"On the Air"

[Victor Pross]

On the Air

The creative process in creating Rich Engle’s CD cover.

Recently, I have been hired to paint the cover of OL member Rich Engle’s CD cover for his first album entitled “On the Air.” The fee is paid and the painting is complete and so the original camera-ready art is about to be sent out, as soon as I finish off some extra details. That’s the problem: I can never let a painting go as I never think of any of my paintings as completely finished. But in all reasonableness, the work is done. And it’s time to let my new born out into the world. New born? Well, that’s how I fee about each new painting.

The painting is of a large “television head” complete with humanoid features interspersed with electronics—surreal and freakish in its exaggeration. It is not a caricature.

You might want to know the creative process I go through to create a painting—especially in the case of Rich’s CD art work. It’s interesting to know what inspires me and gives me my ideas. Simply, I observe people. People inspire me—even though I like so few. When securing most any commission, I always go to Sal’s dinner in down town Toronto for inspiration served on a silver platter. It was no less true when preparing for Rich’s art work.

Sal’s is a sleazy little joint, a nothing place. It looks as though it were frozen in the 1950s. The grill cheese tasted like cement, the cream always turned your coffee grey. The joint is a regular haunt for every type of social plankton and social derelict. Sal’s is a hang out for all the local losers: pimps, crack heads, cantankerous senior citizens, Pomo wankers and welfare cases.

Yes, it is Sal’s dinner that inspires me. It is the sheer folly of humanity that inspires the funny [and sometimes disturbing] images that I paint. And given the ideas I was developing for Rich’s CDs, I visited my regular haunt to witness humanity unfolding before me.

One of the regulars at Sal’s is Guy Larson. He has made Sal’s his “home away from home” since the early 1960s. You would think he has a cot in back. Larson, whose skin resembles fake tan leather left in the rain, is an appalling character. This rumpled old man often arrives at Sal’s without his teeth…or if he had his teeth in his mouth, he likes to pop them out on his tongue. He is also a twitchy chatterbox forever boring the other patrons with his inane stories. Claiming to be the personal friend of various movie stars he would ramble off tall-tales like a tabloid writer. Sal Goldberg, the restaurant owner, is always bitching and complaining to Larson. “Vill you qvit hangin’ around here?” That always cracks me up.

Arriving at the restaurant one Saturday afternoon, I sit down at my regular table and draw the customers before the gum-chewing waitress takes my order. Sitting across from me is Sally—an aging slut who is seen in many of Toronto’s tacky bars singing bathetic versions of the Pretender’s Brass in Pocket. She pounces weakly for a bit of love from the crowds of drunks, friends, and drunken strangers. Her skin is prematurely aged by years of tanning salons. Once, I spotted her wearing a pink tank top that said ‘sexy.’ "Where have you been all my life, cutie?" she said to me once, her manner that of a practice flirt. It was so tempting to say, "Well, for the first twenty-five years I wasn't born yet" --but I held my tongue and flashed a white tooth smile. She beamed and smiled back, winking. I rendered her caricature.

Other visitors also consist of modernist archetypes: paint splattering, tree-hugging socialist marionettes who read Chomsky and cry with wet-lipped sentimentality when talking about Kandinsky. One of the regulars is Tammy, a 21 year-old art student. Her work hangs on Sal's walls. Each “abstract painting” she created conveyed an anxious intent to please everyone by using a variety of colors, hoping that one of those colors would be a given viewer’s favorite. Tammy’s appearance is as varied as the colorful paints she uses: her hair was dyed pink and light green, her shadow a gloss blue, her eyes luminous by dark purple eyeliner. Her bone-white skin stretches on her skeleton like a lampshade, illuminating her gaudy make-up. Her penchant for tie-die t-shirts pleaded for attention.

Just outside of Sal’s you can spot rap rouge wannabes who trade insults and perceived slights, which demands a heavy response. This is especially true if there are bystanders observing. Just around the block from Sal’s dinner is The Toronto School of Art. This liberal arts college is an expensive playpen inhabited by a gaggle of geeky fools and faux lunatic poseurs. It had the all the other requisite types of students: pretentious beatniks, crude filmmakers, gay fashion designers, angry lesbians, vegan hippies, and a funky mix of neo-Beats and deadbeats. Among this motley crew of mongrels who wonder into Sal’s for a coffee and bagel, I stand out for not standing out.

“I love to draw these people!” I exclaimed to Sal becoming visibly excited. He shot me a puzzled gaze and called for an explanation. Sal likes me and he always takes the time to set down with me for a small chat. At first Sal was taken aback by me when I first started frequenting his establishment. From his perspective, here was this strange young man coming in ordering coffee with a BLT and then after consuming my meal I would whip out my pencils and sketchpad turning Sal’s Diner into a makeshift studio! “Vot’s dis?” Sal asked, pointing at one of my warped sketches. I chuckled and went right on sketching away. Eventually Sal grew accustomed to the drawings and to the artist. He thinks of me as his friend but I have never had a serious conversation with him. The only thing that I seem to hold sacrosanct is the execution of well-crafted art, the power to create art. Other than that, it’s difficult to hold me to a serious conversation among these types as to my thoughts on other subjects.

Sal’s place is my tainted oyster. I know this sounds cynical. But there you have it. For the most part, I just want to observe and draw. After a few hours of sketching and coffee drinking at Sal’s, I have created a symposium of clowns---symbols of vast territories of wasted human life.

I’m inspired and charged up. Sal’s diner always does it for me. It’s time to pay the bill and to go home to begin a painting.

***

Edited January 21, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

Hey Rich,

You also served me well in the inspirational department, but not for the same reasons as Sal's customers did. Rather, you gave me the freedom to express myself within the theme of your CD. Thanks.

-Victor

[Victor Pross]

Hey Rich,

You also served me well in the inspirational department, but not for the same reasons as Sal's customers did. Rather, you gave me the freedom to express myself within the theme of your CD. Thanks.

-Victor

Hey, Rich. This bud is for you. Pull up a chair at Sal's and lets talk.