| click image for magnified detail |
American Game1994 Oil on canvas 50.0" x 77.0" Private collection My pal Swami Swapmeet, Ph.D., (purveyor of high-class doodads) invited me over to his house in San Francisco for an afternoon of checking out his amazing collection of, well, high-class doodads, listening to tall tales of his travels, and taking pictures of anything I liked. I lugged lights and cameras, and I got two still lifes worth pursuing. One was American Game. I'm greatly attracted to rust (I inherited an entire rust collection from my late photographer pal, Jerry Wainwright - his widow was glad to see it go and Charles is still trying to figure out how to get rid of it) and both of the games in American Game really filled that bill. Add in "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggie" from Buster Brown, and I was in nostalgia heaven. The robot control at lower left seemed to connect to the Yoshitoshi transformer painting I'd just finished. If you look closely, the billboard in left field of The Great American Game says "Lon Bacon Dry Cleaners, Hillsboro, Texas", a salute to the business my parents owned. The gray mouse belongs to my son, Emil. |