Tina now hangs in my bedroom at the foot of my bed. Tina is a painting done by Paolo, my ex-lover of eight years and the emotional and sentimental favorite among my varied works of art (I suppose I refer both to the painting and Paolo.) Tina, Paolo’s muse and my competition, is the subject and the meaning of the painting. Tina is the reason the love of my life and I didn’t survive in a relationship.
I surprised Paolo one evening, arriving home a day early from a business trip. A classic set up. I was asking for it and I knew it. His drug habit and infidelity were no secret and just something that we worked around. In fact, we had been working to incorporate the infidelity into our sex life. Tina was another matter and eventually she beat me hands down. I despised Tina: The severe mood swings, the rages, the depressions, the lunacy. But I was no match for her influence. Like too many artists, Paolo could not find his muse without drugs or alcohol. Part of me was fascinated by this dynamic, and also oftentimes sexually aroused–which pathetically helped enable my lover’s drug habit. But Paolo’s use of crystal methamphetamine, known as Tina to her closest friends, eventually drove a wedge between us.
So I knew and I knew even more than Paolo realized I knew. However on that particular evening my premature return home delivered huge surprises for both of us. Yes, indeed, I did “catch” him, but not in the “anticipated” sense.
I walked through the door, and looked directly down the hall into our living room, our newly remodeled living room, I might add, and remodeled in my absence. I later learned that most of the furniture had been piled up in the guest room and not, fortunately, carried away by the Salvation Army or an antiques dealer.
Around the perimeter of the living room, Paolo had propped up a total of nine mirrors including the six bathroom cabinet doors. If nothing else, Tina was the mistress of industry. In one corner of the room, he had placed the TV and VCR on a cart and was playing porn, Ken Ryker to be precise. I remember this for a very good reason, as you will discover. Paolo had positioned his easel in the exact center of the room. He was hard at work on Tina, wearing nothing but a beret (a little affectation of his), a Marlboro Light dangling from his lips, paint smudges wherever he had rubbed or scratched himself and, uh, a significant representative part of porn star Ken Ryker. Paolo was athletically squatting over a stone pedestal from our garden that had a Ken Ryker Signature Collection 9 1/2 Insertable Inches Dildo stuck to the top. Mounted on this enormous sex toy, Paolo was riding it slowly up and down while he painted, smoked and listened to the actual Ken Ryker grunting and groaning on the television set off to the side of the room. The mirrors were of course positioned so that wherever Paolo looked, he would see a reflection of some angle of himself riding Ken Ryker’s plastic penile doppelganger.
Our simultaneous reactions were very different on several levels. Paolo, a card carrying, no exceptions and very boastful top had an almost foot long dildo three quarters of the way up his tight “virgin” buttocks. He was mortified and, I later learned, terrified that I would immediately lose interest in him, sexually speaking, finding him in a blatant state of bottom delicti. However, it is very difficult to interrupt yourself and cover your tracks when found in such a scene, nine versions of the scene reflected around the room, and your own true self impaled on a dildo topped stone pedestal. No cover story came to mind so he simply told me the truth–or rather he provided some background story to the astonishing and rather obvious truth.
He was painting Tina as a surprise 50th birthday present for me. The painting was based on an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of a young man’s brain on crystal methamphetamine. Paolo was on his third day of a Tina binge and in full Tina-induced sexual frenzy, channeling, he explained all of the sexual and creative energy into my birthday present.
He waited for my reaction.
I was overwhelmed. I was furious. I was amused. But mostly I was consumed with passion. I stood for a few minutes, as did he, in complete and utter silence. I’m standing at the door, in a suit and tie, with laptop and suitcase in hand. He’s naked, covered in paint and mounted on a giant latex phallus with lifelike balls. Truly a Kodak moment but neither one of us thought to grab a camera. Go figure.
Nothing was ever said. I dropped my bags, quickly crossed the room, dropped to my knees and swallowed the other rather large protuberance in that room, the one made of flesh rather than latex.
Paolo, no fool and quite flexible, groaned, mixed a little more white into the indigo with his no. 10 sable brush and then went back to the painting, soon to be my birthday present.
So there we were, Richard performing enthusiastically in front of the nine mirrors. The reflections heightened my arousal in ways I had never before experienced. Paolo had angled the television so that the porn was reflected in several of the mirrors as well. Even on my knees, my eyes mostly engaged by his Chelsea bikini wax, I could simultaneously enjoy a rather spectacular view of his amazingly muscular and powerful parte posterior, negotiating Mr. Ryker’s plastic part with determination and considerable control. Paolo, an artist, had arranged and angled the mirrors with a fine and discerning eye.
I rarely share the history of Tina and few of my friends and none of my relatives are aware of the painting’s somewhat controversial back story. Furthermore, until writing and sharing this recollection no one other than myself and Paolo knew the final secret behind Tina–or should I say the secret that is blended into the oils and forever immortalized on canvas. Paolo was fastidious in capturing the viscous result of our mutual passion and incorporating it into the painting, several times in fact.
Drugs are bad. I’m so ashamed of myself. And you have no idea just how much I love my painting of Tina even though she is a very selfish and destructive muse.
I should have known that you are too sophisticated to really write about the ‘classical set-up’.
During the week, reflecting on your last story, I thought that a natural progression could be to allow us to enjoy their shock value here on A&P but then wait with an official publication until you reach something of a Saul Bellow like distance to them? But I don’t think how that strategy would improve on today’s story. It is amazing.
A fabulous picture. At a first glance, it did remind me of brain structure.
Richard,
you make me feel so square. I searched ‘google images’ for ‘MRI and methamphetamine’ and learned that eroding brain regions involve memory, emotion and reward systems.
Particularly interesting was that the insular cortex is not only related to basic survival needs (taste, visceral sensation and autonomic control) but also in cognitive-emotional processes such as empathy and self-aware emotional feelings.
I guess, once the emotions die, there is not much love left.
Recreational drugs and an addictive personality are not a good match. I am lucky that I am not an addictive personality but I have never tried metamphetamine. What am I saying? Currently, I am obsessive about Yoga and Pilate.
Yow.
What an extraordinary post, Richard.
I can relate to this on both the levels expressed — sexual and aesthetic.
My love affair was not with Chrissy (crystal meth), but with Cannibus. Like William Burroughs, I found it highly aphrodisiacal and useful for work. In the end, my physical and mental health suffered. It just stopped working. I grew lazy. My motivation was shot. My imagination was gone. I kept getting easily ill. I had to stop doing art for a year before my fire came back.
It does come back though.
Being myself a card carrying versatile (and I would say not boastful, except I just did), I’ve used drugs to fend off the inevitable boredom that comes from dallying with sexual specialists — 100% tops or bottoms, Kinsey 1s and 6s, rough trade, etc.
And I would say more, but I only just read this after coming in from my workout, and now I have to go to work. But I will et back to this, be assured. This is just too honest and courageous a communication to let slip by without more discussion. Thank you for having the gumption to post this.
Richard…
your deeply personal and revealing stories fascinate me. It’s interesting to me how such destructive relationships can often leave us with such tantalizing, and even fond, memories. Thanks for sharing.
I really appreciate all your comments but be warned that this will encourage me to share more such stories. I will always however, relate them to some aspect of art and the creative process. I’ve known and still know many artists and for whatever reasons, many of them find their inspiration in controversial ways. I’ve always been fascinated by that and gone out of my way to understand and learn the details. I look forward to sharing.
Another powerful story, Richard.
I have mixed feelings about the connection between addiction and the artistic temperament. Are we more addicted or abusive of drugs than others? I get skeptical of such romantic views of a hugely diverse group of people. Do we have to be tortured by demons of one kind or another to be “geniuses?” Not that your post made this point, but it comes up so much.
I must say I would not have been as interested in this painting without the story behind it and/or being aware of the mri reference. In fact I am actually doing little studies of mri’s of brains with schizophrenia versus “normal” brains and am finding the whole study of color associated with it fascinating but very challenging. I may never be satisifed with the little paintings. Paolo’s painting makes me think that working with this source on a larger scale may be the way to go. I can see how it is important to you.
I too have been pondering Richard’s post. I’ve been wondering in what state we might make art that is most exciting to ourselves; and if the story that the art carries along with it can overpower the art itself; and whether our love of the art and its story has anything to do with our love of art. Or if it’s possible to answer these questions.
For myself, my best art is made when I’m feeling most healthy. Not sexy, not horny, not hungry, not tired. Although the drained feeling after illness sometimes brings out good surprises.
And I have a lot of mediocre paintings about which I have incredible stories (well, they seem incredible to me) but they have nothing to do with my art. They are about relationships and how I see the person who has done the painting — but it isn’t actually about art.
And Leslie, your comment fascinated me — I’m trying to “see” how enlarging the painting of the MRI scans would make it more satisfying — what would you do through the enlargement — would it be more encompassing — make you more a part of the experience? I’m fascinated by scale and its effects, so this is more than a rhetorical question.
June,
I am fascinated by scale too and always have the compulsion to try things either very small or big (but big for me is not very big – 24×36). For me the act of painting on different scales becomes a lot about intimacy and tightness of space versus expansive and free space. Small has been my preference lately, in order to pay attention to each square inch. Both the act of making it and the act of looking at it are intimate. You have to be close.
Large pieces on the other hand are encompassing as you say, and can operate well from a distance as well as close up. Those different viewing experiences are quite satisfying. Julie Mehretu is a wonderful example of such different experiences close up and far. I recently saw several of her pieces and was blown away.
I have a hard time going back and forth between working small and working large. Moving form the wrist versus the shoulder – it’s like building new muscles – physically and mentally.
I am curious about your thoughts on scale. Maybe a post on that subject would be interesting. So hard to talk about on a blog since everything looks like the same scale!
That is a fascinating story (Tina being dangerous notwithstanding…)
I have often wondered what were the stories, situations and circumstances behind a lot of paintings on museum walls…
Loved the ‘brain MRI on Tina’ painting, by the way…
Richard,
I said I would get back to this, and now, days later, I am.
I have wondered for some time about the virtue of being as explicit as you have been here; no, not you — me. So I like the daring of this. When, in the past, I decided to let the world see some of my more erotic work, I found to my horror that the love message of the pieces was not grasped by the respondents; rather, they wanted jack off material.
It wasn’t the delicacy of sweet kisses that inspired, but desires for huge phalli.
Ick. Boring.
Some people must lead desperate lives indeed.
And so, in rebellion, phrases like “he kneaded the foreskin against the glans, and in a matter of moments brought forth a gush of semen” became “he quickly and expertly brought him off.”
(A scene from one of my books in reference to a fresh corpse!)
Thus I excerpt those without imagination from my audience. Who needs ’em? Who wants ’em?
With this thrilling painting, there’s no need of a back story at all. It stands on it’s own as a raw image.
But the back story is a kick, and the relationship between inspiration, great art and destructive behavior is something that needs to be addressed. You did well. I appreciate it.
With a few exceptions, all of the art I’ve collected is by artists I’ve known and each piece has an interesting back story–which is something I very much enjoy. In the future I’ll show more of my own collection and I will share the stories.
With a few exceptions, all of the art I’ve collected is by artists I’ve known
Richard,
I think that a direct connection of some kind between artist and collector is very important. When the art dealer becomes the intermediary, the artist loses site of his audience, and the buyer loses influence on the creative process. Should the buyer have influence in the creative process of art? What better reason could there be for buying one-of-a-kind, hand made objects, than to be able to have some kind of say in what they are? A painting is not like a mass-produced automobile.
With few exceptions, all the art I have sold is to people I’ve known.
There is an entire world of art bought and sold this way that never has any media exposure — until now with the Internet.
Long live the Revolution.
Long live the Revolution.
Rex,
You are being naive. As soon as the internet is recognized as the real contemporary art forum, supplanting museums and galleries, then collectors will collect the sites. How much would you sell Rexotica for? You see, collectors could buy you as a living art form.
Here is a post that I didn’t post earlier, but it’s fit for a comment:
Karl,
Flippant, I’d say; besides, we actually agree.
I doubt I need to worry about anyone ever wanting to buy my site though.