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Schroeder's Toy Piano (Play on Cadmium Red), 1990 oil and enamel on canvas, 72" x 132"
Collection Tsutoma Nakada
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Immediately following the year of chemotherapy in 1990, my first concerted effort at producing this work was finished. It was a 6 X 12 foot painting of the toy piano, that consisted of two canvas panels. My practice of using panels, whenever possible, refers back to the panels of the comic-strip without the obligation of the normal conventions of the black outline borders. The explosion of scale was and continues to be very important in emphasizing the difference between the cartoon and the painting, and forces a close-up view. In my opinion, the toy piano is the most elegantly drawn object in the strip. Considering my recent year, this was a new way of seeing, up-close, the beauty of things in the world.
I thought it would be humorous to paint the piano in cadmium red, because of a law that was being presented before Congress to ban cadmium in paints. When Sparky first viewed this painting, he was joyfully impressed, but terribly disappointed with the title 'Schroeder's Toy Piano'. He thought it sounded like something titled by himself, and without my insight. Concerned about being safe, I overlooked our mutual understanding, that these paintings must be somehow different, when I was designing a title.
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Still life from a 6-21-82 Cartoon Life, 1997
mixed media on canvas, 102" x 64"
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To make matters worse, I had already written this title onto the side and back of the canvas. Pulling from my insight, I added, 'Play On Cadmium Red!' to 'Schroeder's Toy Piano', as the title. Sparky was very pleased. It is therefore not surprising that all future titles reflected my own insight and feelings, usually in the form of verbal-visual puns.
Many of the found objects from the strip that were used as subject matter for these early works, and even to the present, like the toy piano, were inspired by the drawings in that first meeting with Sparky, 25 years ago. Several paintings would go on to mix them together, as did 'Late Afternoon Doghouse Cathedral In Rain', where the work is predominantly about the rain lines with the doghouse in the background. The title is a humorous comparison of the doghouse to Monet's series of cathedrals in various outside conditions.
Still lifes, such as the flower vases, that were tucked away in the backgrounds of the strip, were some of my most playful found objects. I would pull them out and into the conspicuous foregrounds, and title them with their corresponding date of the strip for reference, for example, 'Still Life From A 6-21-82 Cartoon Life'.
Soon after the first found object paintings, I began to experiment more with the strip's characters. Each character chosen for a particular painting was picked, not for who they were, but for the expressive manner in which Sparky had drawn them. In other words, I would select one of his drawings, to start with, based on a character's expression that most identified with what I was trying to say. It was as if the character could be a self-portrait of my astonishment. In a most recent work entitled 'Sophisticated Mama', the facial expression and over-all attitude of Peppermint Patty, perfectly presents my humor about the many unsophisticated sophisticated.
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