Sounds like this guys clearing up a TON of karma ... from The Writers Almanac: Today is the birthday of American artist Chuck Close, born in Monroe, Washington (1940). He had a rough childhood: He was dyslexic and didnt do well in school; his father died when Chuck was 11, and his mother developed breast cancer soon after. Their medical bills were so high that the family lost their house, and Close was bedridden for almost a year due to a serious kidney infection. He got through by drawing and painting, and took his first trip to the Seattle Art Museum soon after his father died. As a mature artist, hes become known for his enormous portraits, painted so realistically that they look like photographs. He had been painting them for 20 years before he finally figured out why he was so obsessed with these giant portraits: Its a way to remember them. He has a condition called face blindness, which means hes unable to recognize individual faces. In 1988, he was presenting an award in New York City when he began having chest pains. After the ceremony, he walked to the hospital across the street and collapsed in a seizure. An artery in his spine had ruptured, and he woke a quadriplegic. Hes confined to a wheelchair, but through extensive physical therapy, he regained the ability to paint, and New Yorks Metropolitan Transit Authority recently announced that they have commissioned Close to produce a series of 10-foot-tall mosaics for the future subway station at 86th Street and Second Avenue. My work has always had a mosaic-like quality to it, so its not such a stretch, Close told The New York Times. The idea is to reflect the riding population: old people, young people, people of color, Asians. Im going to do as many as 12 separate mosaics, mainly from pictures of artists Ive taken over the years.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 12:43:48 +0000
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