Thomas Kinkade: I Hope God's His Lawyer, Too!

Don't get me started on Thomas Kinkade, Painter of *hite. The man had at least two galleries (no, I think three) in Santa Cruz alone. I recently discovered he LIVES someplace just outside this county..which accounts for the fact that I once saw him at his now-defunct store on the Pacific Garden Mall, late at night among all his light paintings. I didn't see a sign of the Thomas Kinkade La-Z-Boy recliner, though.

Turns out the man who has said that "God is my art agent" is alleged to be a little shadier than his sun-drenched, rosy-cottage-garden-amber-light persona might let on. I have always had a personal thought that the man must have a shadowy side. He also has famously said that Picasso had talent, but never did anything with it. At least Picasso didn't mass-market tiny figurines of himself sitting pensively on a John Deere tractor, "contemplating his next masterpiece" (as unbelievably surreal as that might be--and Kinkade really sells something like this).