A good story
Before I dive in, I just want to say the purpose of this email is to share with you about some paintings that are available for purchase in my shop. If you’re moved, please know, my website is set up for you to pay over time if you don’t have the funds to pay the full price today. If those options still don’t work for you, I’m willing to work with you for a smaller payment over time situation, just email me!
Onward…
When is the last time you cried while watching a movie? For me, it was my second watch of Wicked - after NEVER seeing the Broadway Show (though I did read the book in my teenage years). I was upstairs in our partially renovated movie theater attic space.
The room where the previous owners cut a hole in the aluminum siding for the ability to get things in and out of the space since the only other access is via a narrow spiral staircase.
The partial renovation has been on hold for way too long. I have the paint purchased and a vision, but not the time or energy to do anything other than wish I could get my shit together and finish the paint job. Install the new light fixture. Set up the speaker bar to actually play with my Apple TV. Ugh.
Vaimo and I put up a board and caulked the aluminum siding so as to try to prevent a hornet’s nest from taking up residence. Or to dissuade the teeming breeding ground of the pest of the fake ladybugs that really enjoyed how the plastic barrier on the interior of the room created what I can only imagine was a greenhouse effect of tropical-like conditions in a Minnesota winter.
The board looks better than that plastic sheeting did, tape deteriorating against the jagged edge of drywall where the saw came through the siding. But I digress.
I was seated on the gifted-hand-me-down pleather couch from Sam’s Club that Vaimo and I had met my Dad to pick up in Emporia years ago. The same couch that BFF and I (mostly him) dismantled and cajoled up the spiral staircase in three parts only to reassemble so that the residents of the ChicFinn could sit on something while projecting moving images onto a white painted wall (not pictured).
I suppose I should pat myself on the back for completing that step at least. The rest of the walls are the worst color of blue that I’ve ever seen.
I tend to appreciate all colors, but the blue of that wall somehow reminds me of a vintage blue that is somehow patriotic in its tone. I don’t really know how to articulate it, other than, when I see it I think of poorly represented bald eagles. Weird. I know.
This blue I swear, but now no longer have any evidence to support, is the same blue that was on the walls of the primary bedroom when Vaimo and I took ownership of the home in 2017. That blue on those walls was the first to go.
The color offended me. I was upset when Vaimo was not as disgusted by it as me. When I would wake up after a fitful sleep on our air mattress and the first color to meet my eye was this heinous bold, yet somehow also pastel, blue, I felt a hatred rise in my body that resulted in a physical sickness. This, is how much I could not stand that blue. It didn’t help that there was nasty blue carpet also in the room. I’m sure a blue carpet can be done well, but this was not that. This was like a blast from the 90’s country kitsch decor, and I was so not into it.
None of these details are necessary for you to understand that when I watched Cynthia Erivo sing “The Wizard and I” on the projected white wall in the ChicFinn Movie Theater to introduce Vaimo to Wicked, I bawled. I knew what was coming later and I am nothing if not empathetic to the bold truth teller who ultimately has to go on alone because those who claim to support her are not strong enough to go the distance with her.
The filmic version of Wicked is a gorgeous color story. Green and pink dominate, two colors that rarely offend me. I’m realizing the more I pontificate about this, that the reason the blue walls have been allowed to stay upstairs is because when we are in that space the lights are off! I don’t have to see the blue walls. In the dark, they look just fine.
Blue is probably the least used color in my studio. Unless I’m using it to mix up a purple or a green, I am not usually reaching for blue. I do think it’s difficult for me to find blues that I appreciate.
When I was painting my Interior Intimacy series in 2019 and 2020 I was using these large swaths of latex paint as the background for the scenes at the ChicFinn. I knew I had to pick a blue for the bathroom that is attached to our primary bedroom, but I knew it could not be a blue that disgusted me.
It would not be a blue that was true to life, like the blue of the walls of the bedroom that offended me so, nor the super high key pastel blue still currently in the weirdly shaped and outfitted primary bath Vaimo and I still navigate daily.
Funnily enough, Home Depot and the Behr paint company basically did my job for me. The blue I picked named “Aztec Sky” was a blue that I could live with. I also picked it purposefully because of the ridiculous name.
In fact, that name ended up inspiring a different painting I would make a year later, helping to make up a name of a fictional place in Kansas.
Anyways, whether crying at a movie, or crying at a painted wall, (or even better crying while gazing upon a painting), let me just say, the joy of taking a painting home from my collection is that you now know that every time I make a painting I am thinking deeply about color. Even (especially) the colors I don’t care for as much but know I need to engage.
What’s your color story?
Did you know today, March 14th is National Write your Story Day?
I didn’t until this morning, and while I have thoughts about the singular phrasing of “write your story” (as if there is just the one), I do fundamentally live by the credo that stories shape our lives. (Science backs this up too btw!)
Is this a story? Not really, more vibes than action, a string of thoughts brought together for the purpose of trying to convince you to live with one of my paintings that features the color Aztec Sky.
But, that’s the cool thing about this space, I can let you in, pull the curtain back a bit to see who’s pulling the strings around here. And, maybe even hopefully, if you’ve read this far, kept you captivated enough to at least give the idea of living with one of my paintings some thought.
And truly, when you take home a painting of mine, my stories (anecdotes) then become a part of your story. And, as you live with the painting it helps shape new stories for you.
Not in a place to take one of these home? I get it! Truly I do. In this economy? Gulp.
The next best way to support this living artist is to join my Art of KCF Ko-Ficitxs Club. For as little as $3 a month you can support my work in the studio, and help keep this kind of erratic storytelling heading your way. Maybe next time I’ll even tell you what the paintings are about!
Con cariño,
KCF