I have seen a few references to this piece on the “Painter of Light” in the past couple of days:
Dark Portrait of a ‘Painter of Light’ – Los Angeles Times:
In an interview, Sheppard, who often accompanied Kinkade on the road, recounted a trip to Orange County in the late 1990s for the artist’s appearance on the “Hour of Power” television show at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. On the eve of the broadcast, Sheppard said, he and Kinkade returned to the Disneyland Hotel after a night of heavy drinking. As they walked to their rooms, according to Sheppard and another person who was there, Kinkade veered toward a nearby figure of a Disney character.
“Thom wanders over to Winnie the Pooh and decides to ‘mark his territory,’ ” Sheppard told The Times.
In a deposition, the artist alluded to his practice of urinating outdoors, saying he “grew up in the country” where it was common. When pressed about allegedly relieving himself in a hotel elevator in Las Vegas, Kinkade said it might have happened.
“There may have been some ritual territory marking going on, but I don’t recall it,” he said.
Um, if he has a phrase for it — like “ritual territory marking” — I think it’s not an accident or aberration: it’s deliberate. And check out the context: this is the night before an appearance at the Crystal Cathedral, and he is out boozing heavily?
Kinkade’s memory also was fuzzy when he was asked during the arbitration proceedings about a signing party in Indiana that went awry in August 2002.
Held at a South Bend hotel, the party began sedately enough as Kinkade met with a group of Signature gallery owners to sign stacks of prints. Some who were there say it was a goodwill gesture by the artist to smooth relations with dealers, who could sell the signed pieces at a premium.
After the larger group dispersed, Kinkade and others moved to a smaller room for a private signing with Michigan gallery owner Cote and some of his employees. Champagne was served, then hard liquor. By various accounts, most of the partyers overindulged, including Kinkade and Cote.
At one point, according to testimony and interviews with Cote and three others who were there, Kinkade polled the men in the room about their preferences in women’s anatomies.
“He was having a conversation with the men in the room about whether they like breasts or butts,” said Lori Kopec, Cote’s director of gallery operations, who also testified about the party. “There were only two women in the room, and I was very uncomfortable at that point.”
It was during that bawdy discussion, according to arbitration records, that Kinkade turned his attention to the other woman.
“He approached [her] and he palmed her breasts and he said, ‘These are great tits!’ ” Ernie Dodson, another Cote employee, told The Times, adding that he drank no alcohol that night. “I was just standing in the corner in amazement. It was like, holy cow!”
The woman whom Kinkade allegedly fondled confirmed to The Times that he touched her breasts without her consent. She spoke on condition of anonymity, saying she was embarrassed and concerned for her family’s privacy.
I think her concern for her family’s embarrassment is key to the way these people operate: they can act like pigs, completely antithetical to their public persona, and anyone who calls them on it will be victimized as if they were the one committing anti-social acts.
I never liked his pictures — not sure I would all them “art” unless I called wallpaper art — and I have no illusions about him as a holy man. The comparisons to Leonardo or Michelangelo are laughable . . . .
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