Saturday, August 13, 2005

I hate Thomas Kinkade!

I hate Thomas Kinkade. I know, mama always said “hate” was a strong word, but this 32 year old is slamming her door to commercialism. I cringe when I get the sweet, doe-eyed inquiry into what kind of art I do by the nicely pressed co-worker at my “will I always been controlled by The Man?” 9-5 job. It is usually followed by a comment regarding a relative’s beautiful watercolors which is just the ramp up to the…”I just bought my first piece of artwork…a Thomas Kinkade...PRINT!” Alright, for those of you who don’t know, your so-called print is…a poster. Yep, you can be just like you were in college, but instead of purchasing your Bob Marley poster at the local pipe shop; you mosey on down to the Thomas Kinkade "Gallery.” Oh, to pour so much money into a nicely framed, gold plated, signed edition of…a poster.

I know it started when you were young at the one-day, one-town carnival. You stared dreamily at the unicorn painted mirror behind the creepy, carnie guy while you lapped at your cotton candy and your friend Peggy puked out her funnel cake after twirling on the suicidal swings.

Not too many years later you rushed to the magazine isle at the grocery store to thumb through the newest issue of Teen Beat. Rob Lowe was in the fold-out. You begged Mom to buy you the issue, promising it would be your last request. Rob Lowe, mmmmmmm. If only you knew it could have been you with him and the video camera. Right time, wrong place. Rushing home, you proudly place him prominently next to your Unicorn mirror. Before you went to bed…a light kiss on his lips.

Of course I am not going to drudge up your Michael Jackson fantasy sticker collage pre-Rob Lowe. That would be just, well, too low.

High school brought on braces, acne and your need to be an individual. How easily you rolled up Rob in exchange for your true feelings, the kind of feelings that got you all gooey inside. George Michael. He wanted your sex. You weren’t quite sure what that was, but you think you got to third base with the funereal director’s son. You rushed home to give thanks to the George Michael Poster/alter for making it all feel so real.

Now, today you are walking with your toe-headed children at the Market Place. You give them change to throw in the fountain knowing their wishes will be for some ice-cream and maybe a Harry Potter poster from Russo’s bookstore. You pause, something draws you in…a light, yes a light coming from a frothy little cottage next to a stream. Once again, you are in love. Could that be a unicorn peeking out behind that pine tree? And who is waiting for you in that little cottage with the video camera? Do you hear music pumping frantically in your ears…”I want your…”…yes, oh yes…

Enjoy your poster.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

How can you "hate" someone you don't even known? You don't see me spouting off that I hate Julia Heatherwick do you? And for your information, I do. I hate your guts. I hope you rot in envy of my talents and giant, multi-million dollar business. You are just a small, little nobody that writes insults instead of making art that sells. Here is a gallery tip for you: Don't suck and maybe someone will pay you for what you do.

mel... said...

I admit to having some crap posters such as a cartoon duck proclaiming "I don't do mornings" in the bedroom of my childhood. I have since seen the error of my ways and now have a home filled with an eclectic collection that ranges from a piece I found at Goodwill to a framed trivet made of spiraled newspaper. And then there's my own photography on the walls which includes an Aleutian inspired piece that, without creative cropping, you'd realize it was from the side of a truck in Eugene, OR.

Julia said...

TK,

Thank you for your thoughts.

Peace,
Julia

Julia said...

Mel,

I love knowing you have a framed Trivet hanging on your wall.

Julia

Anonymous said...

Julia -

I'm dying! This is so funny.

Anonymous said...

I love this! I know Julia and know she doesn't actually hate the man (maybe, but I doubt it), but I know what she means. She means she works really hard with a very cool medium and makes one of a kind incredible art work and then has to go off to her regular day job and be to tired and busy to make art that night. She works tirelessly for a non-profit theatre to create an amazing gallery space in what is seriously one step up from a wharehouse space and offers innovative art shows that are unlike any seen in this town before. She just hates that people are so dang proud of their posters. I like posters too. I have some nice posters of some pretty Waterhouse and Preraphelite pieces that look great in my daughter's room. My real treasures though are in the rest of my home. They cost a whole heck of a lot more, but the works of Julia Heatherwick, Jennifer Marshall, Kris Tiner, Sheila Asbell Allen, Jennifer Williams, Alibak Monlana, Justan Lewis, and Juliet Morgan adorn my walls and fill me up everytime I look at them.

ObilonKenobi said...

Funny. I "hate" Thomas Kinkade too!!!

Anonymous said...

Julia,

You are now one of my official Heros. Thank you for writing that. Todd and I have had the same opinion of TK for years.
P.S. was that really the real TK that wrote "I hate your guts?" Shocking! And how delightfully juvenile. Proved your point rather beautifully, I think.

Anonymous said...

Just to add some officious artworld blather to back up the Lady Heatherwick...
As expressed in the workshop at the award-winning, conservation frame shop and gallery that I worked at before moving to Bakersfield, and to express the opinion of many a fine pro-artist or artist prof., Thomas Kinkade is a weenie. Man or art. Take your pick.

Here is why, at least from the business end of art. Anytime you actively take the selling approach of contacting your big spending client base, letting them know of a limited number litho run you are doing, let them by up all the available prints and therefore jack up the value before it's even made, it's not illegal but it's not nice. Then, once you've made those pre-paid-for masterpieces, signed in ink that has genetic traces of the artist's blood in it (because he likes to feel a part of every piece) you run off a slightly smaller, unlimited or far higher numbered litho run of the EXACT same image for the girls and boys who couldn't afford the first run. It is a lot less expensive, is made exactly the same way as the more expensive ones, and looks exactly the same once you've got it up on the wall. Because you've made it a different size, it makes it a technically different picture, and therefore it is still legal, but, again, not nice. Add corpaorate deals to have recliners in exclusive Kinkade fabric to match (so instead of matching the picture to your couch, you can match to whole room to the picture) and an entire housing tract based on Kinkade villages, and you have an abominable art monster.
Some practices cheapen art (here I don't mean cost wise) and cheat the customer, which brings all of the art world down. It's like back in the day when my printmaking teacher in college would rant about Dali and the paper he signed, then let his students make prints on, so he could sell it for more (scandal!)- when you try to stick it to someone to make a bigger buck, you stick it to us all.
And that is why I, and many other artists, think of Kinkade not so much as the "painter of light" but as the man who will need a "light-speed travelling device to get around his wallet".
Of course, there is the age old arguement about art's worth being only worth what it is worth monetarily, but why don't you go ask Vincent Van Gogh about that?

Anonymous said...

First of all, if that really was Kinkade who responded, geez, how insecure can you get? Any artist worth anything hates both the man's art and what he stands for, and just because you're popular doesn't mean shit... according to elections, Bush is popular. Dan Brown also is a best selling "writer"; that doesn't mean he's any good. Tommy-boy, selling crap to the masses is no difficult feat; Britney Spears and Limp Bizcut do it every fucking day.

That said, all I can say to Julia is that with an obstinate spirit like that, I'm glad I met you and have you in my life. Together we can stand up to the world, thumb our noses at so-called conventional wisdom, and create relevant art that means more than just a pretty landscape with florescent paint on it.

Popularity and success are the true artist's two worst enemies... just ask George Lucas.

Ryan said...

Amen. Kinkade preys on artistic neophytes, making millions off of the mall-goer who knows nothing about art, but thinks the light in the window of the cottage looks really cool. Someone needs to tell these people that they can hire a high school student in a beginning art class to paint the exact same thing for hundreds less.

Hope said...

No, that was not Thomas Kinkade that responded, number one; he would not have even dignified this trash with a comment, number two; if you were half the painter that God has made Thomas and you were being blessed with the money he is, you would not be saying a word about him. Grow up and find the Lord, Thomas has.

Nick Belardes said...

Oh wow Julia, you have been called half a Kinkade. If he's worth billions. That's not too shabby.

Hope seems to only have hope in commercialized artistry. That's a sad state for the art universe to be in, were her narrow outlook to succeed.

Jackie A. said...

TK "art" does make me throw up a little. Maybe the originals would be worth something, but I can't stand to see replicas of TK stuff on EVERYTHING. My family is totally guilty though, TK wall-mounted plates, framed prints, cards, etc. Of course, my fam would never consider their TK stuff "art". Mom just likes it. I'm not going to hate on her, I will gladly recommend non-TK decorative items when she asks me for help (and I have!) Though, it must be noted we do have a large wall-mounted piece created by my now-deceased uncle. He may have even "done something" with his art if he hadn't passed, but I'll tell you I value his work more than the TK items in the house. TK might be resonsible for evil, but the problem is that people are not exposed to genuine art... which I know Julia and others are attempting to remedy. Thanks for your efforts or I might have asked to inherit Mom's TK stuff... hahaha!

Missy said...

Oh man...
Thanks for telling it like it is. I too cannot stand T.K. and anytime I see a painting of his I have the urge to set it on fire (but I never would).
If you do happen to like him, great, but I'd choose a Julia Heatherwick original over his generic cottage/floral crap ANYDAY!