Keith Haring
Meeting my Heroes is an occasional essay series from Matt Carmichael.
Sometimes people I met weren’t my hero when I met them. In Keith Haring’s case, part of the reason he was a hero is how I wound up meeting him.
I was in middle school. And for those who don’t know, I went to Cranbrook, which Eminem pointed out in 8-mile is “a private school.” I’m going to skip trying to explain all the nuance around that and my going there. But the important part to this story is that the school was also home to a graduate art school and museum on a campus designed largely by Saarinen. Yeah. It had an outsized influence on the art world and therefore attracted and hosted an outsized scale of artists (I met Yoko Ono there once, too, as she was doing an installation.)
Keith Haring was invited to paint a mural. The museum gave him a room and two days. Haring came and painted. And painted. Frenetic colors and black line art. When he got to the end of a color, he nailed the brushes to the wall.
The thing was, the mural would be painted over a month later. Like, that was the plan.
But while he was painting, I got to go watch.
I didn’t know much about him going in. But was immediately drawn to his art. The poster from this exhibit hung in my bedroom along with one from his Pop Shop. I wore a Haring sweatshirt apparently too often in high school. I read books, and attended all kinds of his gallery and museum shows, including taking my kids back to Cranbrook when they celebrated the 30th anniversary of his painting with a special show.
The kid in this picture isn’t me (I didn’t have a cool Tiger jacket) but it might as well have been. My art class was one of a rotation of kids who were able to be there while he worked. We watched him paint. And just wandered around taking it all in. And then he painted on us. And for us. Signing and drawing on sweatshirts, or shoes or whatever people handed him. I didn’t have anything, sadly. But he gave us pins, too. So I have a radiant baby he handed me. He even designed the cover of the yearbook for the high school that year.
“Meeting my Heroes” will have some recurring themes. One of them is artists giving back, or somehow connecting with their communities – of place, of fans.
It’s not nearly the same, but it’s one of the reasons I liked doing career day at my kid’s school. I have had an amazing job and career that has let me be and encouraged curiosity. I’ve gotten to meet my heroes. I like telling these stories, clearly. But I also like the idea that heroes should be people you want to meet, and that many are people you can meet.
I’ll never forget watching him paint. I’ll also never really forgive myself for not going back that night to go hear him speak for free. One shouldn’t pass up chances like that.
Haring believed that art is for everyone. He created as much as he could in his all-too-short life. He did it because it’s what he loved doing. Watching him paint you could see him embracing the joy of spontaneity.
Neil Gaiman, whom I have yet to meet, says people should “make good art.” Mrs. Shaw, the art teacher who took us to see Haring, would attest that’s not really my strong suit. But a lifetime of art education has taught me that it’s also important appreciate good art and be inspired by it in whatever it is you choose to do.
Side note: It was a transitional piece for Haring, a darker view of the world than previous works. Of the piece, Haring wrote:
“A lot of the things that I went through were temporary things. I knew when I was asked to do the piece here (at Cranbrook) that that was the situation. If I didn’t want to do it, I would have said no at that point. After I did it, my first reaction when I see it is that it’s one of the best drawings that I’ve ever done. To date. When I was finished I already missed it. I’m going to leave tomorrow and not see it again, ever. I did as much as I could to photograph it because photographs save it forever… It’s really a beautiful room as far as human scale… They didn’t want a Keith Haring wing in the museum, they want an ongoing exhibition space. So in a way its like a sacrificial thing, but it also adds to the whole energy of doing the piece.”
