That’s beautiful, Earthling! I’m still laughing. 
Thank God I stumbled upon this thread. I’d been thinking I was the only one in the country who felt this way.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=851732665
Oh gag me. (read the corny quote by Kinkade)
According to Salon.com, Kinkade now has a novel as well as a housing community . On the plus side, from the housing article-
“Regardless, his company, Media Arts, is currently in serious financial straits, and has posted losses for four straight quarters.”
He may yet be painting sad black velvet clowns.
According to Salon.com, Kinkade now has a novel as well as a housing community . On the plus side, from the housing article-
“Regardless, his company, Media Arts, is currently in serious financial straits, and has posted losses for four straight quarters.”
He may yet be painting sad black velvet clowns.
Dadgummit- I got an error msg first time I posted, refreshed the thread, and my comments weren’t there so I reposted. Mods, please embezzle the appropriate number from my post count;j 
Oh my GOD I was glad to see this thread!
I am a local artist in Savannah, Ga, and I have a co-op gallery with 10 other artists in our City Market.
A TK Gallery opened last year in City Market much to the dismay of the local artist galleries surrounding it.
Thankfully, he has not really hurt us, but he does do a pretty brisk business selling his uninspired poster crap.
I agree with so many of you about him, but the thing that really gets me about him is the whole “unvoking the name of God” line of bullshit.
He does, indeed, appeal to people who don’t know jack about art. The same folks that attend those Home Interior parties and buy that plastic wicker mirror witht the two little plastic shelves to go next to it are the same ones in there licking that vomit up. Fortunately, he doesn’t do Savannah scenes, which seem to be what our tourists want.
I paint alot of figural pieces, like dancers, jesters, musicians, etc. As I was once showing off a ballerina I had worked particularly hard on, to some people my husband works with, a ladt came up and said, “My daughter just bought ME a Thimas Kinkade!”
Suck my ass, Lady! Damn!
its funny you should say that. I, too, compare Kinkade to McDonalds.
I find it really strange that most people that dislike Kinkaide for his commercialism have no issues with downing a big mac or two.
Supporting crap is supporting crap anyway you slice it.
I don’t care for his work. I think its awfully sweet and gooey.
But many people do like his stuff. This is evident by the ‘galleries’ in malls, and all.
The way I see it, more power to him.
Just FYI. In Swedish there is a childspeak word baja meaning **poo[(b].
Feh. I like the pretty pictures. No big either way, so I don’t really understand why people are so venomous. It’s not like he’s out right hurting people, he’s not doing something malicious and, if he truly believes that he’s an artist of high caliber, then he’s not lying to the public either.
The one thing I do have a problem with is the link about his galleries being closed. There is nothing joyful about people losing their jobs. Even if you hate the guy, I can think of nothing celebratory in the fact that more people are going to have to hit the job market because of declining sales.
So, in the opinions of many, he creates crap. Big deal. Too many other people to be pissed at right now, IMO, for bigger and better reasons.
My credentials: I was trained as a painter and printmaker in the art department of a great public university. It became apparent that, when talent is mediocre at best and the drive and ambition to flog a meager talent into commercial success is lacking, the path of fine art is a pathway to perpetual discontent. Friend Kincaid clearly lacks skill and imagination but he makes up for that with capitalist guts. That doesn’t make him a good painter but it does make him a commercial success. He becomes one more of a vast number of self starters who have made a fortune selling crap to the public. The public’s appetite for crap appears to be beyond satisfying.
Despite all sorts of posturing, art is decoration and a matter of personal taste. That taste can be refined and educated. Kincaid does not appeal to people of refined and educated artistic taste. Fortunately for him there are all sorts people out there with more money than taste. I suppose those people can put anything they want on their own walls.
There are all sorts of unrecognized local painters, printmakers, sculptors, jewelers and potters working out there who do surprisingly good stuff for their own amusement and livelihood. People who by their stuff will get something with much more merit that Kincaid’s drivel at a much lower price.
Don’t get me started on those worthless damn’d porcelain figurines.
TK = art for the WWF and NASCAR crowd.
My uncle-in-law (?) loves this shite. About two or three years ago, he got one for himself, and I had never heard of the Kinkade guy. Curious, I went to the gallery (we were on vacation with the extended family at the time…) and was swamped by this nonsense: the initials, the “glowing” crap, and, to my suprise, that you could get two or three of the EXACT SAME PAINTING! (which he did…one for his parents, and one for my in-laws…cavewoman and I were lucky…)
Some time later, I spotted one of his stores opening in a local mall. Now, Austin has a vibrant local art scene, which we partonize whenever we can. I suppose if the only place you ever shop is the mall, then this is the only art made with actual paint on canvas that you’ll come into contact with, and therefore mistake it as sophisticated…
What I dearly want, however, is for a talented artist, or even a disgrunteld former TK employee, to make a painting, in the Kinkaid style, of a mutilated baby head on a pike , in front of a cottage at the end of a dirt trail, with yellow lamplight and trees…That could go over the couch…
hahahahaha! i’d buy that before a real TK! i’ll admit TK is a guilty pleasure but a pleasure i cannot avoid due to the correlation between his “paintings” and that dream i had several years ago before i heard of him.
Now, with regards to the many other posters who claims that there are many local artists out there more worth picking up than tk…hahahahaha! thats pretty hilarious, too, almost as funny as the idea of a TK painting with a Boy with a Sack for a Body in it. Sincerely, I have almost never seen a piece of art on sale, that I would buy if given the money. a lot of it is good but not worth the several thousand bucks they want to have for it.
a lot of it is crap, but some of the “good” pictures i see in local galleries are worth about 1/10 of what they are selling for to me. At least thats a better ratio than that “mass-produced americana” furniture seller whos name i cannot remember, whose furniture isnt even worth 1/10th.
Ludovic,
If your city has a College, you may consider stopping by the art department. Often times they have shows featuring the work of students. Work that is often for sale. I have purchased several pieces this way.
Sure, and I dont like Romantic classical music. I prefer baroque and renaissance. Next thing you’ll tell me there’s college chamber orchestras if i look hard enough
Seriously, thanks for that, I may try it if I ever buy a house and have some walls I can mutilate at leisure.