Hanging From Clothespins

The picture of the bandaged head hanging from a clothesline with an ear pinned next to it took her by surprise. The young woman had been happily thumbing through my print drawer full of colorful landscape images. She spotted something different and could not take her eyes off it. I explained, "This is Vincent Van Gogh after he cut off his ear."
"Wow," she said, "I have to go get my boyfriend and bring him to look at this. He is across the hall at the jewelry shop buying a bolo tie."

A few minutes later the couple came in and I explained that the painting is part of my series called Hangups—images of faces hanging from clothespins. I showed them my book and pointed out Van Gogh, All Hung Up. "This one is in a museum in Arles, France, where Van Gogh lived." I said.
They bought the print: signed, numbered, and made with archival ink on 100% cotton rag paper. To go along with it I included a book.

Yes, Van Gogh did it. It was the night before Christmas Eve in 1888 -- a cold Sunday evening in the French city of Arles -- when Vincent Van Gogh took the razor he kept on his small dressing table and slashed off his left earlobe. After he was bandaged, he made a self-portrait that I used in my painting—exactly as he painted it. And I put his ear next to him.

The Hangups are my most unique series of art. I made the first on a whim in 1993 and more soon followed. My most prolific year was 1996 but I had to stop because they are unsettling. The last one I made was Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump when they were candidates for president in 2016.

See the book, click here: Hangups

Hardships Can Make Us Stronger

Hardships can make us stronger. I do not have complete evidence of this, but believe that every situation has some good in it.  

-Naomi Boone, (Jan. 11 1980 - July 5 1999)

When my daughter, age seventeen, wrote those words in her journal, she had been diagnosed with cancer and given little hope of remaining alive. Naomi gathered her resolve and reached for an uncertain future. 
During the next two years she was to endure extreme hardship. Like coal under intense pressure, she harnessed the good, became strong and brilliant as a diamond but vanished, leaving a glimmering trail of stardust in her path.

With the recent election, I am feeling the same apprehension and grief come back.  My beloved America is torn and seems to be fighting itself—much like the cancer cells that tore apart my daughter's body.

Our current crisis has “some good in it” and can “make us stronger.” America is at a moment of truth. Our healthy cells must unite, recognize the unhealthy usurper ones and overcome them. Healthy cells cooperate and work for the good of all. Unhealthy ones simply take and multiply savagely.

Ultimately America must be altruistic, benevolent, kind, strong, patient, just, honorable. Furthermore it needs to have the well being of the planet at its heart and eschew being self-centered.

Another thing: the election being “rigged” is true. The system is broken. Too much vested interest, money and corruption holds sway—and has almost since the beginning. Why do we have a two party system? It needs to be remade. America is in peril. A new body politic must arise that is not based upon opposition but rather unity.

A Bizarre Thought

Political Hangups oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches

It all started with a bizarre thought that came to my mind many years ago in 1993. A couple of faces hanging from a clothesline like laundry hung to dry. I had no idea where the mental picture came from or why it arrived in the moment. I was driving on a lonely road on the way home from working at my art gallery. Another odd thought arrived on its heels; that I must paint it.

The painting I made promptly exhibited and sold. It was all so curious that more were created. Most arrived in the span of a few years. During twenty years over thirty paintings came. Many sold, but they were on the verge of madness and often took quite long to be bought—if at all. I remember having a show at my gallery, called Hangups. The entire front room was filled with them. 

A young woman worked for me and had an uneven temperament. She could drink heavily at times but was quite brilliant. The show lasted for two weeks and she worked at a desk in the same room. The day the paintings came down and were replaced with landscapes, she almost cried tears of relief. I was surprised, and to this day remember her reaction. They are not easy paintings . . .
 
I had to quit at one point because I was becoming mentally unbalanced. I discontinued showing them but made a collection.

The last time I made one was over six years ago. This year, with the election heating up here in America, and the two candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seeming to be ubiquitous and constantly in the news, I ventured to make another Hangup painting with the two of them. Now that it is done, as people see it they laugh. It breaks the serious fighting that has been part of the issue of these presidential elections . . and casts the whole matter in a humorous if not morbid light. 

I am sure some people will not find the new painting funny. That has been true all along. The paintings cause reactions—either you laugh or get mad.

Click on the image above to see the book!