Prom Queen Evolves

In 1964 I went to the high school Junior Prom. I rented a tux and looked just like the other guys. But each girl had to look like a goddess in a long gown that was different from the gowns of other beauties. Helene’s father shelled out big bucks for that dress and wanted to remember it, top to bottom. I happened to be an unpleasant necessity.

Fifty years later, I scanned the pre-prom snapshot and turned it into an abstract landscape. The final result is at best a decoration which needs something superimposed on it.

Memories disintegrate. But not entirely. I remember that prom was held at the Shamrock Hotel, now demolished and also only a memory.

Actually, my personal memory is a bit unpleasant. Helene fell in love with me. I dated her for almost a year and began to realize she was primed for physical contact. But I was seventeen, she was sixteen. I was tempted to fondle her but had the foresight to realize that, although a passionate encounter may be what she wanted, if anything happened, she would expect me to marry her thinking all would be well because “we” were in love. This was 1964. I knew nothing about birth control and did not want to marry Helene. In another year I would be in college, and marriage was an inconvenience and an interference until I had finished school. So I stopped dating her. I suppose I broke her heart, but I didn’t know how to break off gently. I was attracted to girls but knew they were dangerous. Maybe her father was right to behead me.

Incompatible

That prom photo was one of many that I transformed into abstractions using computer tools. Since 2010 I have been doing most of my art on the computer, making abstractions on which I superimpose other images. “Incompatible” is an example. The advantage of a computer print is that I can store pictures without taking up space until I’m ready for an exhibit.

“Drops” becomes “Ecstasy” becomes “Beast and Beauty”

For me, the computer is a tool like the brush is a tool. I use the machine to make art. The machine is not the creator. To illustrate the process, I made a print showing variations of “Drops.” My ink sketch I scanned into a computer then traced it and colored it. Then, using computer tools, I altered the appearance. I placed cartoon figures on two of the variations and silhouettes of a Beauty and a Beast on the last.

“Calendar Girl”

Some feel that a painted canvas is superior to a print. But art prints have a long tradition. The Japanese have been making prints for centuries. Toulouse Lautrec prints appear in many books on Modern Art. In 2022, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts featured an exhibit of M.C. Escher prints. Also in 2022 Andy Warhol’s 1964 silkscreen print of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million. Since many viewers are more impressed by sale price than by the content of the picture, $195 million is pretty convincing—right?

In “Calendar Girl,” a Pop Art bathing beauty evolves into an Abstract Expression. Did the secular pinup transform into a sublime goddess?

When I was in college in the mid 1960s, the two art movements popular at the time were Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism. Although Pop images are understandable and symbols of the consumer culture, interpretation is not always easy. Trying to rise above mundane pop images, Abstract Expressionists painted abstract colors and shapes on canvas which they claimed were sublime expressions. Although I appreciate Abstract Expressionist attempts to create art with a spiritual meaning, I think, in the end, paint smeared, splashed, or slashed on a canvas is just paint—decoration at best, at worst just a mess.

In this exhibit, I have linked my art with stories in an attempt to make it meaningful. Have I succeeded? I’m not sure. I hope at least this exhibit provokes thought.