When Bobcat Entertainment brought in a speed-painter for Family Weekend’s Friday night entertainment, I almost didn’t go. I mean, yeah, he was on America’s Got Talent, but the homework lounging on my bed was wearing its sexiest lingerie and beckoning me with its coy smile and the promise of many hours lost to its embrace. It took a great deal of willpower, but I resisted its allure and went to the show.
And oh my gawd, I am so glad I did.
Robert Channing brought his mind-reading, speed-painting act to our beloved campus. (Fun fact: Robert Channing has only performed in West Virginia twice. Both times were on the Wesleyan campus!) He wowed the crowd with his mind-blowing tricks and witty humor that kept us giggling and guffawing all night long.
He started small with such tricks as being blindfolded and predicting the value and serial number of a dollar bill, taken from a random audience member. And I’ll admit, I was rather impressed.
Then he got into the truly amazing part. Still blindfolded—with coins secured over his eyes with duct tape and a wide, black silk blindfold covered in even more duct tape—he took index cards filled out by the audience with things like a question they wanted to ask him, a nickname they are called, and a number that is significant to them. Then he rubbed some of the cards against his glistening bald head—and actually read our minds. The most impressive one, I thought, was when he got an image of a leaf on a breeze. It was a nickname, “Leafbreeze.” And a young girl—a little sister of some unknown student—stood up, and with a quivering voice called out, “That’s me.” I mean, seriously? Seriously? How is that not freakin’ amazing?
Then we got to see him paint. It started with a random boy from the audience selecting a celebrity from a stack of index cards. None of us knew who he had chosen, because as soon as he picked it, he was instructed to sit on the card. The boy was blindfolded and instructed to envision the celebrity in his mind.
And in the space of two songs blaring over the Chapel sound system, Robert Channing painted a spectacularly accurate portrait of Albert Einstein—the chosen celebrity. The applause was deafening.
Mr. Channing graced us with two more spectacular paintings to the loud cheering and rhythmic clapping of a stupefied audience. A proud Statue of Liberty and an extremely sparkly Marilyn Monroe.
After the show had ended and students and parents alike had wandered out of the Chapel doors with comments that closely mirrored the sentiment of sophomore Sharelle Hamilton, who said, “I loved it! Woo! It was good,” I was granted access to the stage to interview the incredible performer (with the help of a couple of awesome BE volunteers!).
He greeted me with a warm smile and graciously answered my questions despite the fact he was in the process of cleaning up.
Here’s a couple of those questions:
Me: So what was your favorite part of tonight?
Robert Channing: Wow, I gotta tell you, I gnna be honest with you, it was the audience. The audience was full of enthusiasm and when they enjoy the show, I enjoy the show. When I do the show—I’ve been doing this show twenty-eight years—when the audience comes in and gives me all that energy, I just fall in love with them.
Me: Of all the things you do up here [on stage], what is your personal favorite?
RC: I like painting. Painting the Einstein, the Statue, and I like Marilyn. I like doing the painting part. I enjoy that a lot, because people really seem to enjoy that, too. They really respond very well to that. The mind-reading part, they love, too. It pulls them in. I personally like doing this ‘cause they can take something away with it.
And then I went just a tad bit fangirly—but you don’t need to hear that.
He gave me a glittery handshake and wished me luck with my article, and I skipped out of there giggling like a schoo