BIG SLAM ON ARTIST THOMAS KINKADE S5,EP22, I BELIEVE
My opinions:
Thomas Kinkade was an excellent artist when he was creating plein air oil paintings. But he also created sickeningly sweet, "hand me the airsick bag," scenes of cottages, glowing trees, little bridges...you know, right out of the fairy tale books. My feelings were that these were garbage foisted upon those uninitiated to authentic art; original art pieces painted one at a time. Why? Because when you went into one of his many, many independently-owned outlet stores, you were asked to pay thousand of dollars for, basically, prints. They didn't call them prints, because the knew people would be hesitant to pay several thousand dollars for printed paper. Prints!
I once went in to one of his stores in Los Gatos, California. I asked one of the saleswomen if one of the paintings, selling for $3800 in the 1990s, was an original. She explained that these weren't, and used some euphemism for what was (in my world, it was a print). When I was shocked that they would be asking so much for a print, she became indignant, as if I didn't understand that these were much more than prints...though she couldn't explain why.
Sometimes they would put a wisp of paint here and there, not done by Kinkade, but people hired to do what he called "highlight," the painting. These people were "highlighters," and they advertised in the employment section in order to hire these highlighters. 60 MINUTES did an expose on this business. They discovered some who had paid these high prices for non-original paintings (prints) for literally dozens of his stuff, hoping that in the future, their value would sky-rocket.
I'm an artist. Am I just jealous of the millions of dollars that Kinkade made from selling sheets of printed paper for thousands of dollars each? Of course! Seems to me an easy way to receive a fortune for something your printer does. But to me, it's not art, it's calendar art. And I feel sorry for those who bought printed paper that they thought would turn into the kind of money Kinkade, himself was generating.
In the fifth season, on episode 22, Wolf seems to be slamming Kinkade, something I'm jealous of not being able to do myself. to such a wide audience. The episode revolves around a business not too dissimilar to the Kinkade enterprise. I'm glad he did that, however, it probably went over the heads of those who knew nothing about what Kinkade was doing, even though the artist in that episode had a last name that also began with the letter "K."
Kinkade fostered the evangelical movement: a movement with people who believe the nonsense passed-down by men wanting to control the population through the false hope of a glowing afterlife, and the belief that there's an invisible, dead carpenter, floating in the sky, ruling the universe. And the evangelicals loved Kinkade's stated beliefs (either genuine, or used to sell more art). And because the bucolic scenes he painted fit right into their longing for a prettier, glowing world. Are they're still loving him today, even though it appears that he died from a drug overdose and alcoholism? And one report I read said he also loved the strip clubs. It's all too easy to tell those with desperate lives, that there is a way into heaven, through them, the writings of those who never even knew the dead carpenter, and the invisible dead carpenter, himself. It's my belief that Kinkade used his appeal to those weak-minded sycophants to sell his printed paper. And that wouldn't be a very 'christian' thing to do, now, would it?
When Kinkade died, I thought, "Thank god, maybe now selling prints as if they were original art will be over." That may have just been wishful thinking. It seems that after his death, his prints, mugs, calendars, etc., sold better than ever. hyped by his brother at venues like QVC; with beautiful words about Thomas, his beliefs, and the wonder of it all..except for the parts about the drugs and the alcohol. Would you mind reaching over that seat and passing me that vomit bag?