a different kind of pop art

* dad, daddy, pa, papa, pop

*my pop is the father of six girls and a self taught artist. One of my first memories of his art is a mural he did in charcoal on a large red wall in our living room. It was a stagecoach with horses, it seemed to jump off the wall into the room.  I loved it.

He also created  a barn 'look' on the second floor landing of our house. Complete with split rail fencing used for the stair rail - the only thing between us and certain death was termite ridden timber. But, it looked fabulous! Our house had only one bathroom and with seven females in the house including my Mom, you can imagine how my Dad felt the need to make his mark (so to speak) in the one room he really had no control over. Thus, began our summer spent retrieving rocks from the river; for what would become the most famous bathroom in town. It was a good size room with a long wall of mirrors, a claw foot tub, the essential toilet and a window.  Pop's idea was to surround the tub in rock, it was really deep so he added a couple of concrete stairs, otherwise you needed a boost (awkward)  - he also added a  planter to the back of the tub (where else would all the plastic flowers go). Tub, done.  Why stop there? He also build a four inch rock platform for the toilet to sit on. The toilet itself was also surrounded with sharp pointy rocks. The only way to avoid being cut to shreds while using the bathroom for it's main purpose, was to sit with your legs straight out. Toilet, done. As word got out about the river rock bathroom, we had kids we didn't even know asking to come see it. It didn't hurt that three sides of our house were painted red, the forth side white. Going east, white. Going west, red. To this day, friends fondly remember my Dad's river rock master piece, and the almost red house with all the lights on!
 

He went on to build more stuff , paint statutes, and furniture, (some of which was in the home of Johnny and June Cash). These days he paints ladies from book covers (you might recognize the Penguin cover from The Fountainhead) magazines anything that catches his eye. My sisters and I always look forward to the next thing to be built, painted or otherwise Popified. LOVE.

 

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