I was in my early adolescence when I painted my first still life. I remember everything about the moment. Sitting at the kitchen table, smelling the steamy fried temptations, I painted a Herfy's burger, fries, and cola. I remember my ass being kicked by the burger's foil. I remember drinking the soda out of the line of sight. The painting recently showed up in a box of letters and yearbooks. The paper is brittle, practically decomposing. I had the painting sitting on a pile labeled "toss or flat-file." It seemed so uniquely relevant to my past that I couldn't decide what to do with it. Its only redeeming quality seemed to be its nostalgia. I'm sure I would have tossed it if I hadn't impulsively bought
Charles Burns' Black Hole. Here are two panels from early on in the graphic novel:
"As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying,
Black Hole transends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it - back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird." I recommend this book to my demographic. My painting is now in the flat file.
I was in my early adolescence when I painted my first still life. I remember everything about the moment. Sitting at the kitchen table, smelling the steamy fried temptations, I painted a Herfy's burger, fries, and cola. I remember my ass being kicked by the burger's foil. I remember drinking the soda out of the line of sight. The painting recently showed up in a box of letters and yearbooks. The paper is brittle, practically decomposing. I had the painting sitting on a pile labeled "toss or flat-file." It seemed so uniquely relevant to my past that I couldn't decide what to do with it. Its only redeeming quality seemed to be its nostalgia. I'm sure I would have tossed it if I hadn't impulsively bought Charles Burns' Black Hole. Here are two panels from early on in the graphic novel:
"As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it - back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird." I recommend this book to my demographic. My painting is now in the flat file.
2 comments:
"Herfy's" and "black hole" do seem to be synonyms. That, and the graphic coincidence justifies your hanging onto that primal painting for awhile yet. I'm sure it means nothing, tho', but what the heck.
Meanwhile, fast forward to other pasts: I quickly figured out that, while here in Manhattan for the summer, I'm just going to have to make multiple visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, each focused on only one or two sections of that huge place without so much as glancing into adjacent sections. KnowhatImean?
Gawd, in a quick Google look for you, I sure didn't expect to be facing Herfy's. Dude, I just ate...
-- D. Hines
(temporarily Off-Broadway)
David? What are you doing in the biggest of Apples? Either send me an e-mail or use this venue to plug your current shinanigans. Kinda weird, isn't it? We talked occasionally after the rare Seattle path crossings (7 years ago?), but to come to this blog during a retro-Herfy hit is serendipitous indeed. I gotta give it to Charles Burns for tapping into some mid-seventies Northwest creepiness/beauty. How are you spending your time?
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