Signature Project: Multi-media presentation travels the world

By Dixon Bledsoe

Irish entertainer Patrick Dunning has blended art, technology and music into a show called “The Signature Project.” He brings this production to the Silverton High School Performing Arts Center on Monday, June 7.

To develop the project, Dunning travels the world collecting signatures. He aims to finish his vision by 2012. The artwork is a series of panels creating a 76-foot by 36-foot mural that, when zoomed in, are actually signatures.

“The signatures are signed with acrylic paint on canvas,” Dunning said, and “should last hundreds of years.” Sensory-stimulating music, humor and an international hook-up with his brother in Ireland are popular features of previous shows, and Dunning promises to not disappoint.

Dunning and his wife, Christine, recently purchased the White Steeple Church on Silverton’s Jersey Street and have been making renovations to the historic building. They reside in Portland, from where Dunning embarks to do dozens of shows every year across the United States and into other countries as well.

When complete, Dunning says there will be 1,008,016 signatures in place.

The beauty of the project, he says, “Is when people who see the show are able to sign a panel and become part of the finished project.”

He has a growing legion of fans in the Silverton-Mount Angel area.

“It is the best show I’ve ever seen,” Darby Hector, librarian at Mark Twain Middle School, said. “It is hard for me to imagine how someone’s brain can come up with the things that Patrick Dunning’s did – how they can be that intelligent, creative and have an end result with such a perfect blend appealing to the senses – art, technology, music, humor, geography, history, and so much more.

“It is an incredible experience to be part of and virtually impossible to explain. The talent he has to have created something like this is indescribable. It truly is a multi-sensory experience.”

Troy Stoops, principal of John F. Kennedy High School in Mount Angel said his students’ attention was glued to the screen during an assembly there.

“Our kids just loved it. Usually students toward the end of the year are just ready to sprint out of assemblies, but most of them stayed to ask questions and sign the murals. The complexity is hard to understand and what it is can be very difficult to explain. You have to see it. It really showed our kids that someone like Mr. Dunning goes way out of his way to get people together. It really is a linking of people, culture and bringing about unity.”

He added, “The teachers were really happy with ‘The Signature Project’ and left totally impressed. We have a lot of students who are very creative and artistic, and this show really played to that side of their brains.”