--- On Wed, 5/4/11, Dan Gotlieb wrote:
From: dan.gottlieb_sympatico.ca <dan.gottlieb_sympatico.ca>
Subject:
To: katabillups_yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 11:04 PM
Dear Kata:
Tonight I returned to your website and took a closer look at some of your Elvis paintings...I'm not a great fan of Elvis, but some of your interpretations are brilliant and very very funny! I absolutely love:
-"I saw Elvis in a highway diner" --inspired
-"Elvis was a Beatnik"--he looks so young and strong and beautiful
-"Elvis rushed into the mansion to free the bunnies"--with his microphone in hand!
-"Elvis did dishes"--fantastic idea...where do you get these concepts from? when I had my eBay store up-I enjoyed writing some commentary. this would say- something about how during my first marriage my successful singer songwriter husband would come home at night and ask what I did all day. could I really tell him I cleaned the lint catcher in the dryer 2 times, did 4 loads of laundry, and 2 loads of dishes, dried and put away both laundry and dishes, cleaned up 2 piles of dog vomit, scrubbed the incredibly icky stains off the bottom of he toilet, sanitized the inside of the refrigerator shelves (after removing all the contents of the refrigerator) put away the mail in the appropriate folders for tax time, spoke with the insurance rep. and answered a half hour of questions, made diner, etc. etc. of course not. my reply was "not much" how was your day? this piece like many of my rock and roll paintings is autobiographical.
-"The four keys to Elvis' success" great, great, great, great.!
Actually, I think I like ALL your Elvis stuff. It's entirely original. There's also a childlike quality to some of the compositions which imparts a real innocence upon the king of rock 'n roll. yes, I saw that in him, unlike the stars that are made by multimillion dollar industry machines nowadays. That is, HE is an innocent coping within morally compromised surroundings. I think that's one of the themes of your Elvis work: yes. absolutely. An artist (in this case, a musician) trying to retain his integrity in a corrupted world. bingo. his celebrity extrapolated the dynamic that all people go through....Clearly, you project onto Elvis the virtues of mankind. yes- Elvis is the everyman. like Chaplin's little tramp. He even volunteers at the Humane Society! Friend to dogs, erotic hero to women, clown to the children (Barney painting), incorruptible. Even when he's French kissing it's rated PG for the amusement of child observers; mischievous rather than crass.
Therefore, I think Elvis is essentially your doppelganger. good word / funky cool word- had to look it up. You see yourself as an artist/person/woman/Christian struggling to remain true to yourself in a world of absurdity, and you project yourself into your work through Elvis. yes. yes. you got it. better than any interviewer before you. I'm no psychologist, but the connection is pretty clear. I wonder though, do you do this consciously, or do you not realize it's happening? yes, ever since the beginning of the work- I believed if I painted about my own life no body would give a hoot. but if I projected through Elvis- maybe some people would "listen"- because I felt what I had to say was important/ and did speak for the everyman- but I needed a spokesman.
Look at the way you painted Elvis' socks in "Elvis dreaming of love". He looks so pathetic, so human. I laughed out loud as I painted that detail. I only allow socks to creep if I am beat (too tired to pull them up). What's in the middle thought bubble above him? the things he probably reminisced about while alone in a creepy motel room on the road- things that took him to comfort in his mind- Priscilla, Graceland his child, peanut butter and banana sandwiches (which were one of his favorites), his Mother and Ann Margaret (his possible lover). There's a beautiful woman, a mansion with fancy cars, and in the middle is...a banana beside a tin can? Please explain.
I think I looked at your Beatles and Dylan stuff so closely I missed the Elvis stuff, which is just as powerful. I wish I could buy it all. You're a genius. wow. thank you
Picasso said the hardest thing for an artist to achieve is simplicity. yep. I might agree. distilling an idea is a difficult thing. it's reflected visually in composition. if I have a genius it may be in composition / ie. story telling visually. I find the same thing in literature. The best writing is the clearest. Words that cannot be misinterpreted. I always try to teach my students to write clearly, and I'm always fighting with the English teachers about this. They want kids to write:
The precocious canine gamboled upon the spherical projectile with a joyous leap into the clouds...FUNNY! I laughed out loud!
Whereas I tell students to write:
The dog caught the frisbee. hah! yes, I call Howard Finster one of my greatest mentors because he was preacher turned artist. supposedly an angel showed up and told him to paint 20,00 paintings or something. so he painted on Masonite, cardboard, whatever. he combined every day themes with spiritual stuff in the most common sense ways. he included writing all over some of his pieces. one of his paintings is of a giant coke bottle. he writes inside it- something like- "after church my family and I would enjoy a cold coke". I was attracted to the genre artists at the time of the renaissance- and I felt that Finster captured his own ordinary life and time better than any photo real artist working at the same time.
My favourite writer is Winston Churchill, whose beautiful prose got me hooked on history a long time ago. need to read his work. saw a film with a great portrayal of him recently. the film about the Prince who had the speech impediment. That's also what I like about the Beatles. yes. My parents gave me tickets to the symphony last year, and I slept through the complicated orchestral stuff. hah! I'm sure it's brilliant for those who have an ear for such music, but I prefer a great two minute pop song like Norwegian Wood, or Strawberry Fields Forever. Simple tunes with hidden layers of meaning and complexity: YES. when I have to write about my work and describe the people who "get it" - this is something I try to express--- accessible yet mysterious at the same time. Your painting style is like that: outwardly simple in form, with identifiable icons, yet with lots of little bits around the canvass to ponder deeper meanings where other artists fear to tread.
And other artists DO FEAR TO TREAD, Kata. Just look at the crap on eBay under rock 'n roll paintings. oh yes. I had a page in my eBay store called Kata's work versus other CRAP. I actually think (cocky as this may sound) that 20 years ago I and a handful of other artists started the rock and roll art craze- but that no body can pull it off like I (and a couple other of my contemporaries from that time) can because they are "talking down" to their audience. and wouldn't know how to elevate their work with a gun pointed at their head- because they have nothing to "say". All junk. Just portraits or copies of photos, prints, or reproductions of Abbey Road album covers, with no thought behind them. Just technical work. For lazy people. yes. horrible. it's not art. it's the Thomas Kinkade of rock art for the masses.
You really must check out that other eBay artist I mentioned in my previous email to you, I will today. Thank You. whose work is simply fantastic, albeit a tad abstract at times. He's got one very expensive work for sale which is an abstract depiction of the Last Supper which I think is amazing. He's a faith based artist with subversive intent, so you two share that in common.
I also noticed the price on eBay of your Jesus in a fat suit painting, and given the high price, which must reflect the time and effort you put into it, it does. and the fact that no museum anywhere has anything like it. too many layers of meaning. unprecedented. sound like I'm bragging....I know. but I can't really brag about ideas and compositions that pretty much build themselves as I go along. I was very much involved- but do not believe that I was the ultimate composer. I very much regret commenting negatively on it in a previous e-mail. no problem. takes a while to "get" my stuff. so glad you have taken the time- and have the literary and artistic background to do it. I need to keep my foot out of my mouth more often. It was gracious of you to not get pissed off at me. hah! you compliment me a lot! so good for my paper thin ego. Thank YOU.
Anyway, getting late, and must prepare for the morrow. Thanks for reading. Thank YOU. Dan.
