Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Like a Norman Rockwell painting...

...Used to be a compliment. Over the past 20 years it's become one of those faux ironic sneers of the urban elite.



These are the people who've never SEEN the woods, outside of media depictions (yet will tell you exactly what to do with YOUR land).

These are the people who found "The Blair Witch Project" scary (only someone who's never been in the woods would).



I grew up in New England, mostly about 100 miles from Rockwells home; and he used the environment I grew up in as his model. Now of course I was growing up 30+ years later, but let me tell you something about New England... no matter what happens politically or socially, New England doesn't change.



That's a Massachusetts state trooper by the way, and the uniforms are still the same. Hell, as a little kid I had that same haircut til I was 10.

I love Norman Rockwell. Growing up, my garandmother had a bunch of limited edition prints, sculptures, and even spoons (she was a tchotchke person). My grandfather had a few prints around as well. I was always stricken by the emotion and sentiment... the pure communication contained in his work.



Some lefties (Ironic since Rockwell was one himself a HUGE Roosevelt supporter) seem to think that the Rockwell paintings were just rose colored projections of an America that never was...



They couldn't be more wrong.