rain's-A-Gonna Fall," saying "I met a white man who walked a black dog." Indeed, Dylan explicitly mentioned Ed Freeman in a long poem on the back cover of one of his early albums. Meeting backstage with Toby at a concert in Cambridge in the late 1960's, Dylan remembered Ed fondly.

"Ed lived so intensely and fully as if somehow he almost knew his end would be premature," Toby concluded.

https://www.expectingrain.com/dok/who/f/freemaneddie.html#:~:text=Ed%20Freeman%2C%20our,premature%2C%22%20Toby%20concluded. (There does seem to be a mention of another ‘Eddie Freeman’ there, in relation to some kind of guitar, but I don’t quite follow what is being said.)

Either way, Ed Freeman the photographer… from what I have seen, I really like his work.

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I might edit this page, and possible post a few more notes to it, but in the meantime I will send this out as a post.

Best wishes,

nm.