Thomas Kincade. . . . . . . Artist?

Wow this blog takes me back about 14 years in my life. I remember my mom and step dad had just taken a trip from our home in San Jose to Placerville, and when she returned she had come home with some "art" for investing....When i looked at the "paintings" i will admit, i did think that they were kind of neat looking. But art was not something that i grew up with so you could have drawn me your own version of the starry night by Picasso and colored it with crayons and i wouldnt have known the difference. When she told me how much she paid for the "paintings" i kind of cringed, because we werent the richest kids in the neighborhood and a couple of thousand dollars for three paintings was alot; but what did i know. Over the next few years and a couple of more trips to Placerville i would soon learn about "The Painter of Light".

This is my personal opinion of Thomas Kincade. I believe whole heartedly that he is a hell of a businessman. He has turned his version of art into a multi million dollar business. His artwork is almost everywhere you look. He has puzzles at Walgreens, cards at Hallmark, calenders at every mall you go to, not to mention the Thomas Kincade stores in Placerville, Carmel and even here in Roseville. His marketing skills and stragedy are second to none, and in my non artist eyes his "paintings" are not bad. But is he an artist? Before i knew anything about reprints and what the numbers meant on the "paintings" i thought that the "Painter of Light" was indeed a great artist. Like i said i never paid attention to art before so i had never seen a piece of art with such great lighting.

Fast forward ten years and i was searching the internet one day and found out the truth about the "Painter of Light". After all these years of these paintings hanging on my moms wall i found the exact paintings for sale online. Little did i know that there were hundreds of the same "paintings" for sale, and that they were actually reprints of the original. Then i researched it alittle bit more and found out that these were not even touched by the artist, and in fact they were made using a revolutionary process and were numbered for collectors. If you had a low number your print was worth more than the others. The same print with a higher number was worth much less. I told my mom how her "painting" was actually a print and how stupid and unoriginal it was, and how it was no different then collecting posters or baseball cards. She agreed and decided to sell her precious artwork, which by then had festered up to 9 prints. It hadn't gone up in value because the scam was up by then, and people werent going to pay thousands of dollars for a poster.

In conclusion i will say that Thomas Kincade is a great business man and a good painter. If he would sell his original paintings then i would consider that to be art. Does he, nope. Is it good art? I guess that would only matter to those who bought it. Does he trick people into buying his prints, I would say that he is a really good scam artist and that he does cheat people along the way. As far as the fbi investigation and his rudeness when he drinks, that has nothing to do with his work. Picasso shot himself and Van Gogh cut off his own ear. Theyre social behavior has nothing to do with their work. I can see how if you sell to a certain crowd, like the Christian crowd how it might anger some but nobodys perfect. I personally would never buy anything from Thomas Kincade as a collectible. If i liked one of his prints and it was cheap i might buy it, but not as art. Every artist i know hates his guts, some because they consider him a sellout and others because they think he's a scam artist. I think he's all of the above.