"Disarray"

I’ve chosen to paint this portrait on banana box liners because they’re so awful.  They are stained, crumpled, and gross.  They reflect the nastiness with which we serve the poor and are symbolic of the way we care for people in need.  

James Thatcher  Copyright  2018

This liner paper is the cheapest available.  They come out of the boxes so rumpled that I have to iron the paper to make it possible to use.

I choose to paint with primers instead of “artist colors” for similar reasons.  Gesso is not intended as a finished surface.  It is cheap, stark, and dry looking.  

Allowing the brown paper to show as an extra color follows the rationale of using rough materials used to depict a rough situation.

Filling in the painting according to plan, but then...

But the real moment of this project happened because of the brown paper.  The head's structure had become confusing. Where did the hair begin and forehead end?  

It was awkward so I decided to only use the four center panels of the face.  As I continued to work on this cropped center section I had to move a panel aside to keep paint from getting on it.  

BREAKTHROUGH!  It looked fascinating.  Then I added back several other panels crookedly which distorted the child’s face.  

Consider the awful reality of a young disrupted life and the people we’re creating.  Disintegrated, unstable, disorderly, chaotic…what was I thinking by lining up those panels so fastidiously in the first place? 

"Disarray", 2018, 84" x 60", Black & white gesso on banana box liners.
James Thatcher  Copyright  2018

Order is contrary to the form and content of this image.   This portrait became terribly expressive and more troubling by rearranging the pieces.   

Success came in a moment and the painting finished quickly.  Stay mindful.

http://jtnwdc.wixsite.com/jamesthatcherarts

Biography as Art Practice

In 1982, one of my professors at the Corcoran College of Art & Design, Washington, DC (yes, that Corcoran) said that you could sweep the studio floor and put it into the artwork I was making. 

 

"The Spirit of Myth", 2004, 88" x 66", Latex Enamel, dirt, kitty litter, & wood chips on canvas
James Thatcher  copyright  2018

It was 15 years before I actually did that, but the essence of the comment was about making artwork that used the stuff of life as a medium.  This concept has led me to embed tree branches, bark, and leaves, or hay in paint, and employ parts and processes from a 24-year career as a cabinet maker into decades of artwork.  

"Chiaroscuro", 2015-18, 48" x 72", Latex enamel, hay, bulrushes, kitty litter
on plywood panel.  James Thatcher  copyright  2018

Detail, "Chiaroscuro", 2018, latex enamel, hay, bulrushes, kitty litter on plywood panel.

Installation view, 2014-18, acrylic on canvas.

But the 2008 financial crisis forced a retirement from cabinet making and changed everything.  I joined the staff of a missions-based ministry that I’d been volunteering with in southern Appalachia.  We did mission day trips every week, where I experienced the necessity, the power, and the joy of serving “the least of these.”

Now, 10 years later, I have reconnected with that passion as a volunteer for the United Community Action Network (UCAN) food bank in Roseburg, Oregon.  This portfolio is based on that volunteer work, both emotionally and by “using the stuff of it” as a medium.

  

"Portrait Box", one of 4 sides, 2018, 20" x 16" x 10",
Black & white gesso, latex paint on banana box.
James Thatcher  copyright  2018

"Portrait Box Rotation", 2018, Black & white gesso, latex paint on banana box.

"Food Insecurity", 2018, 96" x 80", Black gesso & latex paint
on deconstructed banana boxes, stapled to loading pallets.
James Thatcher  copyright  2018

The food distribution system, from the Oregon Food Bank in Portland, to UCAN, to the food pantries and recipients in Douglas County, relies on banana boxes as carriers.  As such, banana boxes are the natural choice for a substrate, along with loading pallets, to depict issues of food insecurity.

Proposed Installation, 24 units, 20" x 16" x 10"
Black & white gesso, latex paint on banana boxes
James Thatcher  copyright  2018

This portfolio speaks of my personal history in exploring art materials, of hands-on ministry, of experience in food distribution, and passion for confronting food insecurity. 

"The Light Shines Through Our Imperfections", 2018, 40" x 48"
Black & white gesso,latex paint on deconstructed banana boxes,
stapled to loading pallet, with two florescent lights.
James Thatcher  copyright  2018

My biography is reflected directly in my art practice.

http://jtnwdc.wixsite.com/jamesthatcherarts

Andrew Warhola

Concerning Andy Warhol

           I never met Andy Warhol but I was removed from his presence once.

 

 

 

But that presence seems to inhabit plenty of art work these days…my own included.   Whether I am manufacturing cabinets or knocking out dozens of paintings, the foray into production work hearkens to that 60’s Factory aesthetic; and pays homage. 

I’m surprised to consider The Factory as a precursor to some classic Minimalist artists and their use of industrial practices.  Picture their artwork (as different as it could be both visually and in attitude) as being directly influenced by Warhol:  The cube sculptures of Sol LeWit, the boxes of Donald Judd…He brought multiple imagery to contemporary art, as well as mass production, although the cited Minimalists pursued different ends and means.  Curious….

Portraits of Campbell soup cans (or was that Still Life?) were the uncomfortable birth of something different; made more so by its proximity to the triumph of Abstract Expressionism.  In the immediate wake of the introspective Abstract Expressionists came one who depicted the plainly visible world in iconic fashion. 

Similar to The Ashcan School, with its own depictions of the everyday, Warhol also staked out the territory of everyday life (the boring) as subject matter; as well as the controversy of “urban realism”*.  Consider the early Warhol as an extension of this classic New York interpretation of art/life….

Fun stuff!  …And what about Mr. Brainwash!?

 

*  Weinberg, H. Barbara. "The Ashcan School". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ashc/hd_ashc.htm (April 2010)