Art and the Homeless

I am expanding my repertoire of subject matter to include street-scapes. Streetscapes is a play on "landscapes," of course, because landscapes by definition are void of subject, and streets are normally populous with subjects. To right the analogy, therefore, I should say I have been airbrushing homeless subjects from the picture. The effect is similar to that of viewing an empty room. If the occupant is absent, the room has a completely different feel, than if the occupant was unknown, or if the room never was occupied. An absence which is palpable is what makes landscape painting poignant. Those who entertain notions of the paranormal assert that ghosts are not people, but an impression left upon reality by a person, like a holographic imprint. The remains of an improvised sleeping place left on the sidewalk made by a homeless person has a similar effect. The residue casually deposited by the homeless after moving on has an unpleasant effect similar, I take it, to that of g...

It was without a plan that painting the homeless began, other than the expectation of an emotional catharsis. There had to be meaning in the clump of signifiers. A direction would certainly emerge from the confusion. Academic art students draw or paint a human model, posed in front of a back wall, optionally draped for a touch of color. I tried this approach with the derelicts I saw immobile on the sidewalk. It did not achieve the intended effect of an academic study. Any reclining pose is a challenge. A figure in a fallen posture can look like it will itself fall off the canvas, off-the-wall, literally onto the floor. An academic painting of anything other than a human model is a nature morte , a still life, an inanimate object. That term comes from the study of anatomy, corpses, to be exact, at the core of the academic curriculum since Leonardo. A dead body, unlike a sleeping person, has a distinctive appearance. It is an object. We do not relate to an object the way we relate to the...

My paintings of the homeless and street people began in New York City, where they can be seen sleeping or, for whatever reason, laying on the sidewalk. It leaves an impression on one's memory. It wasn't even necessary to work from reference photos or sketches. I was still able to see them, in my mind's eye, in the privacy and comfort of home. The images doggedly persist. Sketching pitiful bundles of flesh and bone wrapped in rags just felt natural to me. I made a series of sketches, which I intended to submit to galleries, including a design for a 3-dimensional piece, consisting of a black plastic leaf bag stuffed with wadded paper, and tied in such a way as to look like a figure. It would be tossed, like a rag doll, on the gallery floor. The show was to feature a selection from a series of 20-30 oil paintings of modest-size, on canvas, of images of prostrate bums.  They were to be simplified, a solitary figure on a monolithic ground, in neutral colors and black and white. ...

I lived in a rent-controlled apartment on the upscale, Upper West Side, of New York City. One day, as I was gazing out the flat's single window at the building opposite, I was overcome by the oppressive ugliness of it all. The irony was that neighbors living in six-figure condominiums gazed upon similar, grim scenery. It was not simply drab, to my mind, but deliberately grim. It looked Gothic, steep, mysterious, implacable. I guess that's why it's called "Gotham City." A banal observation, I admit. What I should also admit is a liking for the effect. It's in no way classical. It's a perverse taste, and I'm in good company with the decadents of the fin de siè·cle, who rendered deviance in art to perfection. They were outspoken defenders of the Neo-impressionists, those not-Impressionists, the renegades of art. They were all ahead of their time. They would have been partisans of Giacometti, post World War II, if the timelines were reversed. Giacometti is...

A few words copied from the reader comments of a specialized news Blog, one which may be characterized as a cross between economics news, and a scandal tabloid. The news topic discussed was the economics of the homeless problem in California. The substance of the report's argument is pretty much what might be expected, both the editorial, and the readers' comments. Briefly, the outlook is bleak, both for the homeless, as well as everyone concerned. Nobody is not concerned if, at the same time, nobody really knows what to do about it. I'm not so vain as to believe art can do anything to alleviate the distress of the homeless. My concern is focusing more and more on those concerned about homelessness. It seems to me they might prove responsive. Anyone who up voted any of my comments in this thread should be pilloried, but is free to use them in their PHD theses. Can someone that knows anything about this explain to me why they can’t build a huge square empty building somewher...