The question of the day
I've been invited to participate in a charity art auction called ARTrageous, a program sponsored by the Edwin Gould Services for Children and Family. The funds raised go to help foster children. Donald Baechler is the featured artist. This would be one of his:
Baechler embodies big time the famous Picasso line that goes, "It took me four years to paint like Rafael but a lifetime to paint like a child."
Anyway, the point of the story is this: Part of the process that some of the auctioned works are, in fact, collaborations between foster children (ages 8-15, maybe) and artists. Since my work is publicly collaborative anyway, and the way I paint involves throwing paint from wooden sticks (honestly, a child could do it), I'll be one of the kid/painter collaborators.
The question of the day is this: Who should I paint?
Ordinarily, as even the most casual reader of these pages knows, I paint Wall Street machers or politicians. But how many ten year olds can name the Chairman of Citigroup? So the machers are out. And if we paint politicians (some of whom the kids will at least recognize), political polarity means that half the bidders won't want to participate (name a Democrat, for example, who's looking for a portrait of Ronald Reagan for his living room). And, since the whole idea of an auction is to have a bunch of people raising their hands and screaming "I'll take it!" (or some slightly more controlled version of same), we don't want to limit ourselves by political leanings.
Thus, who to paint?
I suggested Picasso, but it seemed like a nonstarter to the organizers. Mike Bloomberg was a second thought (because, really, who knows what party he's in?) but this whole third term thing has taken a bit of the bloom off his rose.
Maybe Derek Jeter? Any thoughts are welcome.
Baechler embodies big time the famous Picasso line that goes, "It took me four years to paint like Rafael but a lifetime to paint like a child."
Anyway, the point of the story is this: Part of the process that some of the auctioned works are, in fact, collaborations between foster children (ages 8-15, maybe) and artists. Since my work is publicly collaborative anyway, and the way I paint involves throwing paint from wooden sticks (honestly, a child could do it), I'll be one of the kid/painter collaborators.
The question of the day is this: Who should I paint?
Ordinarily, as even the most casual reader of these pages knows, I paint Wall Street machers or politicians. But how many ten year olds can name the Chairman of Citigroup? So the machers are out. And if we paint politicians (some of whom the kids will at least recognize), political polarity means that half the bidders won't want to participate (name a Democrat, for example, who's looking for a portrait of Ronald Reagan for his living room). And, since the whole idea of an auction is to have a bunch of people raising their hands and screaming "I'll take it!" (or some slightly more controlled version of same), we don't want to limit ourselves by political leanings.
Thus, who to paint?
I suggested Picasso, but it seemed like a nonstarter to the organizers. Mike Bloomberg was a second thought (because, really, who knows what party he's in?) but this whole third term thing has taken a bit of the bloom off his rose.
Maybe Derek Jeter? Any thoughts are welcome.
posted by Geoffrey at 6:30 AM
1 Comments:
I suggest Lance Armstrong. He's famous, topical (his comeback), and not without controversry (all those doping accusations). He's also a connection to the artist's well-known love of cycling and his (perceived) status as an elite rider in the NY 5-Boro Bike Tour.
If you want something appealing to kids, you might think of Miley Cyrus, Ellen Page, Abigail Breslin, the Jonas Brothers or the Obama girls, but I like Lance better. My last thought is Bob Dylan because he is appropriate to all ages, all times, all situations and is frequently the answer to whatever question one has.
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