More Subway Art

-


Tom Otterness at the A, C, E, and L Station. at 14th Street and 8th Avenue


Tom Otterness (born 1952) is an American sculptor best known as one of America's most prolific public artists. His sculptures of chubby little creature allude to sex, class, money, and race.


 

   
  
Tom Otterness studied at the Art Students League in 1970, the same time I was there but I don't think our paths crossed.  He would have been 18 and I was 22; a big gap at that age.  Besides, he would have worked in the sculpture studio in the basement, and I in the graphics class on the third floor.
I've found a terrible story in his past that makes me revisit the old saw, 
"Don't get too close to an artist, he might smell bad."  If you look behind the curtain, or more closely at your heroes, you might not like what you see.  It's a twist on "Love the sinner, hate the sin."  
It becomes, "Love the art, beware of the artist."
I'm sorry to know about his misdeeds and I really love his work.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Does Inspiration Come?

-
Image
“One’s work is nothing but the long journey through life to recover, through the detours of art, the one or two great and simple images that first gained access to one’s heart.”                                                                                                       Robert Beverly Hale quoting Albert Camus The first time I heard this quote, at an Art Student's League dinner, I thought, "Well, that doesn't apply to me." I was deep into my bird period; drawing their feather patterns was great practice for my pen technique but I wasn't a bird watcher or anything.  Then I went home for a visit and my mother said, "Let's have a slideshow. She pulled out all the old family ...
Read more

I'm Keeping' on the Sunny Side

-
Image
 Good Morning!  I was thinking about posting a reprise of an old post about PINK, to keep the Barbie vibe going; I understand that in London they've painted all the red telephone booths pink and the great Ferris wheel has pink lights in honor of Her Plasticness but I had a better idea--you could say the Sun came up! You know I have a granddaughter named Sunny, right? I wanted to do a drawing for her and what else could I start with? The Sun and sunflowers--not very original but she's two and a half--to her everything's new and it's her name! Filling in the sky I see that it looks like the way I draw water, but that's OK.  I added Batchelor Buttons beneath the Sunflowers and I like the way the blue makes the yellow pop.  I'm not sure how to handle the transition from flowers to sky so I won't think about it.  Remember Mickey Rivers; "I don't worry about what I can control because if I can control it why worry?" And I'm in control! I used som...
Read more

Summer Reading

-
Image
What are you Reading?  I love it when someone asks me that. The Times Book Review has a column that asks what's on your night table?  Does everybody read in bed?  If I have a good book I can't wait to say good-night. But as reading and writing has made me focus on language an abyss of bad grammar has opened before   me and I cry out in anguish. Will I ever become inured to hearing Ivy League graduates on NPR saying, "Him and Me are gonna..." and "Please reach out to John or I?" Terry Gross never corrects anyone's grammar and I respect  that,  it's not a good interviewing technique,  but where are the mothers and teachers?  How has it come to this? And another thing! The misplaced modifier!   In a biography of Willa Cather I read, "At the age of eight, school began to bore Willa."  Really? School was eight years old?  Miss Cather is rolling over in her grave.  And this, from Elle Decor; "As a young girl, her father affectionatel...
Read more