Johnny Tats

 

by Pa Rock

Art Appreciator

I have several interesting works of art in on display in my home, none of which have much monetary value and all of which either have a personal connection to family members or friends - or just appeal to me personally.

My kitchen table harbors its own art collection, or perhaps taken in its entirety, it is itself a work of art.  The table is a heavy, wooden, rectangular piece of furniture  that I put together from a kit many years ago.  It is surrounded by four heavy chairs that match each other but not the table, chairs that I found in an import store and have long since forgotten the country from which they were imported.

No one in our family of two bachelors and two dogs eats at the table, though Rosie often eats beneath it.  The table sits just inside of the back door, so it tends to "catch" items as they are being carried into the house:  the mail, bags of groceries, my hat, etc.  There are also a few fairly permanent items on the kitchen table including a sad looking spider plant in an oversized container, my blood pressure machine along with a stack of blood pressure readings dating back to last January, and the nearly constant case or two of water waiting patiently to be shelved in the refrigerator a few bottles at a time.  And, as mentioned above, the table also now has its own art collection, at least for the time being.

The table's art collection presently stands at two items.  One is a framed and matted, black-and-white print of a pen-and-ink drawing of country singing legend Johnny Cash.  It was a Christmas gift from my daughter, and it has landed on the table until I can figure out where I want to hang it.  While I am a fan of "the man in black," I would not have gone out looking for a drawing of him to display on the walls of my home, but this one is so unique that I do want to show it off in just the right location, and I am currently mulling the best place to do that - so it has remained on the kitchen table for the past month.

This drawing of Johnny Cash is unlike any other depiction of him that I have ever come across.  He looks older, smaller, and more wizened than any photographs of the star show him to have been.   Even though his skin shows plenty of age, his hair is jet black.    He is wearing a black suit with the jacket and white shirt both open and revealing a large flaming heart with a banner reading  "Walk the Line" tattooed across his bare chest.  There is a rumpled, silk handkerchief square in the front pocket of the jacket.  The singer's face is haggard to the point that he looks both sinister and old, and he has an unlit cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.  At a distance, and through the tired eyes of a septuagenarian, he looks almost as much like Humphrey Bogart as he does Johnny Cash.  

The singer's hands, which are raised toward his chest, look as though they are covered in prison tattoos.  The left hand features a pistol just below the thumb, with the index finger displaying a large "C," the middle finger an "A," the next a "$," and the little finger an "H."  The right hand has a flying dove below the thumb , something indistinguishable (at least to me) on the index finger, and a crusader's shield bearing a crucifix on the middle finger.

He gives the impression of a television evangelist who is just getting home from a hard night of carousing.

I don't really like receiving art as a gift because I feel like I should put it on display whether it appeals to me or not, but I found this gift to be compelling.  It is hard to walk by it without stopping to stare.  I guess my daughter knows her old man fairly well.  If anyone comes across a black-and-white print of a tattooed June Carter, please let me know.  I would like to have the set!

The other piece of art currently residing on my kitchen table is a weather-beaten, cast iron garden gnome, but I will discuss him in some other posting.  He is part of a squad of gnomes that I plan to repaint and send on a mission.

I'll get around to the gnome after I hang Johnny.