Writer of Light

I was surfing my friends list, and I came upon ‘s very funny riff on the works of artist Thomas Kincade. Kincade’s latest outrage is a series of inspirational scenes painted on the side of model 18-wheelers. If ever there was Red State kitsch ripe for lampooning, this is it. But, oddly enough, I felt moved to come at least partly to Kincade’s defense in ‘s blog. And because he gave me the chance to say something I’ve been thinking about for a while, with uncharacteristic brevity, I reposted it here.

You might want to read ‘s original post first.

Here’s my response:

Well, I was impressed by god’s 18-wheeler; I previously thought of Kincade as just a painter of treacly cottage scenes.

But you know, I understand his appeal. As a teenager and young man I immersed myself in Lord of the Rings and other fantastic fiction, at least in part to spend time in those idealized worlds. Kincade’s work is the visual expression of that impulse, I think.

I worked at an art college for six years, and I saw a lot of mediocre art in that period. You have to say this for Kincade: he had good technical skills; his works are representational and comprehensible; and his works evoke emotion.

Of course most of his stuff is saccharine, and he’s not breaking any new artistic ground (die-cast truck decoration notwithstanding). He does one thing, and he does it competently. I would say he’s a cottage industry (pun most definitely intended), but he’s more like a global conglomerate now, and it’s easy to dismiss his mass-produced kitsch on those grounds. But I have at least as much respect for him as I do for the Billyburg hipsters who are scrounging street trash for found-object art in willfully obscure, self-referential gallery shows that six people will see (four of whom are relatives and lovers of the artist).

P.S.—Henceforth you shall refer to me as Bob Howe, Writer of Light.

Bob’s New York

I’ve lived in New York City—Brooklyn—for 39 of my 47 years. Like most people, I’ve built up a mental map of the place where I live, in which my internal landmarks assume disproportionate size and importance over the actual landscape. I’m not sure if the annotated photomap below the cutline will fascinate anyone but me and fellow New Yorkers (and maybe not even them). For the next ten days, however, I’ll add reader’s personal landmarks (and brief annotations), as long as they fall within the boundaries of the photomap (Unfortunately, most of Staten Island and The Bronx are not on the map, and Queens is cut by about a third). Either post your landmark as a comment or e-mail it to me. The request can be for anything, from the bar where you met your spouse to a public landmark like the Empire State Building. I won’t post home addresses, for obvious reasons.

There are actually two maps: a guide map that lets you see the whole area at a glance, and the detailed photomap. The detailed map is a big image (1000 x 1000 pixels), so it may take some time to load, and you’ll have to scroll around to view all of it.

Ship of Memes

Because and did it. (And yes, Mom, if they jumped off a bridge I’d do it, too.) I’m slightly surprised that I’m less than half as nerdy as Ken, and a third as nerdy as Bill.