{"id":5974,"date":"2013-10-31T21:38:09","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T21:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steampunkopera.wordpress.com\/?p=5974"},"modified":"2013-10-31T21:38:09","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T21:38:09","slug":"the-war-on-kinkade-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/the-war-on-kinkade-series\/","title":{"rendered":"The War On Kinkade Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Kinkade meets Star Wars.<\/p>\n

Who is Thomas Kinkade?<\/p>\n

“<\/b>Thomas Kinkade\u00a0(January 19, 1958\u00a0\u2013 April 6, 2012)\u00a0was an American painter of popular\u00a0realistic,\u00a0bucolic, and idyllic subjects.\u00a0He is notable for the\u00a0mass marketing\u00a0of his work as\u00a0printed\u00a0reproductions and other\u00a0licensed\u00a0products via The Thomas Kinkade Company. He characterized himself as “Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light,” a phrase he protected through\u00a0trademark\u00a0but one originally attributed to the English master\u00a0J.M.W. Turner\u00a0(1775\u20131851).\u00a0He was claimed to be “America’s most-collected living artist” before his death,\u00a0with an estimated 1 in every 20 American homes owning a copy of one of his paintings<\/p>\n

Kinkade’s works are sold by\u00a0mail order\u00a0and in dedicated retail outlets”<\/p>\n

Kinkade painted the most kitchy, gaggable art you’ve ever seen. He was very out about his devoutness to Christianity, although his company’s business practices have been criticized heavily.<\/p>\n

“Kinkade’s company, Media Arts Group Inc., has been accused of unfair dealings with owners of Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery\u00a0franchises. In 2006, an\u00a0arbitration\u00a0board awarded Karen Hazlewood and Jeffrey Spinello $860,000 in damages and $1.2 million in fees and expenses due to Kinkade’s company “[failing] to disclose material information” that would have discouraged them from investing in the gallery.[27]<\/sup>[28]<\/sup>[29]<\/sup>\u00a0The award was later increased to $2.8 million with interest and legal fees.[30]<\/sup>\u00a0The plaintiffs and other former gallery owners have also leveled accusations of being pressured to open additional galleries that were not financially viable, being forced to take on expensive, unsalable\u00a0inventory, and being undercut by discount outlets whose prices they were not allowed to match.<\/p>\n

Former gallery dealers also charged that Kinkade uses\u00a0Christianity\u00a0as a tool to take advantage of people. “They really knew how to bait the hook,” said one ex-dealer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They certainly used the Christian hook.”[33]<\/sup>\u00a0One former dealer’s lawyer stated, “Most of my clients got involved with Kinkade because it was presented as a religious opportunity. Being defrauded is awful enough, but doing it in the name of God is really despicable.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/i>\u00a0has reported that some of Kinkade’s former colleagues, employees, and even collectors of his work say that he had a long history of cursing and heckling other artists and performers. The\u00a0Times<\/i>\u00a0further reported that he openly groped a woman’s breasts at a\u00a0South Bend, Indiana, sales event, and mentioned his proclivity for\u00a0ritual territory marking\u00a0through urination, once relieving himself on aWinnie the Pooh\u00a0figure at the\u00a0Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim\u00a0while saying “This one’s for you, Walt.”[38]<\/sup>[39]<\/sup>\u00a0In a letter to licensed gallery owners acknowledging he may have behaved badly during a stressful time when he overindulged in food and drink, Kinkade said accounts of the alcohol-related incidents included “exaggerated, and in some cases outright fabricated personal accusations.” The letter did not address any incident specifically.[39]<\/sup><\/p>\n

In 2006, John Dandois, Media Arts Group executive, recounted a story that on one occasion (“about six years ago”) Kinkade became drunk at a\u00a0Siegfried & Roy\u00a0magic show in\u00a0Las Vegas\u00a0and began shouting “Codpiece! Codpiece!” at the performers. Eventually he was calmed by his mother.[38]<\/sup>\u00a0Dandois also said of Kinkade, “Thom would be fine, he would be drinking, and then all of a sudden, you couldn’t tell where the boundary was, and then he became very incoherent, and he would start cussing and doing a lot of weird stuff.”[38]<\/sup>\u00a0In June 2010, Kinkade was arrested in\u00a0Carmel, California, for\u00a0driving while under the influence of alcohol. He was convicted.”<\/p>\n

In any case, my point here isn’t to browbeat the guy personally, just give you some background.<\/p>\n

So i introduce you to Jeff Bennet<\/a>, an artist who has for some unholy and utterly awesome reason taken it upon himself to put Star Wars into Thomas Kinkade’s paintings.<\/p>\n

\"thomas<\/a><\/p>\n

\"k2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"k3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"k4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"k5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"k6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"thomas<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Kinkade meets Star Wars. Who is Thomas Kinkade? “Thomas Kinkade\u00a0(January 19, 1958\u00a0\u2013 April 6, 2012)\u00a0was an American painter of popular\u00a0realistic,\u00a0bucolic, and idyllic subjects.\u00a0He is notable for the\u00a0mass marketing\u00a0of his work as\u00a0printed\u00a0reproductions and other\u00a0licensed\u00a0products via The Thomas Kinkade Company. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","clearfix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulshapera.com\/temp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}