Lockwood met film industry prop buyer Jon Graubarth, who needed to rent some art supplies for a bank ad in New Orleans. Graubarth grew up in Dayton and is involved in the music and art scene here. He saw Lockwood’s art for her show, “Marilyn and the Dream Girls,” featuring a tattooed women’s series called the “Krewe d’Tat.”
“He loved the paintings. A few months later I get a call from Jon telling me he’s now working on the set of ‘The‘Expendables,’” Lockwood said. “Mickey Rourke plays a tattoo artist, and there’s a scene in the movie where he is painting tattoo designs on a guitar for the love of his life.”
Lockwood’s job? They needed three guitars; two completely painted and one partially painted.
Filming took place in Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles and New Orleans. Lockwood visited the movie set when they were filming in Louisiana, and got to meet Stallone.
“When I shook his hand he didn’t have a shirt on, and then he started showing me all his tattoos and what they meant,” Lockwood said. “One was of his wife with her flowing hair all around, and he also had a raven. That was really neat.”
Then Lockwood got to work painting the guitars. The original idea was for Rourke to smash the guitar when a tragedy occurs. That scene was never filmed. Lockwood knows this because she was called to the movie set about 2 a.m. in May 2009 to act as an art consultant. Her husband, Tony Watts, was with her, and the directors wanted them to hang around in case the scene needed to be reshot.
“We waited a year for the movie to come out. We didn’t know if the scene with my guitar would be included,” Lockwood said. “They left it in, and it was so much fun to see that really good camera angle.”
Lockwood’s work was used in one other way.
“‘The Expendables’ prop manager, Kent Johnson, wanted to get a tattoo. He commissioned me to do a small painting of a raven,” Lockwood said. “Then he had my painting tattooed on his shoulder.”
Contact contributing arts writer Pamela Dillon at pamdillon@woh.rr.com.
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