Life in the land of plenty.
Large breasted Mom models a lampshade hat,
perfect for lounging poolside. The TV plays.
A canned ham waits on the coffee table.
The cover of a romance comic is framed on the wall.
Suddenly Dad enters after his swim at Muscle Beach.
Refreshed, he is now ready to pump iron using
his Tootsie Pop.
Just another day in Paradise.
Stories.
Mass produced.
Make good money.
We teach you to draw.
Lichtenstein spent years painting
his own versions of comic book panels.
Why would a talented artist invest himself
in pursuit of the mundane?
It isn't kitsch to him.
It is an obsession.
Something too rich to be left undiscovered
lies beneath the blandly overdone.
Why paint a flag?
Because it is not a flag. It's a painting.
Stripes become bands of textured color.
The image is red, white and blue.
Hidden amidst the obvious, though,
the artist's expression mingles in the
application of paint. Obscure.
How does it look above the sofa?
Celebrity.
American Geisha.
Icon.
An inside joke.
What does this have to do with Marilyn?
Museum-grade Camp.
Something Three Stooges
by William Shakespeare.
Striking image.
Bold sweeps of the painter's brush
replaces the plodding pace of
the meticulous monk.
The painting is Easter Morning.
Resurrection.
Another title might be
Woman with Dentured Smile.
Film Noire.
No heroics.
Just nights wandering derelict paths of town,
frequenting theaters that smell of bleach.
Guys keeping to themselves.
It helps that they're made of plaster.
Any imagery here was happenstance.
It was the sensual nature of paint that ruled...
dripping from the end of a stick.
Pollock did it. Now it was done.
What more could you do with drizzling paint?
It had all the functionality of a unicycle.
Pollock moved on.
Here's an upbeat mural for a spaceport.
Leger added boogie-woogie colors to cubism.
Dreary analytics became suddenly upbeat.
A happy notion amidst the gloom.
A moment too late. How annoying.
Now it's memorialized in oils.
It has pleasant desert colors with
something missing for subject matter.
The painting would dominate most any room
where it was hung.
Puzzled.
No clue as to what this is all about.
Haven't the time to find out, either.
* * * * *
OVER EASY
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