OT/ Horrible Bay Area Development Project
elizabeth
The thought of a gated community based on his paintings and named
after his daughters with his fantasies of family life . . . and it's
called . .. THE VILLAGE . .. Who is Number 1?
Artist Thomas Kinkade's Paintings Come to Life as Upscale Development
By VERONIQUE de TURENNE, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
VALLEJO, Calif. -- The quiet lanes and gentle vistas of Thomas
Kinkade's paintings beguile the faithful. Reproduced on calendars and
coffee cups, in prints and on wallpaper, it's a gauzy, weightless
world in which time stands still.
Admirers react with awe. Critics call it awful. In the sunbaked hills
of a former ranch 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, families with
at least $400,000 to spend on Kinkade's vision will call it home.
The California painter has licensed his name and artistic inspiration
to Taylor Woodrow Homes, a London-based housing developer. With
Kinkade's paintings as a guide, Taylor Woodrow laid out a 101-house
gated community called the Village. Streets, houses, fixtures and
landscaping will epitomize Kinkade's nostalgic style. About 300 people
tour the Village's model homes each week. Seven homes have sold so
far. It is a slower pace than the developer hoped for, but in keeping
with the country's cautious mood since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
With models named for Kinkade's daughters--Chandler, Everett, Merritt
and Winsor--the houses range from 1,800 to 2,600 square feet and sit
on 4,000-square-foot lots. Touches such as decorative moldings and
built-in bookshelves spring from Kinkade's fantasies of family life.
Options such as a media room or wine bar bow to modern-day California.
And there are gates. Disguised as tollhouses, flanked by a fountain,
the Village is nonetheless guarded. Kinkade seems abashed at the
irony, but as master of an empire that earned about $450 million in
licensing fees over the last four years, he submits to the economic
need.
"Clearly, the gates are at odds with my vision," Kinkade said. "I
can't imagine that living behind gates would be something I would
enjoy. But they're a necessary sacrifice to the consumer instincts of
the average home buyer."
Kinkade lives in the country near Santa Cruz, where he gets
satisfaction from "my 50-foot commute" from his home to his artist's
studio. There, he finishes about 12 paintings each year.
"The studio is central to my life," Kinkade said. "The kids come over
to visit during the day, I have an easel set up for them. It's a
foundational part of how we live."
Kinkade didn't sit down at the drawing board with Taylor Woodrow's
architect, but he saw and approved designs along the way. He likes the
front lawns that don't have fences. The bookcases were his idea. One
of the model homes comes with an option for a small studio; another
offers a granny flat above the garage, complete with a tiny balcony.
"This goes back a long way, from the early '90s, when I saw people
were projecting themselves into these paintings," Kinkade said. "This
was the obvious conclusion, the real-life re-creation of one of the
paintings."
Kinkade's paintings beckoned Judy Deliramich, a 47-year-old resident
of Castro Valley. She and her husband, Mark, toured the model homes
this fall with an eye to the day she finishes her graduate degree at
Cal State Hayward and the couple's three teenage daughters leave for
college.
"Thomas Kinkade paintings are so peaceful, you feel like you want to
be inside one," Deliramich said. "I thought if he could make something
that looked like that, I would want to live there."
From the outside, the vision held. Two-story houses with steeply
pitched roofs, deep front porches and paned windows sprang straight
from Kinkade's lexicon. Driveways lined with pavers approximate the
cobblestones of Kinkade's country villages. Old-fashioned street
lamps, picket fences and meandering walkways completed the fantasy.
Indoors, however, things fell apart. The rooms felt cramped and the
spaces were small, Deliramich said. Landscaping also fell short of
Kinkade's extravagant greenery, with its banks of pink roses, purple
spikes of delphinium and emerald lawns that can exist only in England.
"There's not enough water in the state of California to make a Thomas
Kinkade garden," Deliramich said, laughing. "It wasn't right for me,
but I like what he's doing. I think he's got the right idea."
He's not the first. Architects have long used structures to suggest
utopia. For Frank Lloyd Wright, it was Usonia, a synthesis of
architecture and landscape that would banish urban ills. California
architects Greene and Greene used the Arts and Crafts movement as
their muse.
"What Kinkade is doing in creating this utopian vision is actually
part of a larger historical line than himself," said David Reid, a
Berkeley writer who edited "Sex, Death and God in L.A."
"This whole idea of high living in association with a certain kind of
house or light fixture is part of a great architectural tradition,"
Reid said. "What's interesting here is that instead of coming from an
architectural school or movement, it's coming from one painter's
imagination."
MRFeathers
>The thought of a gated community based on his paintings and named
>after his daughters with his fantasies of family life . . . and it's
>called . .. THE VILLAGE . .. Who is Number 1?
(snip the rest)
Oh, how nauseating. How truly gag-inducing.
Bleah.
Mary
Dixiedolls
The thought of a gated community based on his paintings and named
after his daughters with his fantasies of family life . . . and it's
called . .. THE VILLAGE . .. Who is Number 1? >>
I just saw this on "60 Minutes". This "artist" thinks he is superior to
Picasso. The thought of a Kincade village is too creepy!
Grace
Aynthem
Dixiedolls wrote in message <20011125203401...@mb-fc.aol.com>...
I am by no means an expert on art, but Kincade paintings remind me of
nothing so much as the stuff sold at the Starving Artist sales at the
Holiday Inn out by the airport. And they're generally worse than the
paintings the Holiday Inn hangs above the bed, too.
I missed the 60 Minutes report. Why on earth is he so popular, anyway?
Melody
Sunfell
and all. It was very small- 700 SF, unheated (except for a coal fireplace)
and critters liked to live in the thatching. The bathroom and kitchen were
obvious afterthoughts. The stone floors were icy in the winter, and it was
impossible to get large items of furniture up the twisted stairs. It was 112
years old, brand-new by British standards! It was interesting, but I
wouldn't want to do it again.
I'd rather live in a nicely designed cottage by someone like Stephen
Wilmoth, who has designed some lovely whimsical California cottages, and who
is an actual architect.
I prefer real structure to fantasy. And a little more room, too.
Sunfell, English cottage veteran...
Sunfell
"Aynthem" <ayn...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:3c01a7c5$0$37125$45be...@newscene.com...
:
: I missed the 60 Minutes report. Why on earth is he so popular, anyway?
I saw it- I think it is a Christian thing. They didn't dwell on it, but he
does do some preaching at his sales, and his work is signed with that Yoni
sign. (The ones that look like a fish.)
I think I have a new vision of hell- endless halls plastered with Kinkaids
and littered with Precious Moments figurines...shudder...
Sunfell, who likes Thomas Akawie much better.
CatWoman
Okay - I hadn't heard of him - at least not to recognize the
name - so I did a search, and saw a few of the paintings.
I don't think they're *horrible*. I certainly wouldn't have one
hanging in my house - but then I don't have that type of painting
here.
If I look at some of the individual houses with an eye to living
in them - I can see it - with the caveat that they look like they
are 'English Country Cottages' built a long, LONG time ago.
In fact - what they most reminded me of was 'fleshed out' illustrations
from books - Holmes, Alcott, Grim, etc.
What is really sad to me is that the people who are wanting to
live in these paintings don't realize the fundamental necessity
to be able to do this successfully - many *many* fewer people.
Those paintings look like crofter's cottages - where someone had
a small cottage in the middle of a field for sleeping when they
were not out in the fields - purely utilitarian - place to eat,
place to sleep, period.
Diana
Robert Myers
"Sunfell" <sun...@disinfo.net> wrote in message
news:%5iM7.61189$lV4.8...@e420r-atl1.usenetserver.com...
Are you kidding? Think of how much stuff could you fit in a house designed
by Escher.
Patrick M Geahan
> Are you kidding? Think of how much stuff could you fit in a house designed
> by Escher.
Yeah - but how would you ever FIND it?
--
-------Patrick M Geahan----...@home.com-------ICQ:3784715------
Quote of the Week: "Jesus Christ on a dance floor: "Help! I've risen but
I can't get down!"" - Delain
Robert Myers
"Patrick M Geahan" <pmge...@home.com> wrote in message
news:JMsM7.52740$RI2.28185672@news2...
> Robert Myers <rpmy...@nospamhotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Are you kidding? Think of how much stuff could you fit in a house
designed
> > by Escher.
>
> Yeah - but how would you ever FIND it?
When you look in the closet, just remember to look gup.
Silvermoon
> and all. It was very small- 700 SF, unheated (except for a coal fireplace)
> and critters liked to live in the thatching. The bathroom and kitchen were
> obvious afterthoughts. The stone floors were icy in the winter, and it was
> impossible to get large items of furniture up the twisted stairs. It was
112
> years old, brand-new by British standards! It was interesting, but I
> wouldn't want to do it again.
When I read the original post the first thing that came to mind was how it
will look Kinkad-esque on the outside and I shuddered to think what it will
look like on the inside, ie furniture and such. You know it will have all
the modern amenities and ease of movement. Kind of like the scenario where,
"yeah, we like the great outdoors and camping, but we have to bring our tv ,
vcr and other "comforts" from home". I am sure it will only be an English
style cottage visually on the outside and inside to a degree.
Kent
: If I look at some of the individual houses with an eye to living
: in them - I can see it - with the caveat that they look like they
: are 'English Country Cottages' built a long, LONG time ago.
: In fact - what they most reminded me of was 'fleshed out' illustrations
: from books - Holmes, Alcott, Grim, etc.
Or lifesize versions of the "Dickens Christmas Villages" collected by
Hallmark devotees.
I wonder if the men who buy these have muttonchops and wear top hats?
Kent
mrfea...@aol.ccom
I don't know about that--Kinkade was on 60 minutes last night, and evidently (I
never knew this, and sort of wish I didn't know now) you can get Thomas Kinkade
furniture, rugs, the whole schmear.
The best part was after they went to his factory and showed how he has these
assembly-line workers adding dabs of paint to prints of his paintings (to make
'em look like originals) and they sell something like 40,000 of the damn things
a week, AND they have houses and furniture and rugs and clocks and doG knows
what all with his shit on it--THEN Kinkade said that he didn't think that
Picasso was a bona-fide artist because he'd make paintings specifically to sell
and get money.
It was hilarious, it really was, except that the bastard was completely serious,
and he's hauling in money by the buttload. He even seems to have these group
meetings with his fans where he makes it clear that he thinks God drives his
"vision".
It's like a freaking cult, it is.
Mary
mrfea...@aol.ccom
If the guy on 60 minutes is any indication (they interviewed a couple who had
something like 140 Kinkade "paintings") it's not so much muttonchops and top
hats as it is beer bellies and combovers.
Mary
IleneB
<mrfea...@aol.ccom> wrote:
> If the guy on 60 minutes is any indication (they interviewed a couple who had
> something like 140 Kinkade "paintings") it's not so much muttonchops and top
> hats as it is beer bellies and combovers.
Heavens, yes. ALthough I must say, I think the interviewer was fairly
covertly sneering at these painfully middlebrow people, rather in a
subtle way, but it was nasty. Yes, I think the art is dreadful. But
still, the whole piece was quite mean-spirited. Haven't East Coast Big
City media people oohed and aahed over, let's see, blank white
paintings in a frame, and a big old twisted hunk of steel (which I
saw... and admit to not "getting" it.)
Ilene B
Gutterboy
>Heavens, yes. ALthough I must say, I think the interviewer was fairly
>covertly sneering at these painfully middlebrow people, rather in a
>subtle way, but it was nasty. Yes, I think the art is dreadful. But
>still, the whole piece was quite mean-spirited. Haven't East Coast Big
>City media people oohed and aahed over, let's see, blank white
>paintings in a frame, and a big old twisted hunk of steel (which I
>saw... and admit to not "getting" it.)
>
You're right. It's awfully hard to be smug toward Thomas Kincade when the art
establishment has decreed Jeff Koons and Mark Kostabi to be Important.
Gutterboy
---
"I drove home in tears just trying to think of ways I can change him into that
angle I now he can be. " -- Breederposter to the AOLBoards
mrfea...@aol.ccom
I'd agree with that--the interviewer could have left the Kinkade fans alone.
But Kinkade himself is fair game, IMO--the mere fact that he actually stated on
national TV that Picasso isn't Art but he himself is--I mean, come one. I'm
surprised he can get his head through doors.
That guy is in love with himself. His paintings are paint-by-numbers run amok,
and he's comparing himself, favorably, to Picasso.
There's MUCH of modern art that I don't get. But that doesn't absolve Kinkade
of his self-absorption and outright greed.
Mary
Ron Sullivan
mrfea...@aol.ccom wrote of:
>... a
> couple who had
> something like 140 Kinkade "paintings")
All right, folks. Please tell me I'm not the only one here
who sees that guy's name and thinks something like "OK, I
guess you need something to replace all those 'lytes you've
sweated off, after a good flogging."
Ron Sullivan
Refreshments Editor
Faultline
California's Environmental Magazine
http://www.faultline.org
--
the advertising industry attempts to find the lowest common
denominator and appeal to that. it churns out these
stereotypes based on tiny fingerholds of truth in the large
cliff-face of sheer irrelevance.
mroo philpott-smythe, ascf
Debbie the Overcatted
> In article <K3wM7.38217$xS6....@www.newsranger.com> ,
> mrfea...@aol.ccom wrote of:
>
> >... a
> > couple who had
> > something like 140 Kinkade "paintings")
>
> All right, folks. Please tell me I'm not the only one here
> who sees that guy's name and thinks something like "OK, I
> guess you need something to replace all those 'lytes you've
> sweated off, after a good flogging."
LOL! Well, not from now on.
--
---
Debbie the Overcatted d...@spamcop.net
"Poodles are space aliens who think they've disguised
themselves as dogs." - Paghat the Ratgirl
Washu
Hmm...
Anyone got a haiku rhyming "Kinkade" with "Kool Aid"?
Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^
Forward spam to: spamr...@ChooseYourMail.com
Jadite
>
>Anyone got a haiku rhyming "Kinkade" with "Kool Aid"?
Houses by Kinkade:
Conformity ready-made,
Like mixing Kool-Aid.
Veronique
[...]
> The best part was after they went to his factory and showed how he has these
> assembly-line workers adding dabs of paint to prints of his paintings (to make
> 'em look like originals) and they sell something like 40,000 of the damn things
> a week, AND they have houses and furniture and rugs and clocks and doG knows
> what all with his shit on it--THEN Kinkade said that he didn't think that
> Picasso was a bona-fide artist because he'd make paintings specifically to sell
> and get money.
>
> It was hilarious, it really was, except that the bastard was completely serious,
> and he's hauling in money by the buttload. He even seems to have these group
> meetings with his fans where he makes it clear that he thinks God drives his
> "vision".
>
> It's like a freaking cult, it is.
You're not the only one to draw the cult conclusion from his bizarre
religious posturings. Here's some choice bits frm an exposé from his
hometown weekly, Metro Santa Cruz, that ran in early September:
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/09.05.01/kinkade-0136.html
By Christina Waters
IN AN ART GALLERY in Carmel hangs a series of large oil
paintings made by a young painter from Placerville. Dating
from the early- to mid-1980s, they are confident, handsome
mountain panoramas in the grand tradition of Albert Bierstadt,
displaying painstaking craftsmanship and an unmistakable
artistic gift.
The walls nearby, by contrast, are filled with
paint-by-number-style landscapes depicting generic cottages,
garish sunsets and crashing surf. These cloying greeting-card
images, painted in the mid-'90s, are the work of the very same
artist.
What happened in the intervening 10 years?...
...MOPPING HIS BROW with one hand and briskly scrawling
his signature across the backs of canvases with the other,
Thomas Kinkade works the eye of his current promotional
storm like Martha Stewart on steroids.
"My work reflects a slower pace in the midst of a frenzied
world," he rhapsodized in late June at the San Francisco
Airport Marriott, a pit stop on his "Hometown" tour. "We do
eight cities in a weekend." The irony of this revelation, in light
of his claim to be an alternative to frenzy, appears to be lost on
the trademarked illustrator, whose wife and brood of blonde
daughters--identically dressed in Victorian frocks--accompany
him everywhere...
...Kinkade says he deplores the "cult of the artistic ego"--yet
more than 400 Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries are in
place worldwide (three in Santa Cruz county alone), splashing
his name and boyish grin on every possible marketable item.
High-tech disturbs Kinkade, who proudly disavows ownership
of a television. This personal creed has not prevented him from
working the airways each month pitching his inspirational
collectibles on QVC, the home-shopping network...
...In an upcoming visit with President Bush, whom he calls "W,"
Kinkade says he plans to suggest the formation of a "special
council for the fine arts." ...
...The faith that had lapsed during Kinkade's college days
returned. Kinkade, who holds forth on family values and God's
blessings with the poise of a natural preacher, started adding
the Christian fish symbol, as well as reference to John 3:16
beneath his signature. (It's easy to see why he didn't quote
John 2:16, which admonishes the faithful: "Make not my
Father's house an house of merchandise.") ...
..."In a culture of chaos, we need hope," he sermonizes. "On one
side there's Jackson Pollock, and way over on the other side
there's the Columbine shooting. And I know there's a
connection between them. I don't know how, but I know it's
there."
--
Veronique Chez Sheep
Love will get you like kitsch. Rhymes with itch. Life's a b...
IleneB
<veroniq...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ..."In a culture of chaos, we need hope," he sermonizes. "On one
> side there's Jackson Pollock, and way over on the other side
> there's the Columbine shooting. And I know there's a
> connection between them.
Splattering, perhaps?
It's no big deal to me if people want to spend their art money on stuff
I consider schlock (although I was dying to know where the lumpy couple
on the TV show got $150,000 for Kincade's stuff alone last year). But
if the artiste himself is going to drag in Jayzus talk, and put down
other real artists, then he's an arrogant putz.
His stuff on those walls looked like cotton candy painted with the
shiny stuff they put on Xmas cards.
Ilene B
mroo philpott-smythe
> In article <K3wM7.38217$xS6....@www.newsranger.com> ,
> mrfea...@aol.ccom wrote of:
> >... a
> > couple who had
> > something like 140 Kinkade "paintings")
> All right, folks. Please tell me I'm not the only one here
> who sees that guy's name and thinks something like "OK, I
> guess you need something to replace all those 'lytes you've
> sweated off, after a good flogging."
Only YOOO ...
well, maybe GB toooo.
sq
mroo philpott-smythe
The worst part is, it really *is* a paint-by-numbers scam. He does an
outline and some poor schlub fills in the grunt work and then he touches
it up, pays off the schlub, and sells it for mucho dinero.
schmuck.
Gutterboy
>The worst part is, it really *is* a paint-by-numbers scam. He does an
>outline and some poor schlub fills in the grunt work and then he touches
>it up, pays off the schlub, and sells it for mucho dinero.
>
That isn't new, of course; it's been going on for centuries. Many of the old
masters had apprentices whose work became the master's. And Andy Warhol was
perfectly happy to let assistants do the schlub work on his silkscreens. But it
was only in the late 20th century that Mark Kostabi made the poor-schlub model
an art form in itself when he bragged about his production line model and
openly denigrated his collectors.
What does it matter if it brings you pleasure? I dunno. But I think that
Kinkade collectors who drop the money for an "original" canvas would be
horrified if they knew, and feel it was dishonest. They're not just buying the
purty-purty picture of the English village with the ivy and the pink sky,
they're buying a piece of the magic man himself, and would feel cheated if they
knew it was painted primarily by some hourly schlub.
Gutterboy
---
"on october 12 i took my four children to chuckie cheese as for a reward on
there spelling test grade." -- from Planet Breedback
mrfea...@aol.ccom
>
>Wrote mroo:
>
>>The worst part is, it really *is* a paint-by-numbers scam. He does an
>>outline and some poor schlub fills in the grunt work and then he touches
>>it up, pays off the schlub, and sells it for mucho dinero.
>>
>
>That isn't new, of course; it's been going on for centuries. Many of the old
>masters had apprentices whose work became the master's. And Andy Warhol was
>perfectly happy to let assistants do the schlub work on his silkscreens. But it
>was only in the late 20th century that Mark Kostabi made the poor-schlub model
>an art form in itself when he bragged about his production line model and
>openly denigrated his collectors.
Well, you can't accuse Kinkade of that. HE thinks he's better than Picasso and
people should be lining up to buy his stuff.
>What does it matter if it brings you pleasure? I dunno. But I think that
>Kinkade collectors who drop the money for an "original" canvas would be
>horrified if they knew, and feel it was dishonest. They're not just buying the
>purty-purty picture of the English village with the ivy and the pink sky,
>they're buying a piece of the magic man himself, and would feel cheated if they
>knew it was painted primarily by some hourly schlub.
It's not even that, in Kinkade's case. On the 60 Minutes program, they showed
his factory and most of what he sells is PRINTED, and the hourly schlubs dab
little highlights of actual paint to make it appear to have been painted. The
closest Kinkade comes to most of these is watching the factory floor from his
office.
Even so, if that's what people want to spend their money on, let 'em do it. I
personally think it's schlock, but I'm aware that everyone else gets an opinion
too. What I object to is Kinkade's assertion that this is Great Art. It's more
like interior decoration, IMO.
Mary