Oil on Canvas

20' X 24"

This is the cover painting I did for Roger Thompson's book "Tall Tales of an Angelic Thief." It's available for purchase along with posters and prints here. Read on for my thoughts on it. While painting this I came to the realization that almost everyone who has been significant to me in my life has been bi-polar or had some other mental illness. My mother, sister, favorite aunt, my beloved Ann who I lived with for 30 years. Musician Skip Spence (Jefferson Airplane & Moby Grape) who taught me everything that makes life worth living, especially as it relates to art, creativity, and the integrity that goes with it, along with Vincent van Gogh who taught me how to use color for effect through his very detailed letters, which also contained just as detailed commentary about his illness, personality, and life in general and particular. I think I have a pretty good understanding of it. I've been looking a lot at Rubens, especially for the "angels". He uses figures like this for compositional and dramatic effect. The "look and feel" came from Eugene Delacroix' etching of Faust, Margaret, and Mephistopheles. The female figure started from Margaret, I turned her differently, used roughly the same clothing in both the figures, then, as I told you, used my figure of the Wyatt Earp character from the Gunfight at the OK Corral re-creation, dressing him as Faust from the etching. I looked a lot at Vincent for the lighting effects, especially The Night Cafe and The Cafe Terrace at Night. The facial characteristics of the green angel, come from my memory of Frans Hals figures, especially the wicked grin of Malle Baba, the Witch of Haarlem. As I said before and repeat here, I used the witch both for the comic effect, and the fact that bi-polar women were regarded as witches and burned at the stake in the middle ages, making it appropriate. It also adds another dimension of depth to the background. That was added today as the last figure. I just like the Cupid, who we think, makes everything turn out OK in the end, and probably made my life work out through Ann. Oh, and I've been reading Schopenhauer comments in my Journal that I'm scanning so that influence is also very strong here. As Delacroix said, "It's the stimulation of the mind that makes the brush move every which way," and that's what's been stimulating my mind for the past week or so, and this is what comes out of it. I don't think I have ever painted a picture that has been more fun! All of the extremely conscious and overt references and tributes to my Gods of painting and ART who saved me through my work, while still being totally my own.