| when a painter dies |
3 craig paintings
thrift store paintings
I have been painting 20 years. It started with a painting class at Harbor College in Carson, a suburb of Los Angeles, or what passes for one in these parts and memorably described by the writer James Kunstler in a book about LA as The Geography of Nowhere. You could also say: Living On the Moon. But there I was—with a business in Carson and when I got the bright idea to paint and to take a painting class Harbor College was my destination. Carson isnt Beverly hills and over at Harbor JC where the average student passed his or her high school years in a fog of sex, drugs and video games while zeroing in on a sparkling 2.3 GPA you are likewise a long way from UCLA or USC but as I have always maintained— its funny where you can find some good teaching. That was Craig--mid-forties, weighed about 240 and holding down 3 part time Community College type jobs—at Harbor, Pierce and Mission. Craig was victim to the trend in recent years—to hire more part timers and in this way eliminate the cost of benefits—health insurance. It was the new economics. So Craig had 3 part time jobs at three schools separated at vast distances from each other and he spent more time on the freeway driving back and forth between teaching gigs in his jalopy—a 1969 fungus green Ford pinto with diseased pistons—badly in need of some health care of its own. But as I say—teaching-wise you never know. Craig had a masters in philosophy from UCLA and 35 years of painting under his belt with a Curriculum Vitae 9 pages long including shows with some top LA galleries and in Europe as well and I was on the receiving end of it all 2 nights a week for 4 hours a night for 4 months for $15. The class was the usual mix of housewives and civil servant retirees and a few student drop outs in need of some academic re-hab and they all pretty much fell into the same category: painters of thrift store type paintings. You follow my meaning. But there we were at Harbor, to meet twice a week under the expert tutelage of Craig and at mid-semester there would be a critique. Out into the hall we marched to prop the paintings against the wall andCraig would start at the first and work his way down to the last, and to deliver at each piece a critique, carefully worded to minimize any emotional trauma and otherwise resist the urge to state the obvious: dont quit your day job. These were his students after all—his children—and also: he knew which side his bread was buttered on. From time to time Craig would have a show and the class would attend and we would ooh and aah over the show that would run for 2 weeks or a month and he would sell two or three paintings for maybe $15,000 and the gallery would take their 40% cut and that would be his reward for a years full of work. Call it: being a painter. But this isnt a story about my painting class or Craigs painting shows but of the paintings themselves and their fate. Craig was living in Inglewood over by LAX and now he moved closer to the job, to San Pedro, to rent a double storefront on a side street off Pacific and threw a party to celebrate. The space was cool, with living and painting on one side and the other side to serve as storage. Normally as a painter you live apart from the studio because 1) painting is messy and 2) fumes. But Craig couldnt do that because he had a storage problem. When a writer dies everything he has ever written can be dumped in a closet— or these days on a flash drive the size of a cigarette lighter. Craig couldnt do that. I invite you to visualize a space, 30x70, the size of your neighborhood hardware store and along one wall from front to back and floor to ceiling rack upon rack upon rack of paintings--small, medium, large and extra large and lets not forget the prints and lithographs and pastels and watercolors and sketch books and sketch pads and sheets of stencil and even works of fresco—wall sections. It was staggering. And now I had a thought—an obvious thought but occurring for the first time. Craig was pushing 50. In 20 or 30 years—and another 1000 paintings down the road—he would drop dead. He was unmarried, there were no kids or girlfriends or boyfriends. He had a sister. She was the heir. When he died it would all go to her. And that was my thought: what would she do with it? The options were limited. She couldnt sell the paintings because there were no buyers. She couldnt donate to the museums because the museums were not interested. Craig had a reputation— a small reputation. Museums prefer the large reputation. That left solution 3: storage. Storage was $500 a month. What about solution 4: to burn them? I dont know. I didnt know then or today—15 years later. Craig is still around—still in Pedro, retired now and he continues to paint. Painters dont stop painting. They drop dead. Then all their problems are solved. But the problem of the works of a lifetime they leave behind and what is to become of this work persists. Call it: being a painter. |