muley

I wondered about a velvet Elvis painting which hangs in a New Jersey restaurant is one done by an art instructor named Larry here in Memphis who has done one for Graceland’s Heartbreak Hotel? Larry was my painting teacher in college and a pretty angry man usually. I couldn’t stand the guy!

He would yell at some of the students and treat them like dirt. “You did this curve in your painting and it’s horrible. I hate that--do you know why?” “No sir.” “Figure it out and you’ll know why you need to get rid of the curve!”

One guy painted a brothel scene, but to me it looked more like the drippings off a good hamburger that is fully loaded--you know, all the pickle juice and tomato juice and burger juice drips down and onto the paper wrapping and makes an odd mix of colors--so I called it “Hamburger” instead of “Brothel.” The guy was a good friend of mine and his name is Mike and he gave me that painting, haha! He said I was the only one who ever appreciated it, albeit for the wrong reason. When it has been on display at my residences it’s been hung upside down for better effect. Anyway, Larry called his painting, “Artistic masturbation, son.”

He never went off on me, but he did say, “This isn’t bad, but you have a style that is child-like and it isn’t something you can learn or copy--you either can do it or you can’t--and you do it, so keep doing it.” That was it.

I tried to respect him, and then he came in and said, “Class, come with me, I’m going to show you my portfolio.” I thought he had to be showing us some great stuff the way he always ripped us to shreds!

So, we go to an auditorium where he has slides all set up ready to go. He does a discussion for us and goes into showing us great paintings of architecture, his velvet Elvis, his landscapes and still lifes and they were WONDERFUL! Then, a black screen popped up:

“This is the turning point in my life. I discovered I hated 2 things: Pink and People. They disgust me, and so this is what I began painting!”

He clicked to the next slide and had such grotesque figures of people with penises for eyes and noses, bursting out of their ears and mouths, walking around on them like legs, or bodies that were yucky looking with arms and legs and fingers and toes all looking the same…the man was all kinds of messed up in his head and I thought, “He said MIKE painted artistic masturbation??”

So, I quit caring about painting class after seeing that and just began painting stupid stuff: a red crocodile with a duck on its nose, a circle, and I realized I had a TON of blue on my pallet in different shades so I smeared it all over my canvas. I remembe I had a little wave in one top corner and he walked by and said, "This isn't bad, but take the wave and do something different with it, I don't like it." I flipped the canvas and asked him as he passed by later, "Better?" He said, "Better."

I never changed the piece, just flipped it!

We had to do a critique one day, and I put up all my pieces leaving blue for last, and I stood there and said, “I like to do things that tell stories--the circle, not so much--but…” discussed whatever the pieces were and finally I got to blue and I said, “I looked on my pallet one day and realized all the great blue colors I had, and I love blue and wanted to share this with everyone, so I began scooping it up and just smashing it on the canvas and wanted it to look just like something that someone could reach right in and grab a handful of blue and just eat it! Chomp chomp chomp!” The last was a sound I made like Cookie Monster! HA HA!

Larry stood up and shouted, saying the actual word, “G.D. boy! That’s the best daff'd painting I’ve seen in years! You’re passionate about it and I want to grab blue and eat it, too!”

I got an A.

When you are creating something, leadership and education is such an important part of what you're doing. Folks can give you good ideas, but be aware of the ideas and suggestions you get. You'll know the ones who are interested in what you're doing and paying attention to it with a desire to help, and others you'll recognize as needing that paycheck and don't really care anyway.

Regardless: Go out and create and express yourself artistically.