Art
Ruscha Torments Museum Visitor
What the hell? Last I remember I’d stolen a car somewhere in L.A. and started driving around town but now it looks like I’m somehow parked inside a big ole art museum. Right away I see a huge painting named Boss and read a label that it’s by Ed Ruscha. Who is this guy, a…
Read MoreThe Golden State
I hope this isn’t merely a dream I’m touring California and seeing fog soothe rocks by an ocean shore, lush trees shade a lake, a river glisten under clouds and sky, serene cows calm a meadow, an electric-orange sunset light exotic desert plants in the foreground, mountains overwhelm powerlines and trash in a pond, spring…
Read MoreFeud at LACMA
“Ladies, stop it,” I shout. “Shut up,” says the one to the left in a sleek black and gray striped dress baring arms, shoulders, and back. “You’re young and beautiful,” I say. “Why are you doing this?” “You’re a fool to ask,” says the lady on the right attired in a black and gray polka-dotted…
Read MoreByline: Ex-Slave Gordon
You’ve seen me. You’ve seen me many times and would like to forget. But you can’t. I won’t let you. More importantly, the people who did this wanted everyone to remember I belonged to them and when I escaped they and their bloodhounds chased me several days through mosquito-filled swamps and forests and dragged me…
Read MorePainting in Color
Joe started drawing when he was very young. He drew horses, cartoons, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, airplanes, things he related to. He also liked drawing on walls and in coloring books. He wasn’t thinking of art as a career and never took classes or followed guidelines that someone has to declare him an artist…
Read MoreDrink the Giant Orange
I rush into the art museum and within minutes feel thirsty and hot and dizzy. I spot relief in a painting called Giant Orange topped by a tall orange and black sign and staffed by a pretty young lady inside a huge orange ball below. “Whaddya got to drink?” She looks at me as if…
Read MoreIranian Art, David Hockney, and LACMA
Boyd, an art lover visiting California the first time in years, reads with increasing concern a two-sided handout titled: The Future at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and waves the news at a museum employee. “What’s this? Almost half the galleries are closed and soon the others’ll be shuttered, too.” She smiles and says,…
Read MoreParking Lot Painter
No one buys my oil paintings on canvas. No one buys my acrylics. No one buys my watercolors. No one hires me to paint murals. They’re all fools. I have great work crying to be seen, and I prove it every weekend at street painting festivals all over. We don’t actually paint. We draw, usually…
Read MoreMental Steroids
A physician of renown I certainly am, though for a generation I have focused most of my intellect on the rather irrelevant albeit stimulating task of helping athletes run faster, jump higher, hit more home runs, and register more knockouts with shoulder pads and fists. Only in recent years have activists tried to persuade me…
Read MoreArt Appraisals
To an interviewer who asked Mick Jagger if he had any art, the slender septuagenarian said, well, I just have several paintings people have given me and a few I’ve bought, but it’s definitely not what you’d call a collection, and they (the bad guys) know that so they never bother coming to my place.…
Read MoreGrady Harp Reviews “Paint it Blue”
Amazon.com Hall of Fame reviewer Grady Harp recently posted this review on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com Paint it Blue by George Thomas Clark 7 of 7 people found the following review helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars Oh to be a fly on the wall…. May 6, 2015 By Grady Harp HALL OF FAME TOP 100…
Read MoreFirst Review of Paint it Blue
The first review of “Paint it Blue” has just been posted on Amazon.com, and I’m honored that painter and writer Peter Wood gave the book five stars. Here is the review: Most Helpful Customer Reviews 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars — Painters Exposed As Never Before!…
Read MorePaint it Blue – Published
Paint it Blue, the long-anticipated collection of stories about painters, has been published and is now available. Introduction – We wonder what they’re thinking, so we ask Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. And you, Picasso, what are you really like? Vincent van Gogh, please tell us more about your agony and inspiration. We must also…
Read MoreElegant Quito Home of Maria Augusta Urrutia
I tell the taxi driver I’m looking for a splendid residence in downtown Quito, and he drives me into the historical center and to the home of Maria Augusta Urrutia. From outside, the house, though two tall stories, looks rather small and narrow, cramped by contiguous buildings, but upon entering I see a courtyard and…
Read MoreGarden Party for William H. Johnson
(A major feature about painter William H. Johnson, 1901-1970, will be posted later this spring.) I wish William H. Johnson, gifted painter of a unique world, were at this party honoring young African American artists, staged by the foundation bearing his name, at an elegant old two-story home near the Wilshire district in Los Angeles.…
Read MoreOrange Ladies
two mouths pout under hats above dresses sexy or mean better assume mean and sexy
Read MoreColossal Head and the Mesoamerican Ballgame
I know it’s not right by your standards but I don’t care about them or you, so my relentless almond eyes and flat ears, open and acute below the helmet on my Colossal Head 5, carved six-feet high into three tons of basalt, are aimed at viewers in museums who surround me on three sides.…
Read More