Painters

The Golden State

May 14, 2023

I hope this isn’t merely a dream I’m touring California and seeing fog soothe rocks by an ocean shore, lush trees shade a lake, a river glisten under clouds and sky, serene cows calm a meadow, an electric-orange sunset light exotic desert plants in the foreground, mountains overwhelm powerlines and trash in a pond, spring…

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Feud at LACMA

May 6, 2023

“Ladies, stop it,” I shout. “Shut up,” says the one to the left in a sleek black and gray striped dress baring arms, shoulders, and back. “You’re young and beautiful,” I say.  “Why are you doing this?” “You’re a fool to ask,” says the lady on the right attired in a black and gray polka-dotted…

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Disposable Bodies

May 4, 2023

Where are my sisters and comrades?  Where is the beautiful lady without head or legs below her thighs who instead offers a torso nude and smooth red curving into a svelte waist clinched by a lovely but lethal belt of black?  Where is her aesthetic soulmate naked and sensually blue save for elegant feathers and…

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Net Galley Reviews “Paint it Blue”

February 27, 2021

I’m honored that my book Paint it Blue just received the following insightful review by Net Galley member Susan D. Net Galley is one of the world’s most prominent online reviewers of books. “This is the first time that I have read a book by George Thomas Clark and it is like nothing I have…

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Painting in Color

June 7, 2020

Joe started drawing when he was very young. He drew horses, cartoons, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, airplanes, things he related to. He also liked drawing on walls and in coloring books. He wasn’t thinking of art as a career and never took classes or followed guidelines that someone has to declare him an artist…

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Drink the Giant Orange

February 17, 2019

I rush into the art museum and within minutes feel thirsty and hot and dizzy. I spot relief in a painting called Giant Orange topped by a tall orange and black sign and staffed by a pretty young lady inside a huge orange ball below. “Whaddya got to drink?” She looks at me as if…

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Iranian Art, David Hockney, and LACMA

June 26, 2018

Boyd, an art lover visiting California the first time in years, reads with increasing concern a two-sided handout titled: The Future at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and waves the news at a museum employee. “What’s this? Almost half the galleries are closed and soon the others’ll be shuttered, too.” She smiles and says,…

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Angry Bird

May 21, 2018

You don’t like bird eyes and I hate human eyes so am already enraged when I dive for milk that isn’t milk but plaster almost breaking my beak. Next time my beak’s striking the painter’s nose. Source: Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk by Ed Ruscha at The Broad. Click Here

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Four Forbidden Scenes

May 21, 2018

I know you think this is a wonderful upper middle class neighborhood but beware blossoming girl who wears shorts too short and bites apple while squirting black hose, serene dog whose barks close master’s ears, sharp-breasted lady blowing smoke her mother sprays to overcome, and ominous lady legs in high heels hovering over dapper hat…

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Andy Warhol at The Broad Museum

May 21, 2018

Elvis empties holster standing cowboy wide in boots gun pointed straight eyes aimed too far right. I doubt he ever shoots anything but TVs. Meet Thomas Francis G FBI most wanted for staring uneven and grim so you don’t really want him. He’d shoot anyone who tries to stop him from robbing Chase Manhattan bank…

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Mama Can Sing

April 25, 2018

Hey, I like that poster. It didn’t actually start that way, the original’s acrylic on canvas bordered by pieced cloth called Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow; Somebody Stole My Broken Heart. Faith Ringgold’s the artist. I don’t know anything about her but I like that hot lady she painted thick-haired, red-lipped, big-busted, arms-spread, round-hipped,…

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A Dawn

October 31, 2017

Packed in a dark city canyon we march with bayonet faces to the Great War. We march for our country and those who say we must fight. We march toward bullets, shells, and trenches. We march to A Dawn many never see. Notes: A Dawn was painted by C.R.W. Nevinson in 1914. A Dawn by…

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Sunday Morning in the Mines

September 28, 2017

Are you looking at my legs? I bet you are because they’re the best damn legs of anyone in Sunday Morning in the Mines. I know you wonder how my pants, held high by my chest, got those big holes. I don’t remember and don’t want to after another six days digging for gold in…

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Extra Credit

June 21, 2017

I don’t like elementary school much because in books letters jump around or reverse themselves, and my friends read faster and get better grades and that’s okay, but I don’t want to flunk so I go to teachers and say, “Can I do extra credit projects?” “Like what?” “I’ll turn in some drawings and find…

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Kerry James Marshall Paints Big

June 19, 2017

Skin Portrait of the Artist & a Vacuum, 1981 my black ass smiles a missing tooth over a vacuum i never use Self-Portrait of the Artist as a Super Model, 1994 photographers ignore my face until i bury it in dirty blond hair When Frustration Threatens Desire, 1990 black cat black snake black glove black…

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Walter Challenges Margaret Keane

April 10, 2017

All right. You’ve read them. You should have. There are plenty of interviews when Margaret Keane admits she wouldn’t have had a career in art unless I’d virtually swept her off the streets and romanced and married her while teaching her to paint and permitting her to accompany me to exhibitions and benefit from the…

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Picasso and Rivera Talk

March 30, 2017

Really, this is quite unusual, self-portraits talking to each other from a wall on either side of a gallery door. The man on the left, a short muscular brute standing bare-chested, says, “Get out of that frame.” “Okay, as long as you do, too.” Pablo Picasso, cocky at age twenty-five in 1906, steps naked, it…

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Pursuing Frank Romero

March 27, 2017

On a recent Saturday afternoon, enjoying paintings at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, I hear a security guard say, “Sir, you didn’t pay,” and turn to see him walk fast toward a man in a suit who draws his wallet and says, “Detective Jones, LAPD.” “How can we help you, sir?”…

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Images of War

September 14, 2016

Young Ed Reep enters Bologna and photographs a brick wall marred by bullets under partisan blood, and shattered buildings lining the path of U.S. troops, and tanks recently hot now at rest, and a fascist’s hands touching the sky, and three citizens applauding from a balcony, and smiling young women as they rush to extend…

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Woman on Checkerboard

August 21, 2016

After emboldening myself I approach “Woman and Checkerboard” and say, “Ma’am, you appear rather morose this morning.” “Is that a surprise? While molten blue eyes pour out my sockets I’m sitting at a table threatened by a gloomy wall and ominous sky and sense Richard Diebenkorn’s going to remove me and other people from his…

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