Letter

“Did it ever occur to you that shading is merely the absence of light? You bet that’s what it is!”—Jon Gnagy announces cheerfully while demonstrating how to transform some cubes, cylinders, and cones into a picture of a church. Gnagy was the first TV art teacher, with a hit NBC show from the late 40s into the 60s, and how-to books and painting kits on sale to this day. He was Bob Ross before Bob Ross. 

Stan Klein, who runs Firecat Projects, got to know Gnagy as a child growing up in Cleveland. He was Stan’s friend on TV, who showed him how to draw. Over the years Stan kept wondering about Gnagy. He was curious enough to track down Gnagy’s daughter down in Florida. After years of back and forth she agreed to let him put together a show of her father’s art at Firecat. 

Looking around the gallery on a warm Saturday afternoon I’m struck by how unformulaic Gnagy’s work is for a guy who made his name teaching TV viewers how to form simple shapes into worlds. It definitely looks like work of its time. Think Rockwell Kent and George Bellows and you’ll get the idea. But this is nothing you can guide an amateur to do step-by-step in half an hour. As I look at a lithograph of a cactus, Stan tells me it was made out West when Gnagy was undergoing shock therapy. He’d been diagnosed as bipolar. It’s a world away from the cheerful TV host guiding his viewer/students through their first steps of expressing themselves. 

Flipping through Gnagy’s sketchbooks, Stan points out another interesting thing: the artist rarely portrayed people. His wife, Mary Jo, also a working artist and illustrator, co-authored his how-to books devoted to the human form. Raised Mennonite and self-taught as an artist, Gnagy never quite got the hang of rendering his own species. He had no trouble with other animals though—a beautiful set of silverpoint illustrations of fish done for a book on the subject is a highlight of the show. 

When I got home afterwards I watched a few clips of Gnagy and wondered about his fate. He lived until 1981 but there’s no work in the exhibition past the 60s. What were his last twenty years like? When Stan went to visit his daughter in Florida most of the work was in storage. Stan had to frame most of the pieces to display them. If this is the legacy of an artist who was once famous on TV, what are the chances for those who never had such widespread exposure? The Firecat show will go some way to make a few more people remember Gnagy, while introducing him to many others. Stan says there are plans for the show to travel after it comes down in August. There will be a catalog too. 

I never drew along with Gnagy but was a faithful student of one of his descendants in the TV art instruction racket. I wrote about it in my book. I don’t recall the experience with the joy that Stan talks about his childhood acquaintance with Gnagy, but Stan and I are very different people. The most famous of the TV artists, Bob Ross, is a punchline for most “serious” artists. Stan differentiates Gnagy’s work from Ross’s by pointing out that, though there were certainly worked-out steps to Gnagy’s instruction, there was still room for self-expression. No “magic white” or “happy trees” to be found. A set of rudiments rather than a formula.

One of the few good pieces of news I’ve heard in the past couple months is that my good friend, Frank, got tenure at his job teaching art. I joked that under the current conditions he’ll have to Bob Ross it. Teaching drawing is a hands-on thing, so doing it through a screen is impossible (unless you’re a genius like Lynda Barry.) And yet that’s exactly what Jon Gnagy pioneered over 70 years ago, long before the world became completely reliant on screens for human contact. Lets hope that the current crop of TV art instructors beaming into cellphones, laptops, tablets, and devices I don’t know about the world over take Gnagy as a model over Ross. Nobody should paint like Bob Ross but if you learn to paint like Jon Gnagy you’ll have nothing to be ashamed of. 

Don lived upstairs from the Blue Light. His Brylcreemed grey hair was neatly trimmed, buzz-cut close to the ears, 50s-style. His wife had died recently but he was keeping it together. He worked in manufacturing. Printing plant, tool-and-dye shop, I never found out exactly. Don was a man of few words.

He came in every day after work. He’d order a $1 stein of Old Style and drink it in silence, then order another. Halfway through that one he might stammer out a word or two. Few conversations with Don lasted more than a couple moments. Still, bit by bit, I got a partial picture of his life. He had cats, he missed his wife.

Then he lost his job and everything changed.

He never said why he got laid off. He didn’t talk about it. Started showing up at the bar earlier in the afternoon. I could chart his disintegration from day to day. His hair went first. No more haircuts, scraggly, uncombed. Then his checked flannel shirts weren’t tucked in any more. He developed a limp.

Soon he was drifting off, eyelids drooping, slumped sideways on his barstool. A long skein of drool inching glacially toward the bartop. I hated to jostle him, seeing he was in such a bad way, but I couldn’t have people sleeping at the bar. He’d rouse slowly, his reactions delayed, as if I was in fast-forward and he was at half-speed. My words didn’t reach him right away. He’d slo-mo off his stool and inch toward the door.

The last time I saw Don his pants were soiled. He’d piss himself sitting catatonic over a half-finished Old Style. His speech slurred to the point of rarely completing a phrase. He’d keep trying, then he’d start over, then give up. I didn’t have the heart to kick him out. Luckily, there was rarely anyone but regulars in the place when he was in.

I didn’t see Don for a few days, then started asking around. No one had seen him. Kenny went upstairs and broke down the door. Pizza boxes, newspapers, and unwashed clothes formed hills and towers in his rooms. Don lay dead on the kitchen floor, his face eaten away in places, teeth marks still visible.

The cats hadn’t been fed in a week. 

The move went as smooth as a move can go. Even though I cursed the three flights of stairs every time I had to carry boxes of books or frames up over the last five-and-a-half years, I somehow forgot how much they sucked until Saturday. Mike and Brian did all the heavy lifting, but I helped as much as I could. Going up and down carrying an envelope got to be a burden after a couple dozen trips. I was glad to hear those guys huffing and puffing. Made me feel a little less old and broken down.

Unloading was a breeze by comparison. Still, watching the mountain of book boxes rise inside made me daydream about taking up a racket that involves fewer physical objects. But what would that be? There’s still a large part of me that thinks the internet is make-believe. Even words don’t seem quite real until they’re on paper. I’m not suited for the future at all.

I took a shower after the guys left and was half-hypnotized by the little circular tiles. They make an op-art effect of vibrating and floating in space away from the grout. Washing will never be the same.

I cleared away enough boxes to put my armchair where I think it will go. Straight ahead is the wall where art-in-progress will go; to the right are the windows to the street; to the left is the long open space of the rest of the apartment, ending with the doorway to the bedroom. I can’t recall living in a place with this much open space since the loft in Allston in the early-90s. Unlike there, I don’t have to share a shower down the hall or have to put up with a roommate who used to be my best friend until we lived together.

I set up my bed and lay down early. It took sometime to fall asleep. I could hear the crazy weekend racers on Archer Avenue half a block away. Footfalls upstairs were new too after living on the top floor. The dog trotting the length of the house, barking occasionally. One time, I looked up at the little bedroom window and caught a glimpse of my new neighbor’s meaty thighs flicker by the thin slit of outdoors the drawn curtain left visible. Being on the ground level will take some getting used to but I sure as hell won’t miss those three flights of stairs.

Sunday morning I walked back to the old place and spent a couple hours dusting, sweeping, wiping, and moping. It’s not pristine, but it’s about as good as can be expected from someone like me, also taking into account five-plus years of wear and tear. After I was done, I took a last walk through. I think the fact I’ve been preparing to leave since last July contributed to the lack much feeling. I had some good times here but I’ve been emotionally removing myself for almost a year. I was ready to move on.

I hope to get the new place into working order over this week. I wonder how many books schlepped here will go in the donation pile? No matter. My easel fits upright with less than an inch to spare, for which I’m thankful. Been lugging that thing with me for twenty-seven years. Truly my cross to bear. In the old place, if I wanted to use it in another room I’d have to lean it sideways and drag it behind me. Here I can roll it the length of the place. Feels like a big luxury. In fact, everything about this apartment does. There’s a kitchen table here. Haven’t had one in many moons. Turns out I like it. Much easier to eat at than in an armchair, holding a plate on my lap. Who knew?

Though the house was built in 1875, this lower level was totally rehabbed a few years ago. I’ve never lived in a place so new. Looking at all my old things, I wonder if they’ll fit. I think they will. Maybe, if I play my cards right, I won’t ever have to move again.

—I contributed a design for a set of Hideout postcards. Sales benefit the employees of that great bar, as well as the artists.

—I wrote a review of Sam McPheeters’s great book about how underground music formed him.

—RIP Tony Allen and Bohannon.