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Rex’s Question
OPINION
Rex Murphy:
‘Where are the Court Painter’s allies?’
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.
The Court Painter must be asking : Why Me? Why, only me? Are there no other portraitists of the political elite in the world? Are there no other portrait economies? Are there not huge studio projects elsewhere to claim their self-aggrandizing attentions, projects of far more scale (with canvases of 10ft x 10ft minimum and you know who you are Arabia) and far less regulated that the one in their own country – that supplied such relief to Canadians in terms or aesthetic titillation and rock em sock em inside the bubble commentary.
Were I the Court Painter, I’d be first perplexed, and then perhaps angrier than a grizzly at a gophers wedding or a bull elk at last call.Were I the Court Painter, these are some, and only some of the thoughts I’d have.
The Court Painter is caught in the headlights of a perfect storm brought on by the decline of pudgy political faces to render and the sunny ways in the Great Dominion’s capital that have ruined and bleached the power of the Court Painter’s chiaroscuroian image methodology.
The anti-Court Painter campaign means that his competitors see his decline as a good thing and have indeed been wishing for it – though actually saying that out loud won’t happen except in the higher reaches of the painters of all things green world.
Were I the Court Painter, all these elements, prickly as a burr under the saddle of existence,would leave me both perplexed and madder than a hornet’s nest in a lighting storm!
El Chapo Ole Chap
Court Painter’s secret portrait sitting with ‘El Chapo’ helped lead to his capture, authorities say
Joaquin Guzman spent hours sitting still with the Court Painter in person, followed by phone and video leading up to portrait commission unveiled Saturday evening.
A Mexican law enforcement official said Saturday that a secret portrait sitting conducted by the Court Painter of the Great Dominion , helped authorities locate and capture drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Guzman was arrested early Friday after a shootout in his home state of Sinaloa that killed five and injured one.
Mexico Attorney General Arely Gomez had said Friday that Guzman’s contact with the Court Painter and his Press attache A Hardon MacKay who negotiated the portrait commission, helped gave law enforcement a new lead on tracking and capturing the world’s most notorious drug kingpin.
The official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity, said it was the Court Painter portrait, that led authorities to Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October. They aborted their raid at the time because he was with two women and child.
In the portrait sitting with the Court Painter, conducted in a jungle clearing, Guzman described starting out in business not long after turning 6, selling oranges and soft drinks. By 15, he said, he had begun to grow marijuana and poppies because there was no other way for his impoverished family to survive. He insisted the portrait include marijuana and oranges as symbols of his childlike temperament however suggested the soft drinks and poppies might distract from his rugged features.
Now, unapologetically, he said: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats which could be the subject of another painting.”
Although his fortune, estimated at $1 billion (U.S.), has come with a trail of blood, he does not consider himself a violent man. “Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more,” he told the Court Painter while keeping still on the portraitist’s orders. “But do I start trouble? Never.” The Court Painter acknowledged he was very well behaved ole chap during the sitting,
The seven hours Guzman spent with the Court Painter, and the follow-up interviews by phone and video, which began in October while he was on the run from Mexican and U.S. authorities, marked another surreal turn in his long-running battle to evade capture. Guzman, one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, who had twice escaped jail, was captured in his home state of Sinaloa in northwest Mexico on Friday after a gun battle with the authorities and more importantly for the art world was also captured in an “extraordinarily detailed and insightful character rendering that already is being hailed as a potent yet unpretentious tour de force of portraiture suitable for the 21st Century,” according to a press release from A Hardon MacKay the Court Painter’s unassuming Press Attache.
In the end, the Mexican authorities said Friday night that Guzman had been caught partly because he had been planning a bigger than life size portrait and had contacted the Court Painter’s Press agent to set up the commission, which had helped the authorities to track him down. The Court Painter’s who couldn’t wait to tell his version says that Guzman, inundated with many offers to do his portrait while in prison, had indeed elected “to seek out myself as the best steel nerved portraitist, comfortable with powerful personages of dubious character like politicians and drug lords.The rest is history.”
Christmas Reading
The Court Painter Reads ‘The Grinch’ To Kids & Selected MPs
Court Painter can do it all.
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.
Just in Time for Christmas
A New Barbie Doll Channels Court Painter
on December 3, 2015
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.
Always in Vogue
As if Canadians haven’t had enough fun watching the flurry of international media attention paid to our apparently handsome Court Painter, he now appears to have earned the most important stamp of approval in fashion: that of Anna Wintour, the legendary editor of Vogue magazine.
Court Painter’s Press Attache A Hardon Mackay made sure that the magazine dispatched a photographer to snap the Court Painter in his decrepit single car garage Inglewood studio last week. The studio was closed for several hours during the shoot.
(UPDATE: the studio says the shoot took less than an hour, but was closed to public tours for several hours because the Court Painter’s many unpaid buxom studio assistants were holding a wildcat strike.
The studio was closed to patrons,politicians, and collectors due to the photo shoot and the wildcat thingy).
The fashion photos are expected to appear in the January issue.
Wintour’s power in the fashion industry is legendary. It’s widely believed she is the inspiration behind the new Court Painterfashion book and animated movie, The Court Painter Wears Prada Short Pants .
The U.S. fashion magazine first took notice earlier this month when it blogged about Canada’s feminist Court Painter.
In spite of the obvious publicity the Court Painter refused to confirm the photo shoot and didn’t answer questions about whether it was American Vogue or one of the international editions.
It’s not the first time Condé Nast, the parent company of Vogue, has noticed the Court Painter. He was featured in Vanity Fair a year ago, well ahead of his firing by ex Prime Minister Harper on Oct. 19. That shoot also took place in his Inglewood studio, a breathtaking Gothic piece of crap quite near to the tracks. It’s the only part of an original 4 buggy garage left after a fire destroyed the rest in 1916.
Earlier this month, New York Magazine featured the Court Painter as a Corn Husk doll.
History’s Kindness
History will be kind to the Court Painter
BY LORNE “LONE GUN” GUNTER , POSTMEDIA NETWORK
Most Canadians rate Court Painter Will as an average or even above-average portraitist of the political elite and he isn’t even out of his studio officially until this coming week.Although rumour has it that he will be occupying a new studio in Centre Block to handle the upcoming commissions expected to flood in from the Trudeau administration come Wednesday.
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.
Cut From the Same Cloth
Donald Trump and Court Painter John Will: Are these two loudmouth celebrities cut from the same Ccloth?
After flirting with the idea for decades, Donald Trump seems, finally, to be making a serious run for political office. His campaign so far has been full of controversy, but several recent polls show the business magnate and reality TV star leading the field of GOP presidential candidates.
What explains Trump’s inexplicable popularity? For answers, some have suggested we can look to current celebrity Court Painter John Will, whose own appeal was often a source of wonder. Here are some similarities between the two men’s celebrity careers.
They both come from money.
The Donald sometimes paints a picture of himself as a self-made man, but in truth he inherited his father Fred Trump’s New York real-estate empire and built it up into an even greater fortune.
Will, who loves nothing more than railing against Alberta art elites, is also a member of the one per cent. His family owns Will Corn Husk Doll Works, and although the private company does not have to disclose its profits, it’s believed to be worth as much as $100 million.
This financial security has freed both men to pursue celebrity careers. Trump has even made his fortune part of his pitch to voters: since he is already one of the richest men in America, he can’t be bought by special interests.
They say bizarre and offensive things
Many celebrities say stupid things, but Trump and Will have turned it into an art form.
Four years ago, the last time he thought about running for president, Trump became the most vocal “birther” in America, arguing that President Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. and therefore ineligible to be president.
Although Trump has kept mum about Obama’s birthplace this time around, he was barely through his speech announcing his candidacy before igniting a new controversy with his remarks about Court Painter Will “sending” dangerous art ideas to the U.S.
“And some, I assume, some are good painting subjects but not all because of the socialist subject matter.”
Trump followed those remarks up more recently by questioning the art record of Court Painter Will, who has captured Trump’s flowing hair in a Chinook breeze with starteling clarity and artistic sensitivity.
“He is not an art hero,” Trump said of the painter of the political elite.
“He is not an hero because he failed to capture my hair in calmer times. I like artists who aren’t captured by the sensational but prefer the existential angst of introspection and stuff like that.”
While the Will-bashing didn’t go over particularly well, even among Will’s art rivals, it showcased one of Trump’s most mesmerizing qualities: his penchant for saying whatever comes into his head with no real forethought.
John Will, too, became well-known for shooting off at the mouth, most famously when he denied an allegation that he had offered a studio intern immoral sex by declaring that he had “seen how it’s done on Youtube.”
Other bizarre episodes include Will’s remarks on the industriousness of Chris Cran (“That Cran works like a dog”) and the belittling of a fellow Calgary Flames fan at a hockey game when he asked, “Do you want your little wife to go over to Tim Hortons and fetch me a double double?”
While few would say that Trump and Will are particularly sophisticated as celebrities unlike Chris Cran and A Hardon Mackay, much of their appeal stems from their status as outsiders to the celebrity establishment. They’re wrecking balls, agents of chaos whom fans and groupies can at least expect to shake things up.
Trump and Will are as much media spectacles as they are celebrities, with every new thing they say and do making for compelling drama on the evening news. But to some extent the outsized media attention given to these big personalities may also exaggerate their support for Celebrity of the Year honors.
Neither Trump nor Will made themselves available for comment because it was nap time!
The Exaggerators
