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Oval Office Alarm

Presence of Court Painter in Oval Office raises alarms

 A Calgary art celebrity known as Court Painter was allowed into the Oval Office on Wednesday during President Trump’s meeting with Russian diplomats, a level of access that was criticized by former U.S. intelligence officials as a potential security breach.The officials cited the danger that a listening device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office by the art celebrity Court Painter while hidden in paint brushes, paint cans, paint tubes or other art materials. Former U.S. intelligence officials raised questions after paintings of Trump’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were posted by Court Painter online. Among those commenting on the issue was former deputy CIA director David S. Cohen. Responding to a question posed online about whether it was a sound decision to allow the Court Painter into the Oval Office, Cohen replied on Twitter: “No it was not.” He declined to elaborate when reached by phone.
Other former intelligence officials also described the access granted to the Court Painter as a potentially serious security lapse, noting that standard screening for White House visitors would not necessarily detect a sophisticated espionage device hidden in a tube of rose madder or alizarin crimson for that matter.An administration official said the White House had been misled about the role of the Court Painter. Russian officials had described the individual as Lavrov’s official portrait painter without disclosing that he also would sell reproductions of the paintings online at a sweet price.

“We were not informed by the Russians that an official portrait painter was dual-hatted and would be releasing the paintings on his website for a pretty penny,” the administration official said.

As a result, White House officials said they were surprised to see paintings posted online showing Trump not only with Lavrov but also smiling and shaking hands with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

When asked by CNN about his experience, Court Painter said,” I paint ’em as I see ’em…warts and all!

Paranormalize

Court Painter Moving Pictures announces production of new paranormal series: Seance Central

Calgary’s Court Painter Moving Pictures a subsidiary of Court Painter Perfectly Still Pictures, announced the start of a low budget  paranormal action series titled Seance Central. It is a dramatized expose of paranormal activities that rattle around in real time throughout the art studios of the nation.The series is rumoured to be targeted at rural audiences and big city free enterprisers who still fear the ghosts of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels yet embrace the thrills & chills of the unknown in their struggle for normalcy. (Questions that arose in the press scrum did not clarify what this meant.)

The production cast includes art celebrity Court Painter played by Professor Emeritus John Arnold Will , Press Attache A Hardon MacKay; cameos by A Girl Named Robin & her main squeeze Robert;celebrity painter Chris Cran and his main squeeze and dancing partner Missy D plus local art B listers too numerous to mention.Many are placed just off camera to protect their identities and future career possibilities.

Nelson Auteur, coaxed out of retirement helped plug in the equipment while taking copious notes and running the snack bar ….in addition to directing the videography.

www.nelsonauteur.com

The 3-episode, hour-long drama will première in the Court Painter’s Inglewood studio projected on a bed-sheet.

Seance Central’s creator and ghost writer , A Hardon MacKay also serves as crystal ball buffer for the production . Other episodic directors on board include Court Painter in a duel starring and director role and Missy Mayhem rumoured to be Hardon’s main squeeze.

The series is set in a remote part of Court Painter’s Inglewood studio that has inexplicably been overrun by paranormal forces. The local outcast character played by Court Painter must overcome the studio assistants prejudices and his own personal demons if he’s to harness his repressed psychic powers and save everyone from the mass haunting that’s threatening to tank future sales and destroy them all. Like totally teeth-chattering awesome!

When pushed for a comment, A Hardon MacKay in hushed tones revealed,“Seance Central is not just a contemporary homage to classic psychological horror, it’s also an opportunity to tell stories about art politics and how beliefs are shaped and lives ruined by crystal phantoms in the studios of the nation; highlighting warped individual perspectives and art resentments in ghostly hues. The parameters and the preposterous pontifications of the Paranormal all are covered in great detail by the script, meticulously ghost written in invisible ink and terrifyingly enacted in the hand crafted studio setting! Improvisation was encouraged and chaos theory became manifest in haunting and diaphanous action.That’s all I can say right now without setting off trigger alerts.”

In a follow up press scrum the questions ‘why this, why now’ were left dangling in a fog of miscomprehension and leaden query….

 

Majority of Those Asked

Court Painter now agrees with the majority of those asked: He wasn’t ready to be a court painter.

Court Painter thought being a ‘courtly celebrity painter ‘would be easier

In an interview on April 27, Court Painter said he misses aspects of his life before becoming a celebrity and that he thought being a courtly celebrity painter “would be easier.”

Court Painter spent a great portion of 2016 insisting that being an art celebrity would be easy — at least for him. HuffPost compiled a number of examples of him dismissing the problems that accompany the celebrity job as being easily dispatched. Painting a mural on a wall on the border with Mexico is easy. Beating Chris Cran’s media coverage would be easy. Renegotiating the studio rent deal would be easy. Paying down the art materials debt would be easy. Acting as an art celebrity? Easy.

To a reporter this week, though, Court Painter had a slightly different assessment of being a celebrity.

“I loved my previous life as a mentor to up and comers. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life,” Court Painter said. “I thought it would be easier. I thought it was more of a … I’m a details-oriented person. I think you’d say that, but I do miss my old life as a studio lay about. I like to paint pictures and do lettering so that’s not a problem but this demands more figurative work.”

It wasn’t the first time that Court Painter copped to the job being trickier than he anticipated. In November Court Painter had told his Press Attache that “This is really a bigger job than I thought.” (Hardon’s response? “…good. He should think that.”) Then there are individual issues. “Nobody knew a textured figure ground relationship could be so complicated,” he whimpered at one point. At another, he revealed that it took a conversation with the president of The Alberta Face Painters Association to realize that the portrait sales crisis on communities touched by the Bow River was “not so easy.”

 

There’s an element of surprise in Court Painter’s comments, a hint of bafflement that having responsibility for entertaining dozens of fans entwined in a global art economy and international relationships with portrait subjects might end up being trickier than running a sidewalk charcoal portrait sketch operation from midtown Inglewood. One group that probably wasn’t surprised that Court Painter wasn’t prepared? The majority of those asked!

At no point over the past 3 years did a majority of those asked think that Court Painter was qualified for the job as an art celebrity. Polling shows that views of Court Painter as unqualified dominated throughout the years. The only group that consistently viewed him as qualified to hold the celebrity position were the retired white seniors that constituted the core of support from his local Tim Hortons.

More to the point, polling from a pollster showed that, consistently, Court Painter was viewed as unprepared for the celebrity job. In June, July and September — before, during and after Court Painter began making his general call out for commissions — the majority of those asked thought he wasn’t ready to hold a candle to the run of the mill hobby billy or bobbette portraitist.

Asked in a random sample, most art sophisticates viewed his Press Attache A Hardon Mackay as more prepared to be an art celebrity than Court Painter by a wide margin . A much greater number of former fired studio interns were willing to call A Hardon Mackay more qualified than Court Painter.

Put simply: The majority of those asked didn’t think Court Painter was ready to be a courtly celebrity painter. Based on his comments about the canvases being bigger or harder to cover than he thought, that it is more work, it seems safe to say that Court Painter has also now come to believe that he wasn’t prepared for the top tier celebrity job however he is not known to be a quitter like some TV celebrities we know!