The Cheech

 

by Pa Rock

Art Lover

As a lifetime appreciator of art who has no artistic abilities whatsoever, I stand in awe of people who can express themselves through mediums like drawing, painting, sculpting, and all of the other myriad of forms of making art.  My mother began painting in her sixties, just a few years before she passed away, and the paintings of hers that I have in my home today are both memories and treasures of her very brief time on earth.  I also have a few extraneous pieces by other artists that I have "collected" over the years from places like fleas markets and garage sales, and while none of those have any quantifiable "value," they are nevertheless valuable and important to me - items which take me out of the daily grind and on to a more serene place.

Years ago when I was teaching night classes for a local community college, one of the text books that I was using had a picture of the painting, "View of Toledo" by El Greco on the inside cover, and I gradually formed an attachment to that wild, dark, and stormy image.  A few years later when a friend and I were in New York City and visiting "The Met" (Metropolitan Museum of Art), I stepped into a small room and was suddenly confronted with the original "View of Toledo" taking up much of the space on the wall that I was facing.  I remember there was a young woman sitting on a padded bench in front of the painting staring at it, obviously lost in its magnificence.  I quietly walked up behind her and stared also.  It was breath-taking, a moment in my life that will be with me always.

Art has power, and El Greco's nighttime image of the small town of Toledo, Spain, was rattling my world more than four hundred years after he had finished the classic work.

Recently I have been reading about an expansion of the Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California.  The museum has added a building to house the formidable Chicano art collection of comedian Cheech Marin, a member of the legendary comedy duo of Cheech and Chong.  Marin, who is seventy-six and a third generation Mexican American, began forming a deep attachment to Chicano art when he was at the height of his comedy career and in a financial position to purchase any art that caught his attention.  When the Riverside Art Museum acquired a building - the former Riverside Public Library -  that was large enough for a permanent and rotating display of Chicano art, they approached Marin about a possible partnernship to place his collection on public display - and the entertainer accepted the challenge of the venture.  The project opened to the public on June 18, 2022.

Today the project is officially known as the "Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture of the Riverside Art Museum," but it quickly became more commonly known as "The Cheech."  Of course, it did!  "The Cheech" is literally awash in the bright colors and bold lines of Chicano art, I believe that "The Cheech," like "The Met," is calling for me to come visit and immerse myself in its vivid culture and unique identity.

Perhaps this summer.