THE OBAMAS CHOOSE TWO BLACK ARTISTS, KEHINDE WILEY & AMY SHERALD, TO PAINT THEIR OFFICIAL PORTRAITS

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has commissioned a pair of rising-star artists —New York’s Kehinde Wiley and Baltimore’s Amy Sherald— to paint official portraits of the former president and first lady.

Both artists have exhibited widely (and I’ve reported on them both here for the Wow Report) but this presidential assignment is somewhat of a coup. The Obamas also made a point to champion the arts during their time in the White House, which has heightened art-world curiosity over which artists they would choose.

The Smithsonian confirmed yesterday that former President Obama has asked to be painted by Mr. Wiley and Ms. Sherald will paint Ms. Obama.

Wiley, 40, is an openly gay artist who has an art degree from Yale University and is best known for his vivid portraits of young, black men in imperious, Old-Master poses.

Sherald, 34, uses a palette of grays instead of skin tones and are typically dressed in bright patterns and set against solid swaths of saturated color.

A spokeswoman for the National Portrait Gallery wouldn’t disclose details about the portraits until they are unveiled early next year, after which they’ll join the museum’s collection. Anticipation in art circles is high because the Obamas have chosen artists with major followings.

The Smithsonian’s set of presidential and first-lady portraits remains distinct from the White House’s own collection of portraits, though. It was the White House that first enlisted an African-American artist to paint a presidential portrait when it hired Simmie Knox, a self-taught artist from Alabama, in 2000 to paint the Clintons.

Mr. Wiley and Ms. Sherald are the first black artists hired by the Smithsonian to paint a president and his first lady. The Smithsonian said it plans to pay for the works via private donations.

Both artists declined to speak about their respective portraits of the Obamas until they are unveiled.

(Images, Wiley & Sherald; via The Wall Street Journal)

THESE POTUS ASS-KICKIN' MACHINES ARE READY FOR THE MOVIES (PLUS, ONE SCARY PREDICTION)

I’m not a big war-monger, but I DO like a good satire so, I was kind of blown away by these illustrations of Presidents kicking (and killing) some major ass, Hollywood-style. We’ve already seen Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Wonder what other POTUS fantasy action thrillers are in the pipeline? Nothing so far on what a killing Bernie Bot from the future or Hillary's Bitch Hunter might look like but one possibly dire prediction that would Trump them all. All art is by Jason Heuser. You find his etsy shop here.

OK, IF TRUMP IS TOO EXTREME, THEN SO IS SANDERS...

The anger out there, on both sides is palpable. The right is pissed that the “Liberal media” and Obama’s “hopey changey” ideals have infected the country…and the left is also pissed that Obama didn’t kick ass more and terrified of ANY of the GOP candidates winning The White House. Hence the era of the outsider; Donald Trump & Bernie Sanders. If you were casting opposites in a political drama, you couldn’t go any further on the specrum without lapsing into parody. After last night’s win in New Hampshire for Sanders and Trump, I have to get this off my chest.

Here’s my point. Let’s see if I can state it simply enough. I really don’t have to cite of lot of examples– I can, and will– but you know what I mean if I say;

If Donald Trump is TOO extreme, then so is Bernie Sanders.

Each is a reaction to the other emphasized with anger. So many of my liberal friends who like (and voted for) Barack Obama (both times) were “disappointed in him –more than once. They wanted him to be MORE extreme and go after the party of “No”. But calmer head(s) prevailed and slow and steady has gotten us a LONG way. I don’t have to cite Obama’s record or tell you how cool he’s been under the most extreme pressure. 

That’s what we need. Someone who can game the system. The two best politicians of my generation are named Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and a second Clinton is coming up.

I DO get why people love Bernie. I like him too. But we don’t need radical overhaul a this moment. I’m afraid it won’t work. Republicans will slaughter him and and we’ll end up with another Jimmy Carter. A well-meaning, brilliant but ineffective commander-in-chief. We need a continuum, not a fresh start. All of the things that Bernie is after, Hillary is too. People paint them as radically different but as Senators, they voted the same 90% of the time.

Of course, his supporters can’t see this, because polls say Bernie can WIN! But if he gets the nomination, all bets are off. The GOP will start smearing. They want Hillary out of the way. They think they can beat Bernie. Even if he can win, he will not be able to wave a magic wand and recreate the country as a socialist one.

The writer George Hodgman had this to say a few seeks ago, 

“I think you could argue that Hillary Clinton is the most successful, powerful, ambitious, informed political woman in American history. I mean, isn’t she? Whatever happens, she will be the one who really made the leap and played it in the big room with the big, mean boys. She has lived inside the political realities of her time, sometimes triumphing over them, sometimes playing the game there was.”

So, again, my point is we DON’T need extremism. The country is already divided. We DO need someone who can work with Congress, be respected on the world stage and make concrete changes. If you went out to design a political animal that was the EXACT opposite of Donald Trump, you really would come up with Bernie Sanders. The other end of the spectrum entirely.

FYI, The White House just unveiled its budget plan, and the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee won't even LOOK AT IT. Divisiveness with a new POTUS will only get worse, kids..

I won’t go into the reasons why I think Bernie is a dangerous risk as a nominee and POTUS, but one big concern is his age. Elected at 75, he would have a hard time being re-elected pushing 80. (Nice to be optimistic, but if you have grandparents, you see what can happen between 70 and 80, even without the pressures of the entire world on your shoulders.

The GOP is terrified of Hillary Clinton. They have been running a smear campaign for decades now and some of their slamming has stuck. Don’t believe it or don’t care? I’ve seen the Hillary hating VERBATIM, direct from the GOP playbook coming out of the mouths of liberal Democrats.

Think about the big picture. Can we take a chance with this election? With possibly 4 Supreme Court justices retiring in the next 4-8 years, with healthcare and marriage equality, a volatile world, tricky foreign relations, gun violence in the U.S. out of control and even Bernie’s signature issue, income inequality can be addressed by a candidate named Clinton. And don’t forget, you get a twofer with Hillary with Bill as First Dude!

OK. I’m done. But if it all goes horribly wrong, don’t think I won’t say, “I told you so!”

NO, THAT'S NOT ED SHEERAN + 17 OTHER STAR SELFIE DISAPPOINTMENTS

Everyone would like to meet a celebrity and do a humble “no big deal” post about it. But for these guys it really WAS “no biggie”, because they had their picture taken with a random stranger. Someone your Mom might mistake for Johnny Depp or Reese Withspoon but really, there’s no excuse for most of these. (And I’m guessing the impersonator just went along with it…?) The Drake twin is kinda passable, in the dark maybe, but not after the flash, kids. But Bill Murray? And ginger guys EVERYWHERE must be rejoicing that Ed Sheeran is a celeb now.

MURDERER/ARTIST RICHARD MATT PAINTED HILLARY, BILL, OBAMA, OPRAH, MARILYN & JULIA ROBERTS...

A nation-wide manhunt for the prisoner escapees from Dannemora Correctional Facilitycame to an end over the weekend, as the pair were both shot on separate occasions. The one escapee, David Sweat, remains in critical condition, the other, Richard W. Matt, a convicted murderer, died last Friday due to three gunshots to his head. Besides being a skilled escapee, Matt was also regarded as a skilled painter. In an article from the New York Times, Matt was described by a fellow prisoner, John Mulligan; 

He was “the best in the system that anyone could recall.”

Portraits of loved ones, images of celebrities and political figures, were often bartered by Matt with guards and inmates in return for favors. So much so, that Matt was able to strike a deal with Gene Palmer, a security guard, who was such a fan of Matt’s art, he traded art supplies and helped smuggle in tools for the prisoner’s escape. 

Matt’s work includes actresses Angelina Jolie and Julie Roberts. He also dabbled in drawings of Hillary Clinton and a young Barack Obama, depicting him with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the background. Oprah also got Matt’s attention. Matt wrote on the signature line of the portrait.

“She changed so many lives. Thank you, Oprah.” 

Creepy as all this is, prison art, particularly of notorious convicts such as Charles Mansonand John Wayne Gacy, have a “niche” collector base. This art is found in local galleries, on eBay, and some controversial websites including the horribly titled murderauction.com and serialkillersink.net. 

Before you get even further creeped out consider some are rehabilitated through art. John Waters, who used to speak at prisons, once said to a group of inmates about the power of art;

“My films are my crimes.”

Very glib and funny, but also probably somewhat true. For many art is an outlet for their darker side. A former prisoner, Anthony Papa, was serving 15 years to life in a prison in Ossining, N.Y. when he was taught how to paint. He told The New York Times;

Art is “a very powerful rehabilitating tool…not only for the prisoner, but for the institution.”

After his release, Papa has gone on to some success as a painter, making works about social justice and selling them for four figures. New York art dealer Andrew Edlin, who owns and runs the Outsider Art Fair, predicts Matt’s art will not become more valuable because of its quality, but rather the notoriety surrounding its story. 

“Their [collectors’] reasons would be purely mercenary. I think, to me, this is sort of a pop-oddity culture story rather than an art world story.”

Don’t forget, the worst mass murderer in history, Adolf Hitler was an artist too. If only he and Richard Matt had stuck to painting... and George W. Bush too, as far as I'm concerned as crappy as he is as an artist, he was a worse president.