“Music as color, inked on paper shaped by the sounds blown across the page. Jeff Schlanger is the musicWitness. He was present where the music was happening. He was the visual improviser, transforming music into painting. His wall of ceramic faces Chile•NewYork•Afghanistan•Gaza forever protests the brutality of War” - Patricia Nicholson Parker

A New York City native, a graduate of Music & Art and student of the great clay potter, Maija Grotell at Cranbrook he co-authored a book with fellow Cranbrook student Toshiko Takaezu about Grotell, titled Maija Grotell: Works Which Grow From Belief. As a ceramic artist, Jeff understood the tactile immediacy and spirit of clay. Throughout his journey, Jeff Schlanger forged a path with love and devotion to creative life. He became the musicWitness with his 2 handed paintings that chronicled freeJazz performances in NYC and beyond. His monumental clay sculptures were featured in public art projects on: Peace, War and Music. For Jeff Schlanger, these subjects are interrelated. Music and Art are a counterpoint to War.

musicWitness paintings and sculpture were part of every Vision Festival since it began in 1996 but he was part of creative improvised music since the 1970’s. In 2014, he was acknowledged for his LifeTime of Achievement at Vision 19 and his work was featured at VISION 30, only days after his passing on June 23, 2026.

Jeff’s art has been featured on numerous album covers, But it has always been best if you saw the actual drawings or saw them projected larger than life on screens while the musicians performed. Then you can see the dance of color and line and sound interacting live.

Jeff Schlanger is the major witness of the Vision Festival art community and beyond, catching the colors of sounds and lending them a kind of permanence.

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