Obama’s Face Rules the Web

[babylonsister]

Obama’s Face Rules the Web

Ron Keas

VIRTUAL GALLERY President Obama has captured the imagination of artists worldwide, and many are finding an audience online. More Photos at link~



By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: May 30, 2009


Mimi Torchia Boothby’s job as a technician puts her outside a wind tunnel every weekday at the Boeing plant south of Seattle, but in her free time two years ago she took up watercolors. Among her favorite subjects are cats, idyllic scenes of Italy — and, of course, Barack Obama, whose contemplative, sun-splashed portrait she completed a few weeks after his election as president.

She was so happy with it she started offering fine prints of it on the Web, her first proud professional act as an artist, and has since sold more than two dozen at $40 apiece. “Talk about viral,” Ms. Boothby, 57, said. “Most of the people who bought them were people I didn’t even know.”

Perhaps not since John F. Kennedy, whose dusty portraits can still be seen in kitchens and barbershops and alongside the antique beer cans at bars like Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta, has a presidency so fanned the flames of painterly ardor among hobbyist and professional artists.

Mr. Obama’s campaign was well known for inspiring art, including Shepard Fairey’s ubiquitous “Hope” poster, a copy of which is now in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Months after the election, with the glow of the administration’s first 100 days dimming, it might have been expected that enthusiasm for Obama art would be dimming, too.

Yet the still-ample offerings of original paintings of the president and the first family on eBay and at places like the annual Affordable Art Fair in New York — along with a crop of presidential-art-obsessed Internet sites including obamaartreport.com, artofobama.com and, inevitably, badpaintingsofbarackobama.com — are indications that it might just be a growth industry.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/arts/design/31pain.html?ref=us

[Jackeens]

1. Love the photo from the obamaartreport.com site

:-)

[msongs]

8. u sure? che guevara was a socipathic serial killer. nt

[babylonsister]

11. Ooh, another hit and run from msongs. Same as it ever was. nt

[Jackeens]

14. Isn't that how history goes: one man's sociopathic serial killer is another's 'freedom fighter'?

[Cha]

2. More evidence of Obama single handedly

stimulating the economy:P

"Ms. Boothby said she is now managing to make a little money on the side with her brushes and easel and credits Mr. Obama. “I think that portrait I did of the president was kind of a touchstone for my confidence, painting-wise,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “I’m not sure I would have been able to start doing commissions if I hadn’t gotten as warm a reception as I did for that one painting.”

I really like that painting of him that she did with the White House in the background..

This ain't bad, either.

[babylonsister]

3. I'm wondering if this is DUer mimitabby? I know she painted a few

pix of the prez. :shrug:

Edit to add, yes she can, and it is!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7899071

[Cha]

4. OMG!

:cry::) That gives me chills! OMG:bounce::fistbump:

[babylonsister]

6. Pretty cool, lots of exposure, too! I just sent her a link. nt

[Cha]

7. All right!

I would get one for $40 bucks.

[Cha]

5. "$40 a piece"! I

want one!

[Raine1967]

9. I remember when she posted this!

That is so damn cool!

[babylonsister]

10. NYT-Big Time! nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. Rec #5. Thanks for posting this. And congrats to mimi. (nt)

:kick:

[ColbertWatcher]

13. Sorry, but there are still more pictures of cats in the tubes than anything else, including porn.