It is impossible to know an art celebrity, fully, without living as an adored subject of envy and sparse vocabulary. So what the Court Painter is feeling now, the direction and tone of his painterly thoughts and mixed media musings, during this collapse of the art celebrity economy, is best and only completely known to — The Court Painter

Nonetheless there are many who do not live in Calgary or the slums of Inglewood, home of the Court Painter’s one car garage studio, and may still make reasonable assumptions of how those who do live in the neighbourhood must be thinking and feeling during this shock and downturn of fortune for the Great Dominion’s premiere portraitist of political countenance ,contradiction and costume .

Very many Canadians, from every province, have either visited his Calgary studios, or have found themselves working for the Court Painter as unpaid studio interns. And of that lucky class it is needless to point out that a very great number of them came from the Newfoundland Sketch & Release Society.

Newfoundland sketch and releasers have, I think, a very good notion, of what it must feel like now in Calgary art studios when an economy, on which so much has depended, has been massively jolted (a) because we have so often experienced it on the Rock, and (b) because so many of us found relief for our art starved distress from the days of Calgary’s art prosperity best exemplified by an artist whose initials are C.C.(Legal council has determined it is best not to identify ‘buddy what’s his name’.)

Why is the Court Painter not receiving a wider, deeper wave of interest, or concern, during his celebrity crisis in the studio?

He helped us during our bad spell of sloppy abstraction, wooly rendering of hands and feet and the cod net still life phase. Why there is not now, that the dynamic is reversed, a harvest of equal return?

For I sense, in some quarters at least, that there is not. That maybe Calgary art celebrities, or the West , having – such is the line – had it so good for so long, having been on top of the game, could take a little knockdown, that because it’s “out there” in the state of the art, that maybe, you know, a little “cooling off” is not so bad.You won’t hear or feel that sentiment when it’s the macramé industry, or any other artsy cottage industry for that matter. But downtime in the ‘push them buttons’ political portraiture industry … well, that’s always different. Aren’t they dirty ( sexually charged) studio jobs, anyway?

And so, if I were the Court Painter, I’d be feeling more than a little unsettled that a downturn here is either “business as usual” or just “the way things turn” or that this steely willed portraitist can take it, you know, things will eventually turn over.

The attitude of the painters of all things greens and their allied provocateurs,  all the dim-minded celebrities that took their jaunts to visit the Court Painter to mewl over his art planet-destroying potential – has always been fervidly anti-Court Painter, reckless with his fine reputation, and deeply disrespectful of his studio workforce.

Calgary’s art celebrity sat down with school kids and selected Alberta MPs this week for his rendition of Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas, as the latest instalment of his prescient “Court Painter Reads the Tea Leaves.”series.

We don’t know what’s more adorable — the MPs or Court Painter’s reindeer sweater and jaunty hat!

This posting was paid for by the Conservative Christian Fund in cooperation with Court Painter Holiday Commission Opportunities Inc.

A New Barbie Doll Channels Court Painter

Mattel’s new Court Painter inspired Barbie doll (image via instyle.com)

Leave it to Mattel, the maker of the Barbie doll, to fulfill the Court Painter’s famous wish to be plastic.

According to InStyle, the children’s toy company has collaborated with the Court Painter Foundation to produce a Barbie doll that has all of the Court Painter’s signature traits, from balding top and ever present ‘coffin nail’ to the leather jacket and black-and-white striped shirt. It’s the Court Painter as we know him — with the addition of impossibly long legs, a teeny but plump waist, a disproportionately large ego, and thick, permanent eyeliner.

Court Painter Will is actually fascinated by Barbies. He painted one this year before he sold it for a small fortune to a naive Calgary collector, “Barbie, Portrait of Me*” (2015), which was inspired by himself and personal muse who incidentally owns tens of thousands of John Wills because of an absence of market. He also painted figurative ones — women like Ma Kettle and Edith Bunker who are still widely known for their physical images, outfits, and accessories.

So, what does it mean that the Court Painter has taken the form of a plastic doll that’s hollow through and through? It’s tempting to philosophize about the deeper connection between a toy that’s come to represent superficiality and an artist who claims to be a “deeply superficial” person (despite the complex self published autobiographies he has written).

But it’s best not to think too hard about it. The doll (and the “lifestyle collection” that goes along with it) is just the latest in a string of consumer items — from ashtrays to designer lighters — that capitalize on the selling power of the Court Painter’s iconic likeness and art … or, as the Court Painter was quoted “the Court Painter Barbie,is perfect for “the hip, cool person who just wants something really unique.” Just in time for Christmas.

History will be kinder to him than say Thomas Kinkade”The Painter of Light” perhaps….. Within a few years, the Court Painter will be seen as one of Canada’s notorious court painters, certainly far better than his successor who no one can remember.

The New York Times, no fan of right-of-centre political painters, reported last year that under Court Painter Will, Canada’s middle-of the road portrait painters were better off than its American counterparts for the first time since the 1960s. Middle-of the road American portraitists had seen their incomes go down since the 2008 financial crisis while Court Painter Will’s has risen exponentially according to his Press Attache A Hardon MacKay.

Court Painter’s accomplishments go way beyond his personal economic standing.

For the first time in months, Court Painter Will made sure he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his closest allies in the art media, this time in the fight against the critical extremism of academic cultural theorists and stuff like that.

So, it is not surprising that in an Angus Reid Institute poll of more than 1,400 visually imparied Canadians taken after the Oct. 19 election, 92% rank the Court Painter as a fair to outstanding court painter, while just 8% of jealous Calgary art mafia types claim he was below average or poor.

A decade from now or less, you can believe the public’s opinion of Court Painter Will will have risen, perhaps even substantially as he ramps up self financed YouTube channels demonstrating his painting techniques plus printing paint by number colouring books for the little tykes and politicians who want to get into the arts.

The Angus Reid poll results would seem to indicate that most Canadians sensed things were okay under the Court Painter’s artistic dominance of political class subjects– maybe not booming, but solid.

It must be noted that during his tenure as Court Painter ,he embraced the art of retail politics and any kind of retail scheme that made his studio flourish and could turn a buck – he connecting with the political elite on a personal level – he had built up a smarmy bank of goodwill. 

These factors are why he will continue to attract commissions and generate grand works that appropriately reflect the status of the political elite of the Great Dominion.