Sunday, October 25, 2009

No Art For Rush

Recently the National Football League determined that Rush Limbaugh would not advance to the next round of bids to be considered as the owner of the Saint Louis Rams. The League cited that Mr. Limbaugh while obviously wealthy enough to make the purchase would pose too great a distraction to the league's efforts to maintain its image.

Of course, Rush immediately tried to make this snub into an issue about his conservative stance and the overall liberal leanings of the league, it's owners and players. I thought about this and decided that even with all the NFL players
(and coaches) that have been arrested for DUI, drug and weapons charges, I have to agree with the league. Limbaugh is way more distracting and presents a much less desirable image to those that might someday want to be affiliated with football.

I continued this thought into the arena of art, because that is where I work and play. Should Rush Limbaugh be allowed to buy art, in particular my art? One must be mindful that there are a couple of preliminary questions to hurdle in order to even get that main query. The first ,naturally, is would Limbaugh know art if he saw it? This is of course a rhetorical question, because we all know that Rush has been exposed to the wonder and beauty of all the best the world has to offer, and is barely able to manage an extremely narrow view of life, other people or God's majestic creation. So, no to the first question. Secondly, can he grasp abstract concepts and be inspired and motivated by them? Well seeing that he has navigated the competitive world of Talk Radio and survived, this should be a given. He's learned how to manipulate plain truths into twisted macabre shadows of reality. So, even though he stumbled on it by accident, yes to the second. The third is about me. Given the state of the economy which Rush and other conservatives fostered, would I refuse to sell if he made an offer? The paintings are my creations, children of my soul if not my body. If I were to allow someone to adopt one of my children, I would want that child to go into a loving nurturing environment where they would be celebrated and accepted for who they are. I would not send any child, much less one of my own into a place where they would be ridiculed or mistreated. So, yes to the third, I could refuse sale regardless of my financial situation. Final answer. No art for Rush. Not from me, anyway. He can apply at the starving artist sale (see my blog archive).

Now there are a few other celebrity types that I applied this same question to, and here are the results.

No art for former vice president Dick Cheney. My concerns ranged from him shooting the artwork with his wayward shotgun to the possibility that if he bought one of my oil paintings he would find a way to start a war to artificially raise the price of oil and oil paintings.

I would be willing to sell art to former president George W. Bush, but only if he agreed to pay eight times the market value to compensate for eight years of tanking our economy and giving all Americans (and Texans) a bad name.

My ability to create artwork is a gift from Almighty God, creator of the universe. Ricky Gervais or Richard Dawkins do not believe in God; any god except for themselves. So no art for either of them. I don't feel like I am being too cruel on this point, because they probably wouldn't be able to see the artwork even if it was right in front of them.

The list could go on and on in this vein, but I will wrap it up with one last example. Louisiana justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell, refuses to marry biracial couples on the grounds that "neither black or white society accepts children born in such marriages." Well, no art for you, Keith. Instead, I will be holding the artwork you might have purchased for President Barack Obama, who not only appreciates contemporary art, but oddly enough is biracial himself and seemed to be accepted by both black and white society when he won his last election. Something we hope you, Keith, won't be able to accomplish.

If you would like to see if you qualify to purchase my art, you can apply through my email, ken@otoolestudio.com. Here's wishing you good fortune on your application.