Gregory Warmack “Mr. Imagination”

1948 - 2012

Gregory Warmack’s bio is best summed up in an obituary: “Warmack was born in Chicago in 1948, the third of nine children who gave church concerts together as the Warmack Singers. An inveterate collector of rocks, beads, trinkets, and myriad cast-off objects, Warmack started making and selling jewelry in his late teens. He also carved bits of bark, wood, and stone into faces that strangely resembled African tribal masks or Egyptian kings. In 1978, a week after having a premonition that someone was going to kill him, Warmack was shot twice while selling his handmade jewelry on the street. He went into a coma and had an out-of-body experience that changed him forever. Reflecting on that change, he renamed himself “Mr. Imagination.”  He began using new and different types of recycled materials in his art, most notably the bottle caps he is still best known for today. In 2002, Mr. Imagination left Chicago for Bethlehem, PA “to put down some roots and grow some vines.” “Years ago my great aunt predicted I was going to be a minister, and in a way she was right,” Warmack said. “I think every artist is a minister and a messenger in a way.”  Mr. Imagination’s popularity exploded in the 1980s when he was included in dozens of shows and museums including the Dallas Museum of Art, American Folk Art Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  He was commissioned to create an 11 ft. bottle of Coke for the 1996 Olympics and decorated several scenes for numerous House of Blues venues.  – Source: Michelle Hiskey, Saporta Report (2012)