Two of the most shocking aspects of seeing his work in person was his odd sense of color - everything seemed so thoroughly dated to his era it was disturbing. Odd greens, bordering on turquoise were
prevalent, as was an annoying reliance on red to add a bit of zest to his paintings. His use of paint was economical, but a lot more free and painterly than I would have imagined. The canvases themselves were not heavily covered, but they were thick in spots, and carried with them enough weight to be able to quietly enjoy the technique on its own. What really jumped out was our little friend's use of the color white. Whenever he used white, whether on drapery, clothing, snow, or what-not, it was blatantly thicker than anything
else on the canvas. I quickly surmised this as a cheat, since all of his work really was meant to be camera ready, I'm sure the added dimension of the whites would allow for some extra shadow and interest in those areas that a flat white wouldn't carry. While perusing through his work, his early work didn't really impress, and most of the viewers ate up the cheesiness by simply looking at the image or recalling a story from their own lives the painting mirrored. Whenever they could, they parroted back the tour
guide's points and pointed out the same model in a series of paintings or specific scenes that were stripped from Rockwell's life. Also on display in the Museum was a traveling show of comic book (er, sequential art, if there's anyone who's seriously into the art of comics is reading this) art, with quite a mix and collection of pages from Crumb through the Watchmen. It was really great to cap off months of work on my own comic book and see other's work in the flesh, with similar notes and scratchings in the border not
unlike my own. My mom, after spending an hour looking at paintings, was excited to see the comic book work and turned to me and said, "this is just like your work", as if I'd been drawing comics my whole life and never picked up a paintbrush in my life.
Here I am grimacing in the cold and bitter wind while standing outside Norman's museum. | 
a nice line of pine trees |
Norman's studio, moved piece by piece to its location outside the museum. | 
It always puts a spring in my step to see real, living breathing signs of a past history without fucking it all up with irony. |
 |  | | some random shots of the small western Massachusetts towns |
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