Godfrey Blow and Thierry Bisch, look out.
Yeah, I know you've never heard of them. You've never of me either.
They're PAINTERS. You know, people who paint. And I don't mean living rooms and bathrooms. I'm talking about ART. That about which none of us knows anything, but we all know what we like. Right?
Now, these two folks may be obscure, (I never heard of them either) but at least they're alive. One was born in 1948 and the other in '53. Two years before me, in other words. Same year as my wife. Obviously I didn't want to begin a blog posting with the words, "Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Cezanne, look out." Those guys are dead. There ain't nothing for them to look out for. Except maybe the mind-boggling price tags on their canvases when they go up for auction or get stolen from some museum in Switzerland.
That is correct. Old K.D. has taken up painting.
We will now pause for a moment while the art world shakes to its foundations.
Now, I've been dabbling in painting off and on for years. I'm one hell of a dabbler. At first I wanted to dabble in watercolors. That's because some of my favorite writers were watercolor-dabblers. D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller, to name two. Lawrence was actually a pretty fair draftsman. He could draw. His watercolors are generally figurative and carefully-crafted. Miller, somewhat more to my taste, couldn't draw worth a damn and he didn't care. Some of his watercolors look like they were executed by a kid getting through a bad day at kindergarten. And I think he would be highly flattered to hear me say that. The angel was his watermark, exuberance his hallmark and "Paint as you like and die happy" his trademark. Miller painted for fun, and you can sure tell. He had nothing to say except S'agapo.
That's Greek for "I love you."
I'm with Miller. I just throw paint around. And I'm having a ball.
Down in my basement I have some of my old efforts. One or two aren't bad. There's a watercolor I excecuted in 1986, a still-life of my kitchen in Frankfurt, Germany. There's an oil canvas I did last winter, "Still Life With Radio," on which I toiled for three months. It's not very good.
The problem has been that I've been trying to do more-or-less traditional figurative art, and I'm not much better a draftsman than Miller. I can draw, I just can't draw very well. And it's not for lack of practice, either. Once upon a time I had a sketchbook and used to draw up a storm. But that was a long time ago.
I think the real problem is that drawing is work. If I want to work, I'll go outside and mow the lawn. When I paint I want to have fun.
So I decided to set figurative painting aside, for the moment anyway, and get a little crazy. I've executed two canvases in the past ten days. They appear above. To make up for the fact that I don't draw very well, I've incorporated collage technique into both of them, pulling recognizable images relevant to the theme I have in mind off the Internet, pasting them on the canvas and then painting around, and over them. Artists have been doing this for years. What the hell do I care that the idea didn't originate with me? I'm not looking to become the next Robert Rauchenberg. I'm looking to have myself a good old time on Saturday afternoon.
If you're interested, they do have themes, they do have ideas and they do have titles. I'm basically a writer. I can't tell a story without telling a story. The one predominated by bright reds, oranges and other colors is a tribute to the music of one of my favorite composers, Claudio Monteverdi. I call it "Homage to Claudio Monteverdi." Clever, huh?
The more subdued one, dominated by blues and greens and featuring collage-images of forests, rivers, great blue herons, the moon and stars is entitled "River Elegy." It's in memory of my younger sister Lynn, whose ashes were scattered in the Spokane River in Washington State in 2004.
And I must say that, original or not, I like what I've done so far. What the hell do I care if Art World wouldn't say the same? They can go choke on their pickled sharks and brie.
My sun room, which I use as an office, book depository, smoking room and now painting studio, is a cramped mess. It stinks of turpentine. I've already ruined the counter because I was dumb enough to put paint thinner in a plastic drinking cup and it ate right through the cup.
But clear the way nonetheless, all you gallery-mongers and chardonnay sippers out there trying to decide what the hell the person who stuffed that mayonnaise jar with horse dung and sunflower seeds is trying to say to the world.
My message to the world couldn't be clearer.
Paint as you like and die happy!
See ya.
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