Down Payment Now, Apocolypse Later

“There’s Someone living in all those cottages – the Silent Partner in Thomas Kincade’s business empire, and a cheap source of inexaustable light to boot. Together, they cut an irresistable deal for the discriminating art consumer: down payment now, apocolypse later.”
(Larry Cosentino, “The lights are on, but nobody’s home,” Lansing City Pulse, June 12, 2002)

For a long time now, I have loathed Thomas Kinkade. I never understood why he inspired such devotion in his fans. I’d met someone once who worked at one of his gallery stores, and she told me that there was a woman there that took her hand and told her that she thought that Kincade was a blessing from God. Honestly.
I usually try to cut people some slack for their artistic tastes. I know stuff I like some other folks don’t, and vice versa. A good chunk of art is audience reception. When I like a piece of art, I usually like it right away – I just get it. When I don’t, it’s usually because I either don’t think that the artist was able to get his/her “message” across, or because I think the particular piece of art is a cynical ploy (I feel this way about Jeff Koons, except for his shiny 60’s vacuum). With Kincade, it was more than that – there was an almost predatory feeling in his work. He knew who his market was, and he pandered to their every whim, exploiting their beliefs and their lack of connection to nature so that he could unload some chintzy canvas. He didn’t even paint a lot of his works, but had assistants who did the touch ups.
On reading this story on Tuesday, all my suspicions about Mr. Painter of Dreck were bourne out, plus more. Allegedly, his company is being investigated by the FBI for bamboozling his Signature Gallery owners out of their money. According to some of the former owners, Kincade and his associates would use the “God hook” in order to get people to sign on to their big scheme. Not only is he a hack artist, he might also be guilty of trading on his religion to make a buck.