The Kinkade Cult Unmasked...

Thomas Kinkade..."The Most Collected Living Artist in the World"...

One can only achieve this title by coming up with a good marketing strategy. In Thomas Kinkade's case, it's getting his paintings on anything and everything that has a surface on which one of his thatch roofed cottages can be slapped. Most in the world will call this tactic "saturation". But Thom....Thom likes to view this as "enabling people across the globe to enjoy his work and message of hope and joy, no matter what your income". So that is why you can find his images on everything from greeting cards and coffee mugs to lampshades and umbrellas. So that everyone, no matter how much money they have stuffed into their little rubber change purse, can sit and stare....be hypnotised...by the glowing windows within these quaint little smirf-like houses, while being pulled into the ever growing depths of hell.

Middle America is the core group of people that has hopped on board and have become "collectors". Working in a Kinkade gallery myself, I often find it quite remarkable at how easy it is to sell one of his paintings by simply using some key phrases: light, color, beauty, hope, serenity... With each word spoken, you can actually see the customer's eyes begin to glaze over as they unknowingly run the tip of their tongue across their drying lips; their breaths growing more and more shallow as I sit them on a sofa and dim the lights, enhancing the whole "glow" of the image. Their palms become sweaty or, if it's a couple to whom I'm talking, their fingertips touch as a silent message is crossed between them until finally, in unison, they stand and shout: "WE'LL TAKE IT!!!!"

"Great," I reply. "Now let's pick a frame."

Ka-Ching!!

I see this kind of reaction alot working within these dark green carpeted walls lined with non-existant flowers in paintings where sunlight streams through treetops and dances atop babbling brooks and cascading waterfalls. The gallery in which I work is in a shopping mall and the way the store is set up, voices from the main concourse drift across the air and into my ears. I can hear what's being said as well as Lindsay Wagnor flipping back a strand of blond hair behind her ear, the camera panning in for a close-up as the infamous "brrrr-brrr-brrr" sound is signaling bionics that are taking over.

"Oooooh...I LOVE Thomas Kinkade...."

"This is the guy that paints with Light..."

"He always puts his wife and children in his paintings..."

"He's such an inspiration..."

"My mom LOVES this guy..."

Standing in the doorway, you can always tell a Kinkade fan. Even from as far away as a hundred yards, as I watch a middle aged couple exit the Macy's store, the husband dressed in baggy jeans and a so-and-so high school 1982 county champions t-shirt trying hard to cover an expanding belly from years of sitting in a barc-o-lounger. The wife is in lime green stretch pants (stretched as far as the manufacturer will allow) trying to conceal thighs that could feed a third world nation, a white sweatshirt with "World's Greatest Grandma" made from a bedazzler she'd bought over the television stretched across an enormous and very saggy chest. They walk out of Macy's both running their cracked tongues across their rocky road ice creams, the cones wrapped in soggy white napkins long lost in the battle of absorbing the drips which have begun to run across the wife's hot pink nail polish. Thier discussion could be about anything at that moment. All I see is thier lips moving in conversation as the ice cream is sloshed around in their mouths.

But then it happens...

The wife's eyes rise and I can almost read "Thomas Kinkade", the letters backwards in the reflection of her irises. I can see the pupils expand as recognition takes hold at what stands before her across the mall. All sound around me ceases as I watch her lips form the five words which tell me I'm in trouble here...

Oh-My-God---Thomas-Kinkade...

Suddenly time slows down as the music over the mall's sound system begings playing Chariots of Fire. The woman, completely forgetting her recent urge for a Friendly's ice cream, tosses her cone into the trash and grabs her husband's arm, not the hand...the arm. Like a mother who grips the arm of a little child in a supermarket, trying to pull him away from the rows and rows of sugar filled cereal because she must get the shopping done and be back home before Oprah comes on. In slow motion, the bedazzled "World's Best Grandma" rises and falls over her all too bouncing melons, the sparkles catching the rays of sunlight streaming in through the skylight above. Shoppers, their hands loaded with bags from Restoration Hardware and Bloomingdales, look up and take notice of the linebacker barrelling down upon them. Like a Diehard movie, they leap out of the way as if trying to escape an exploding car. The husband, now being nearly dragged like a sack of potatoes, darts his eyes back and forth at the other shoppers who have barely escaped with their lives. He says nothing... He actually can't say anything because his cone is clenched between his lips, the sudden pull taking him in mid-lick.

I'm still seeing this all in slow motion. I plant my feet firmly on the dark green carpet, readying myself for the assault. All knowledge of Thomas Kinkade and his works run through my mind as I try and determine what tactic to use on this bull racing toward the little red cape that is a Thomas Kinkade gallery. I prepare myself for the sale. I figure out ahead of time, what they're willing to spend to bring alittle more hope and joy into their home. Will it be a big sale or am I aiming too high and they'll only wind up buying a stupid puzzle?

She's only inches away from the door. I can almost hear her heart pounding in her chest. I can see the sweat dappled across the husband's forehead, the fear that his credit card is about to be swiped is evident in his eyes. I put on my welcome smile. The Chariots of Fire theme is reaching its full crescendo. The "Ding-Ding" of the motion detector hanging above the door announces their arrival into my domain.

The music blares....

I open my mouth to greet the couple...

And a calloused craft-abused hand with hot pink nail polish is raised to my face...

(ssscrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaatch...)

The music is suddenly halted as an icy stare is fired from the woman's eyes.

"Just looking!"

D'OH!!!!!