KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A day job with Arrow Fabric Care yielded a rich lode of artistic expression for Adolfo Martinez.
Lacking a car, he took the 5:30 a.m. bus to the Burlington Arrow plant on the north side.
"I didn't like taking the bus," he said, "but I thought I might as well get something out of it. I would sit and listen to people and remember stuff."
For two years at night Martinez made quick sketches of incidents that stood out. In 2003, he began translating the sketches into finished pen-and-ink drawings. Each has a ticket stub attached that records the day and time of his trip. Blocks of hand-printed text recount the little dramas and encounters that inspired them.
One depicts a man Martinez called "the silent preacher," who quietly read the Bible or prayed as he rode the bus.
"What's interesting," Martinez notes in the drawing's text, "is that his clothes always match."
On the day Martinez sketched him, the preacher was wearing a plaid shirt, a plaid cap and plaid shoes.
"I've seen him wearing all blue, green, brown ... but plaid! Where do you find this stuff??" Martinez asks in his written account.
Another drawing portrays a man on the bus who offered Martinez a drink.
"I told him I was going to work," the text relates. "He said, `I am, too.'"
Another is about the artist causing a ruckus after falling asleep and fearing he'd missed his stop.
These drawings and 20 others are on view at the Late Show gallery in the East Crossroads, in an exhibit titled "Metro Chronicles."
Late Show owner Tom Deatherage identifies with the drawings.
"I ride the bus," he said. "(The drawings) take a real hard look at life in midtown, but it's a sweet look. It really captures human foibles - the funny, sweet human stuff."
Martinez, 51, lives in Brookside in a house that is also his studio.
"I've been drawing since I was a kid," he said. "My parents bought me supplies." Both were from Mexico City, he said, and they met on Kansas City's West Side.
In 1975, Martinez moved to Texas on a scholarship to Pan American University, where he earned his bachelor's in fine arts. He stayed on in the Rio Grande Valley for 15 years, five in San Antonio before returning to Kansas City in 1990.
In his 25-year career, he has painted album covers, low-riders, t-shirts, cantinas in Texas and murals in Westport - for the Wyoming Street Grill, Lucille's, Rudy's Tenampa Taqueria and Bourbon Street Bar.
"Murals were a goal," he said. "I've been to Mexico City and liked (Diego) Rivera and (David Alfaro) Siqueiros ever since I was a kid. I wanted to follow in their footsteps."
Martinez has worked as a courtroom sketch artist on local and CNN news. He has been a regular at the Mattie Rhodes Art Gallery and also has shown occasionally at other spaces around town.
But this month marks a milestone for Martinez the fine artist, with his appearance in four exhibits at once.
In addition to his one-person exhibit at the Late Show, drawings, paintings and masks by Martinez are featured in group shows at Mattie Rhodes and UMKC's African American History and Culture House. Opening Friday, the biennial Kansas City Flatfiles exhibition at the Kansas City Art Institute's H&R Block Artspace will feature his autobiographical pen-and-ink drawings.
"I have thousands of sketches that show the different moods of my life," Martinez says. "Spiritual, mystical, humorous or serious, they are a reflection of everyday living."
Sly humor, pride of heritage and empathy for the common man at his daily rounds shine through in Martinez's work, whether he is drawing, painting or working in three dimensions.
Family is another important touchstone.
A watercolor in his UMKC show depicts a pair of huaraches from the overhead vantage point of a person about to step into them. On the upper left, a lone pepper appears below a narrow striped band evoking Mexican fabric. In the lower left, the artist has written in tiny letters, "Thee chooz, my mother she gave me."
"I can throw the accent if I need to," Martinez explained. "We have big family dinners and we talk like that for fun."
Earlier this year, James Martin, curator of the Sprint-Nextel art collection, bought one of Martinez's "sofa-sized paintings." He has been spoofing the "sofa-sized" paintings touted by so-called "starving artists" shows for 20 years.
They typically feature a dead-on frontal view of a comfortable sofa, upholstered in fabric patterned with motifs drawn from Mayan or Aztec art and protected by a serape over the back.
Martin bought one called "El Jefe."
"I knew el jefe meant the chief," he said, "and there's a Kansas City Chiefs pillow in the painting. I was drawn to the humor of it."
"I think his paintings are compelling on a number of levels," Martin said. "They have personal references for him, but also references to his Latino heritage."
