A Day With Don Knotts

An assignment like this comes along once-in-a-long-while for a small-town photographer.

    I was the runner-up choice when another local graphic designer/photographer couldn’t make time for one more project. A local copywriter then came to me for graphic design and conceptual assistance with some brochures for his account. 

    “Why don’t we suggest Don Knotts as a nervous dentist/doctor with a fear of computers.” he asked. This idea was included with other sketches including a Tooth Fairy.

This 20" x 16" oil painting of Don Knotts by 
Larry Kassell is derived from one of the many photos 
taken on a commercial assignment in 1986.

    This was in May of 1986 – more than 25 years ago – when computers were a whole new learning curve to medical professionals who had more important details to tend to. The message of the account’s campaign was to not fear, but embrace technology, “ ... and we’ll make it simple for you.”

    The copywriter and I flew to Los Angeles the night before the shoot. The session took place the following morning in a dentist’s office which was closed for the day. Mr. Knotts arrived at 8:00 a.m. escorted by two employees of the sponsoring account. Photography began as scripted , and included props we had brought. I was photographing with Kodak Plus-X panchromatic film in a Pentax 6x7 camera, occasionally checking progress with Polaroid prints. 

    In the morning session I was coaching Mr. Knotts to: “Do this with your hands, and make a face like that ... ” I then caught myself and said: “Here I am telling Don Knotts how to look nervous!” The assembled entourage chuckled too.

    Our group had lunch at a nearby restaurant where patrons would point and stare, and our server asked for Mr. Knotts’ autograph. As as you can imagine, he answered a hundred questions, including working with Andy Griffith and Tim Conway.

    We wrapped up the photography by mid-afternoon, and Don Knotts was escorted to his home. The copywriter and I returned to Oregon that evening and I began developing the film from our day’s work.

    Our efforts resulted in several direct mail brochures with an instantly-recognizable face on the cover. And I got an autographed photo of Mr. Knotts and me.

So, when does Senior officially begin?

Let’s pick an official date. At the far youngest end, citizens can drive at sixteen, vote at eighteen and drink at twenty-one. The ages are well defined.

    So, when does seniority start? The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) sent me membership applications before I was fifty to make sure I was on their rolls when I turned five-oh. I could have joined the Senior Golf Tour at fifty, had I golfed then and been good enough. Senior discounts at one drive-thru in town begin at fifty-five; sixty-two at another. I was “carded” at that one. Pointing out the birth date on my driver’s license caused the window-worker to subtract numbers without the benefit of a cash register. Yet another local fast-food employee wasn’t sure of the senior age chalkmark, but she thought I looked old enough. Some golf courses encourage seniors to exercise more with lower rates for old-timers of sixty or sixty-two. The Oregon State Fair discounts oldsters at sixty-five. Social Security can begin all-over-the-place, but sixty-six is a good place to start receiving benefits.

    Once that magical age has been established, Senior Citizens could get a Silver-Hair passport and a PIN number, or a sticker for their license ... or at least a  lapel pin to show proof of achievement that could be used not only at drive-up diner windows (where we shouldn’t eat anyway) but at pharmacies for our increased aches and illnesses, health food stores, grocery stores, utility companies, gas stations and so forth. And ... art supply stores, since we supposedly now have “free time” to doodle.

    A senior discount seems like a fair enough reward for walking nine miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways as we all did in the “olden days.”

    We shouldn’t have to grow old for nothing.

This Kassell cartoon appeared in the Silverton (Oregon) Appeal-Tribune, and then Pelican Publishing's "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year / 2009 Edition."

Inacchronisms™ Show at The Psalm Visual Arts Gallery at Corban University Review

The October 2, 2011 reception for Larry Kassell’s Inacchronisms™ show was well attended with many chuckles and favorable comments.

     J. Steven Hunt, Corban Vice President for Marketing comments: “The Inacchronisms show for October 2011 was an exceptional one at the Corban University Visual Arts Gallery in Salem. Faculty participation was enthusiastic as they played the irony and accuracy of the show against the art history portions of  their American Thought and Culture courses, and student reaction showed it to be one of our most popular shows.”

    Inacchronisms are pastiches (knock-offs) of the Old- and Newer Masters paintings with Kassell’s value added visual arts additions or alterations. An informal poll indicated that visitors enjoyed Monet Lisa best, with Framer’s Daughter second and (Chief) Joseph and His Colt of Many Colors third.

    Some comments are: 
    “So clever and beautifully painted. Makes me think back to art history classes with a fun twist.” -- K.P.

    “ ... brilliant, effective and edgy work.” -- J.D.

    “Love it! You’re nuts but talented ... ” -- J.S.

    “Creative genius at work ... and play! Great job. -- S.K.

    “Great as usual, and I loved the narrations.” -- B.B.

    “I was on the floor laughing! -- V.

Inacchronisms™ Show visitors chose Framer’s Daughter (inset, derived from William Bouguereau’s Peasant Woman) one of their favorites.

Inacchronisms™ Show at Corban University

Three of Larry Kassell's 16 pastiche paintings include Monet Lisa, Rembrat van Tagger and The Framer’s Daughter – featured the month of October 2011, at Corban University Psalm Visual Arts Gallery.

I feel the only reason to re-do something is to make it better. So to paint a pastiche of The Mona Lisa would not only be a misuse of time and paint, but an insult to Leonardo da Vinci.

    But to make an Old Masters painting different might be worth a try. I call it value added visual arts, a term I borrowed from my graphic designer days.

    What if? What if I combined The Mona Lisa with Monet’s White Water Lilies and it became Monet Lisa? What if eccentric Vincent van Gogh transmogrified into Vinny van Goth? What if Jackson Pollock thought in more linear terms for one on his drip paintings? And Neo-classicist Angelica Kauffman was first to use felt-tipped markers? What if Paul Revere contemplated the bust of Abraham Lincoln rather than a teapot? The possibilities are tremendous.

    On display at Corban University’s Psalm Visual Arts Gallery in Salem, Oregon are my first sixteen value-added paintings: Inacchronisms™ – or inaccurate anachronisms – the first of many such parodies.

    Thank you ... to my patient wife Julia during the long hours of this Inacchronisms™ project – plus her suggesting the Monet Lisa and van Goth themes.

    ... to friend and artist J. Steven Hunt for prompting me to show these paintings at Corban University Psalm Visual Arts Gallery.

    ... to the featured Old- and Newer Masters artists who unknowingly lent their paintings for Inacchronisms. I hope they’re smiling.

ARTIO Finger Fitness Workout video

Humorous finger fitness ARTIO workout for artists, mouse pushers and others who work with their digits. This 2.25 minute video will leave you exhausted ... but in a good way. 

A visit with illustrator/fine artist Bernie Fuchs

I’d admired illustrator and fine artist Bernie Fuchs’ work since the early 1960s – long before I could link a name to the art, much less a face to the name.

    At that time I was an illustrator for the U.S. Air Force – and Look, Life, and other popular magazines of the day featured not only Bernie’s award-winning illustrations and portraits of the famous, but many of the advertisements he’d done.

    About that same time Liquitex® acrylic paints were introduced. I wanted to paint like Bernie, so I applied slashing backgrounds to illustration board, then glazed a second color over that in another direction. Funny, it never measured up Bernie’s often-imitated work.

    So, when Bernie Fuchs and I met in 2007 through a mutual friend who had purchased an original “B.F.” signature oil painting for his office, I was honored. Our brief visit at a trade show in California later led to inviting myself to his studio “the next time I was in Connecticut.”

    Amazingly enough, I was on a photographic assignment in Connecticut few months later – in the next town over from Bernie’s Westport home. Though our visit was arranged weeks ahead, a GPS locator was needed to find his place up one winding tree-lined road, then another.

    His over-the-garage studio was astounding! Framed period Oldsmobile ads on the wall. Vintage illustrator annuals in his bookcase. A trumpet case. Unstretched painted canvases – some rolled, some lying flat on the floor. Reference slides on his light table – next to his palette with ages-old piles of raw umber and sap green and titanium white oil paint.

    Push-pinned to his easel was a two-thirds-finished painting of an Italian street scene, progressing from the top down. (The painting “Outdoor Café” was included in his 50-year Retrospective Exhibition at The Talluride Gallery of Fine Art in June, 2008.) Bernie painted in sections onto unstretched canvas tacked to a large drawing board. He’d apply dark paint with a broad brush, wipe away, then glaze. Bernie painted soft-focus back- and foregrounds punctuated with a razor-sharp focal point. Truly amazing. Finished paintings then were rolled and shipped to a patron, gallery or printer in a FedEx tube. Some art became postage stamps, other paintings became pages in children’s books and some was sold to patrons worldwide.

    On the floor of an adjoining room, stacks of framed paintings leaned against a wall. “James Arness,” I said of one. 

    “Cover of TV Guide,” he replied. He mentioned the year but I don’t remember.

    The stories and visual treats that afternoon! I had to leave too soon.

    Bernie Fuchs passed away on September 17, 2009. He left too soon.

Bernie Fuchs with painting-in-progress Outdoor Café.

The Little Girl's Jacket - yet another artsy film

In her haste to keep up with Mommy rushing toward a distant gate or concourse, the sweet young girl dropped her pink-collared jacket and never looked back. In a second or two I pulled my video camera from its bag and from a long distance away, captured the human nature study featured in the YouTube video below. 

Let me know what you think.