livert

PAUL LIVERT

At age 80, Paul Livert has reconciled himself to the fact that he is no longer employable in his field of music/entertainment marketing. From an early start in vaudeville in 1924, there has been a lifetime as a musician, performer, manager, booker, promoter, publisher and all the facets of the entertainment business in between. In his 11 years with London Records he had the opportunity to make a significant contribution with the establishment of artists such as Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton as well as being directly responsible for the rebirth of Mantovani whose career was on the wane when he joined London in 1964. The last 8 years or so have afforded him lots of time to devote to what was a sometime hobby in the arts. Paul dubs his finished art "scraptures" and he creates them with the genuine passion of an artist and not, as some might see him, as an eccentric senior citizen with a strange hobby. In fact his works have been exhibited at the American Visionary Art Museum. The medium in which he works consists mainly of over-the-hill bowling balls but includes plumbing fixtures, lamp parts, pieces of industrial machinery and salvaged nautical hardware. Why bowling balls? Paul said when his family moved to New York more than 40 years ago, a cousin who was a pin boy at a bowling alley starting donating old scarred balls for lawn decor. When Paul's employment tapered off, those balls caught his fancy. He painted and decorated them, first with plastic caps, later with brass, and "it just grew". Imagination plus plenty of determination, both of which Paul has plenty of may be the true keys to finding success in the art scene.