Sad Clown

This sad clown painting is clearly depicting a sad clown/bodybuilder who is sad that the circus announced random drug testing for steroids. Check out those shoulders! The "sad clown" is as tired a theme as there is, and comedians are always asked questions based on the assumption that they must be insane and filled with stifled anguish to want to get onstage and make people laugh. After all, to do that you must be crazy and sad, right?

I'm going to start a series of paintings featuring happy accountants. 

Third Day!

I met the members of the band "Third Day" a while ago, and they're great guys who've always given us a warm welcome to their fabulous shows. Last night we went to see them in a giant amphitheater, along with Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, and the incredible Robert Randolph and his Family Band. It was an amazing concert, and we had a great time, singing and dancing and adjusting our protective earplugs, since we were in the tenth row and every beat of the drum actually felt like a CPR heart massage.

Thanks to Dave, Nathan, Mac, and all the really fabulous guys from Third Day for  wonderful night, and if you haven't heard of him, go find Robert Randolph and His Family Band on itunes. Whoop-dee-do that's good stuff.

Song of the Lark

This painting, "The Song of the Lark" is so beautiful that the great novelist Willa Cather wrote a book inspired by this farm girl singing a song at sunset. It hangs in a little corner of the museum, dwarfed by giant paintings of mythic figures and rich snobs, quietly supreme in its peaceful subtlety. Of course, if this farm girl lived today, her friends would convince her to wear a glittery halter top and audition for 'American Idol." 

Maybe it's better to stand in a field and sing a song to yourself as a bird flies overhead at sunset. 

Paintings matter

More from the Art Institute of Chicago. In the middle of so many old portraits of "Commander Josiah Smithensmythe and his dog," was a gorgeous painting called "The Captive Slave." Painted in 1827, the colors remain vibrant, and the subject remains anguished. Only paintings can do that bit of breathtaking magic - take us back for a moment to 1827 and into the mind of the man who sat to have this painting made. There were far more people gazing thoughtfully into this man's haunted face than any other expensive portrait of another snob with his children and gloves.

Love from Wilson World,

Tom