WORK IN PROGRESS — Wintersville resident Jimmy Bee works on a mural celebrating the life of the late “Tennis Shoe” Ernie Hollinger.
— Linda Harris
STEUBENVILLE–Jimmy Bee is a few brush strokes away from finishing a mural remembering the late Ernie Hollinger.
Bee, a Wintersville resident, said he was happy to be part of the project, painted on a courtyard wall outside the Spot Bar on South Fourth Street.
Spot Bar owner JoJo DiAlbert grew up with Ernie, a fixture around town who motored around town on a scooter with his window cleaning pole and had a passion for sports. He was killed several months ago in a bike-auto accident on Sunset Boulevard.
“All my life I’ve done art kind of stuff,” he said. “My dad got me into it when I was young — he was kind of artistic (himself), so he got me into Steubenville Art Association classes when I was real young.”
Growing up, he admits doodling on a few walls in the family home, much to his parent’s chagrin. “I started painting on brick when I was 18 or 19 years old,” he said.
He started on the Tennis Shoe Ernie mural a couple of weeks ago, fitting it in around his other jobs — he has his own business, Beez Auto Detailing, on Bantam Ridge, and sprays in truck liners at Marcino’s.
“I’d done some Harley motorcycle tanks, that’s how I got hooked up with Spike (Larry Sterling) when he had his auto body business,” Bee, 45, said. “I would airbrush some tanks and he would clearcoat them for me, I didn’t have anywhere to do it. He ended up hiring me a couple years before he retired.”
He said he’s not really sure how Ernie’s friends found out about him.
“A friend of mine must have run into Gerald Ravasio, they must have discussed it,” he said. “There was another guy who was going to do it but he, unfortunately, passed away. This guy heard about me and got hold of Gerald.”
Ravasio credits Larry Gerber with coming up with the idea, explaining Gerber called him and said they should do it. Gerber, though, told him he had too much going on to take the reins himself but told his friend exactly what he’d have to do, right down to starting a GoFundMe page. He even gave him the name of a muralist, Ruston Baker.
Ravasio said when he posted the call for donations on Facebook “peoples’ response was unbelievable. We raised the funds for the mural in about two months.”
He also credits DiAlbert for his willingness to help. “Anytime there is a need in our community. (he) steps up,” Ravasio said. “The only setback we experienced was when the muralist (Ruston Baker) died of a heart attack. I spoke to him on the phone and about an hour later he passed away so I called my friend, Dr. Marie Antoinette Gallo Sunyoger, and she gave me Jimmy Bee’s number and we hired him to take over the mural.
“If it wasn’t for Larry, Jo Jo, Sunyoger and the citizens of the Ville, this project would never have happened.”
Bee said there was a “little more prep work than I anticipated,” so things got off to a slow start.
“There was a lot of ivy and stuff on there,” Bee said. “The maintenance guy who cuts the grass there helped a lot. And there were two windows that had to blocked in, they blocked them in really well.”
He said he got lucky “because the design was already there. Whoever came up with that (did the hard part).”
“I used the actual picture, traced it off my computer,” he said. “Then I put it on one of those old school overhead projectors — my garage is the same size as the wall, so I laid it out, drew it out and kinda made big stencils, then I airbrushed it in. I mapped in the stencil with the airbrush. That’s when I started painting.”
Bee said he “kind of ghosted” Ernie’s outline in with the airbrush.
He admits it was more than a little nerve-racking, especially at first: The courtyard outside Spot Bar is a gathering spot for a handful of men who gather regularly to solve the world’s ills, opining on everything from who the presidential wanna-be’s should choose for their running mate to, well, Bee’s work.
He said he’s “never been comfortable working in front of people, doing something like that. And they’re behind me…”
“Anytime anything was halfway finished and didn’t look right, they’d ask, ‘What’s that,’” he laughed. “When I first started, I’d just outlined Ernie and it looked weird. They actually texted JoJo, he was out west, “I don’t know, it doesn’t look good …’ I was like it’s OK, it will be all right.”
He settled in pretty quickly, though.
“At first it was really stressful, I wanted it to be the best it could be,” Bee said. “After a day or two I was comfortable, I knew what to expect. Now that it’s coming together, this is where the fun starts — putting the letters, doing the shading and highlights, that’s when it really starts to look like something.”
The mural is in its final stages, he said.
Right now, I have to finish the lettering, that’s what takes a long time, it’s just different in the bricks. Then I have a few more things to add … his Converse Chuck Taylor’s, a bucket with his cleaning pole. And it’s going to say ‘The Legend.’ I have to get done this week, they want to unveil it during the Dean Martin Festival.”
He said he didn’t know Ernie himself, “but I saw him a lot like everybody else.”
“But I’m honored to do something like that,” he added. “There’s people driving by and beeping, that’s pretty cool. It’s really neat, especially to get an opportunity to do something like that–some of the murals in town, like the Dean Martin one (in Hollywood Plaza.) I could never touch that. Some those murals downtown, man (are they good.) When I was about 10, my dad would take me down and I watched those guys (paint.) It’s kind of neat that I could have one down there, be part of one.”