My Rabbit Hole

I lead a monastic life, a theater unto myself, sequestered from the tumults and troubles of the world.

— Robert Burton

Crime, violence, vanity, ignorance, disease, poverty, corruption: I'm done with them. 

Done with the day's news stories and current events. 

Done with the real world—with the theater of the forlorn. Done with sorrows, follies, afflictions, and lies.

I can't take them any more.

I'm heading down my rabbit hole, where I can escape the world's heaviness and be a "theater unto myself."

If you care, you can find me there painting.

"A simple line painted with a brush can lead to freedom and happiness," the painter Joan Miro said.

He got that right.

How about you?

What's your rabbit hole? 

Above: Baron von Hoppin' by Jan Weir. Oil on linen. 6 x 8 inches. The Rabbit King by Joan Miro. Etching, aquatint and carborundum on paper. 38 x 28 inches.

Up

The Uncola.

— Advertising slogan

In 1919, St. Louis adman Charlie Grigg saw big money in soda pop.

So he quit advertising for sales and joined a beverage company.

An innovative guy, before long he invented two successful soft drinks for the company, "Whistle" and "Howdy."

But it was his third invention that made Grigg's name.

In 1929, Grigg—now heading his own beverage company—introduced "Bib," a name he would change seven years later to "7 Up."

The "up" in 7 Up came from lithium, a mood-enhancing substance used to treat depression in the early 20th century.

Grigg added tons of it to 7 Up, to distinguish it from other lemon and lime pops.

A well-known picker-upper, lithium was a popular ingredient in patent medicines at the time; and doctors would advise depression-sufferers who could afford it to vacation at spas near lithium-rich springs, where they could drink and bathe in the mind-altering waters.

Grigg’s formula was perfect.

His timing was also perfect: 7 Up appeared just two weeks before Black Tuesday, the event that triggered—no pun intended—the Great Depression.

Sales of 7 Up soared.

Consumers believed Grigg's claim that the pop buoyed flagging spirits (7 Up is a "savory, flavory drink with a real wallop," his ads said).

They also liked to use 7 Up as a hangover cure (it "takes the ouch out of grouch," the ads insisted).

Grigg's invention became the third best-selling pop in the world—until the federal government intervened.

In 1948, the feds banned lithium in all foods and beverages, determining it to be a cause of birth defects, kidney failure, and death.

Without lithium, 7 Up's sales tanked.

But in 1968, with the help of ad agency J. Walter Thompson, 7 Up staged a comeback.

JWT tapped into the counter culture, labelling 7 Up the "Uncola" and positioning it in ads as if it had been concocted by The Beatles.

The agency hired designer Milton Glaser—famous for his Bob Dylan poster—to create campaign graphics and rented thousands of billboards alongside America's busiest highways, where college kids would be sure to see them.

JWT also launched a TV campaign that featured a genial Black actor who explained why kola nuts were inferior to lemons and limes.

The ads worked so well, 7 Up's sales skyrocketed. 

The pop reclaimed its rank as the third largest-selling soft drink and at the same time became inextricably linked to America's "rebellious youth."

By the 1990s, however, those youth were in their 50s, and 7 Up became, in the words of one Wall Street analyst, "what old people drink."

Today, the brand has less than 1% market share.

Above: The Seven Ups by Robert Francis James. Oil on fiberboard. 8 x 10 inches.

Political World

We live in a political world.

— Bob Dylan

The notion behind this post came to me a week ago, but I felt no urgency to pursue the idea until yesterday, when POLITICO announced that the Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade.

My notion is simple: even though we can’t escape the latter, painting and politics don’t mix.

My proof of that statement is my difficulty selling Judging Amy, a still life I painted in October 2020.

It commands a lot of attention at art fairs, but no one has ever asked about its price (like all my small paintings, $140).

Despite it’s stopping power, I just cannot sell it.

Convincing arguments in favor of political painting most often claim that when a painter depicts a political truth—as Picasso did in Guernica—it’s truthier than the same political truth as told by, say, a journalist.

The late historian Howard Zinn made this argument.

“Artists lend a kind of spiritual element to reality which enhances the truth,” he told Resonance Magazine in 2003.

“There are huge numbers of people in the world whose lives are lives of sheer misery, sickness and violence. In order to change that you need to have artists who will be conscious, who will use their art in such a way that it helps to transform society. Art may not be a blunt instrument, but it will have a kind of poetic effect.”

But just as convincing are the arguments that disfavor political painting.

They most often point to the self-indulgent nature of it: political paintings display a vacuity that mirrors politics itself.

Art critic Peter Schjeldahl made that argument in 2006.

“My problem with political art is not that it’s bad art necessarily, but that it is terrible politics,” he told Guernica Magazine.

“What are we talking about with a political artist? We’re talking about a closeted person with minimum contact with reality—who has trouble tying his fucking shoes! And he’s supposed to be political? A bus driver has a better perspective on things. Artists are completely indulgent.”

As an example, Schjeldahl pointed to Velázquez, who painted many political paintings.

Velázquez only managed to avoid ugly self-indulgence because he was “the greatest painter who ever lived.”

In contrast, his contemporary Rembrandt, “the second greatest painter who ever lived,” painted captivating pictures aimed solidly at his middle-class patrons.

“He invented the bourgeois art market,” Schjeldahl said.

I must admit I have to side with Schjeldahl.

After the unsalable nature of Judging Amy, I need to remind myself: if I ever feel like climbing on my soapbox again, I’ll stop.

Maybe I’ll paint it, instead.

It worked for Warhol, after all.

Above: Judging Amy by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas board. 10 x 8 inches. Brillo Box by Andy Warhol. Oil on wood. 17 x 17 x 14 inches.

Guilty Pleasures

 

Hold onto your taste, even when you're embarrassed by it.

— Jerry Saltz

Connoisseurs and critics often look down on art that's driven by pop culture (the source of the "pop" in the term "pop art").

Not me. 

I guess I'm a child of the '60s, because I love pop paintings and subjects.

New York critic Jerry Saltz nails it when he says of pop subjects, "Never renounce them for the sake of others' pieties.

"Own your guilty pleasures."

My latest stab at depicting what I term a "nostalgic goodie" is Ding Dongs.

I could just have well titled the painting Ring Dings.

Ding Dong aficionados know that in 1967 their maker, Hostess, engaged in an all-out, take-no-prisoners brand war with Drake's Cakes, the maker of Ring Dings, by copying the latter's immensely successful product.

The bloody war, known to history as the "Ding Dong-Ring Ding Conflict," lasted for nearly 20 years. Hostess only won by buying its rival and discontinuing the Ring Ding.

That takes the cake, you might say.

If you're anywhere near Delaware in the next 10 days, be sure to drop into my solo show, Cold Comforts. It features 30 paintings of food.

And if you're not near Delaware, pop onto my website.

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

— William Faulkner

Above: Ding Dongs by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas. 20 x 16 inches.

Polymaths

You know you're old when you're asked, "Do you have hobbies?"

— Warren Beatty

Bob Lowry, a blogger I enjoy, recently asked whether the search for a "perfect passion" in retirement isn't a fool's errand.

"There is no doubt that a passion or hobby that is meaningful to you is one of the keys to a satisfying retirement," Lowry says, "but searching for those things that inspire and motivate you might be a waste of time."

You'd be better off, he says, trying your hand at a lot of "imperfect" pursuits.

"Don't allow yourself to stagnate just because you haven't stumbled onto the one thing that lights your fire," Lowry says. "Try all sorts of activities. If what you are doing doesn't grab you, drop it. 

"When you find that passion, the thing that pushes you out of bed each morning, you will know it. In the meantime, you have had fun, learned something new, got your blood pumping, or at the very least gotten off your butt."

Lowry's spot on: there's nothing wrong with polymathy—in fact, quite the opposite. Polymaths are often the ones who connect dots we would never, ever connect—or notice in the first place.

The late motivational speaker Barbara Sher called polymaths scanners, people "unlike those who seem to find and be satisfied with one area of interest." 

Unable to latch onto one or two imperfect passions, scanners are "genetically wired to be interested in many things," Sher believed.

That polymathy makes scanners disturbing to others. 

"Because your behavior is unsettling, you’ve been taught you’re doing something wrong and must try to change," Sher said. "But what you’ve assumed is a disability is actually an exceptional gift. You are the owner of a remarkable, multi-talented brain."

One of my favorite polymaths was Winston Churchill. We remember him as a politician, but throughout his life he devoted equal energies to writing (the greatest source of his income), painting, horse breeding, and bricklaying.

Yes, bricklaying.

As he found painting (and brandy), Churchill found bricklaying a remedy for the "worry and mental overstrain" (i.e., manic depression) that dogged him most of his life.

In pursuit of the hobby, Churchill built brick walls, walkways, fish ponds, patios, a swimming pool and a child's cottage, all on the grounds of his estate. 

He also became a member of the local mason's union—despite his vocal opposition to unionized workers' wage demands and the right to strike.

Churchill had little interest in the betterment of the working class.

Even a polymath has his limits.

Sunday Painters

If people call me a Sunday painter
I'm a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week.

— L. S. Lowry

Thanks to the critics, Winston Churchill and Bob Dylan share the label "Sunday painter."

A label neither deserves.

Lacking degrees from accredited art schools, both took up painting in their late 30s, when they were already celebrities. Both sought a new field that challenged them afresh, because celebrity had failed them. Both were determined to succeed.

If those are shortcomings, tell me where to sign up. 

No one who studies painting in earnest wants to be called a Sunday painter—a hobbyist, a dabbler, a dilettante, a wanna-be. 

Even if useful, in a world of ready critics and trolls the label can lacerate the very thickest of skins.

Fortunately, like Churchill and Dylan, the late-blooming painters I've encountered aren't put off by critics and labels. 

And, like Churchill and Dylan, the late-bloomers I've met have these things in common: they're self-confident, having already flourished in another career; they so love what they're doing, they can't be deterred; and they're vigilantly self-critical.

These late-bloomers also share what developmental psychologist Carol Dweck calls the "growth mindset," the belief that competence in any endeavor increases with effort and repetition.

There are Sunday painters, to be sure; unabashed optimists who are blind to their faults, deaf to advice, blissfully ignorant and content with gaucheness.

They're in it for fun, not to sweat over details.

And, more often than not, they'll move on once another "bright and shiny object" crosses the path.

The rest will keep trying and failing and trying and failing... until one day they don't.

Meet Me at the Fair

I invite you to grab your sweetheart, don your mask and come see my exhibit of original oil paintings for sale at the Center for the Creative Arts’ Annual Artisan Show, next Saturday, November 21, and Sunday, November 22.

At the event—a weekend marketplace for fine art and handmade crafts—you’ll meet over 20 artists of the Brandywine Valley. 

They’ll be offering original paintings, jewelry, ceramics, wearables, leather goods, decorations and more.

Original oil paintings make wonderful gifts for the holidays.

The show takes place Saturday and Sunday, November 21-22, 2020, 10 am-5 pm and 11 am-4 pm. Admission is $5 (kids 10 & under free). Proceeds go to help the Center. 

Buy your timed tickets in advance.

Strict CDC and State of Delaware guidelines for health and safety at events will be followed.

The Center is located at 1149 Yorklyn Road, Yorklyn, Delaware 19736.

Meet me at the fair!