Don't Back Down

After seeing in the paper that Paul Stanley was coming to Charlotte to put on an exhibition of his artwork, I figured I just had to drop in. I mean first of all, who actually knew that Paul Stanley had any talent other than womanizing? Beyond that, I've been a Kiss fan for a long time, so figured if nothing else, I'd be able to spend a minute or two in the presence of one of those people that you just don't get to see very often.

I probably should have known better.

I mean this is Charlotte, but even slightly before the scheduled 6pm opening of the Friday night show, there was a decent line. Perhaps 30 people were in a haphazard line formed down the middle of one of the arms of the SouthPark Mall. What's really funny is that most of the people there are decidedly not the kind of people who typically shop at SouthPark.

For those of you who don't live in the Charlotte area, SouthPark is, well, a bit upper class (to put it nicely). And kiss fans, while not to say that they are lower class or anything of the sort, generally aren't associated with the mall. They wear their hair longer (if they have hair at all), they wear grungy clothes, and generally tend to make things seem a bit livelier than they are used to in that part of town. Seeing these two worlds collide was well worth showing up.

But that was not the reason for being there, so we all waited anxiously for the 6pm opening. Which came and went. Apparently there was a private party from 5pm to 6pm, for those who pre-purchased artwork. It went until at least 6:30pm, and everyone outside who was just there to get a glimpse had to wait. This was much more in line with what was to be expected.

Some time around 6:45, the doors opened and the first batch of regular folk was allowed to see what we had been waiting to see - which is a smallish room of Paul Stanley's artwork.

What struck me first is that a lot of it looks a whole lot alike. There seem to be three predominant themes.

There are circles, hearts and Kiss. Change the sizes and the mediums and you're pretty well done.

The simplest paintings looked like they could have come out of just about any elementary art class, except that they were surely done in expensive oils on canvas rather than in fingerpaint on butcher paper. That, and the smallest ones went for $1500. I don't think that too many kindergarten students would be able to score that sort of income off of their work.

Invariably, these were hearts and peace signs, and looked like there was paint on the canvas that had simply been built up to a relatively even level and then given a comb-like texture. I'm sure that Mr. Stanley spent countless hours perfecting the look, which is why it cost so much - the oil paints can't be cheap. But other than his celebrity, I'm not really sure why anyone would want these pieces.

Moving up the ladder, there were some medium-sized pieces that were of faces - mostly Kiss, but also a self-portrait and another version entitled "Scream" that reminded me of a clown, and frankly was a bit odd-looking. These were a bit pricier, but the quality really wasn't very good. I am not saying this to say that it's an easy thing to paint people, as it isn't.

Taking another step up to the larger pictures was the sweet spot, and you can take that literally. The focus of effort seems to be on circular patterns, and they are actually quite nice looking, but at somewhere around $5000, they were a bit out of my price range. With that in mind, however, they probably aren't badly priced, and they were attractive enough - they just weren't terribly different from one to the next. Essentially imagine a circular pattern and you've got it.

The final pieces were extremely large and (apparently) unique, as they were priced as such - upwards of $65000 in at least one case. Perhaps these were used as models to reproduce the others, but the others did seem to be originals, so I can't really say.

If you purchased something, you were able to get a glass of wine and stand in another line, where you could wait to talk to Paul Stanley. Unfortunately, we didn't buy anything, so we didn't even get to see him. I'm frankly not even sure how long that would have taken.