The point of this entry is to tell you how much I dig Norman Rockwell. The story starts with a conversation I had last Friday afternoon. I called up the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, and had the following conversation about Norman Rockwell:

Her: Museum of Art, how can I help you?
Me: (voice almost cracking with excitement) When is Norman Rockwell coming?
Her: (laughing at me, but covering up with a fake cough) The Norman Rockwell exhibit starts on November 14th.
Me: (trying not to sound dissapointed) oh. Not till then?
Her: Yes. The Norman Rockwell exhibit will be from November 14th until February 13th.
Me: (giggling like a little boy) the exhibit is that long?!?!?!
Her: Yes
Me: Sorry, I’m kind of excited.
Her: I can tell
Me: (sheepishly) I’m a big fan

Yes that’s right. The prospect of a Norman Rockwell exhibit coming to town is enough to reduce me to an 8-year-old-boy-on-Christmas like giddiness.

If you’ve been snooping around this website, and if you’ve checked out my About page, you already know that I have an interest in illustration, drawing, and painting. You’ll also know that this website is part of my rediscovery of that interest.

In the process of launching this website and exploring that creative side I left behind all those years ago when I decided to study Political Science and Law instead of Creative Writing and Fantasy Illustration, I am also discovering those golden nuggets of nostalgia from the fog of my childhood. Those things that made me such an art/sci-fi/writing nerd to begin with. There are the fantasy illustrators: Larry Elmore, Frank Frazetta, Jeff Easley, etc. There are the Science Fiction writers: Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams, Robert Aspryn, etc. And then there are the non fantasy/sci-fi influences.

The two shining examples are Norman Rockwell and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ll save Doyle for another day.

But let me back up and give you some context. Last Monday, I was experiencing my normal early morning hazy-brained, drive to work, reminding myself it would all be okay because coffee was awaiting me at the office, when the NPR announcer’s voice cut into my zen/hazy state of mind.

Something about Norman Rockwell.

What? Norman Rockwell? I focused my attention, trying to think 15 seconds into the past, to remember what the radio announcer had said while I was (day) dreaming of coffee. Nope. Nothing. Why couldn’t they said Norman Rockwell at the beginning of the ad? That way I would know to pay attention.

The answer is that this is NPR. They pride themselves in using a style that does not grap your attention. I realized I would have to wait until the ad came on again, and I would have to apy attention to every, single announcement that I heard, from the beginning, until I found out what was going on with Norman Rockwell.

As a result, I spent the entire week listening intently to every NPR commercial that came on the radio. As you can imagine, this is extremely difficult to do. All radio ads are painfull to begin with, but NPR makes it worse because they don’t actually run ads. If it were a normal radio station, they would try to hold your attention in some way. For example, if they want to advertise the upcoming monster truck show, they’ll have a bunch of revving engines and gravelly voices shouting at you (to make it exciting, of course).

Normal radio stations know they can’t make it interesting – it’s a radio ad – but they at least try.

NPR doesn’t even try. After all, it’s public radio. So, instead of “ads,” they run “announcements.” For example. this would be a typical announcement, which isn’t an ad, because they are simply announcing something that a “donor” is doing, not running an ad for someone who paid them for the advertising time: This Thursday, it’s a pleasant evening with Dodge Drivel, founder of the boring foundation. Come visit Mr. Drivel as he explains how to be really boring.

And if you have ever listened to NPR – even just a few seconds – you know about that monotone voice. If Robin Williams read the above announcement, at least there would be some peaks and valleys in his voice, and you might be able to make it throught the entire announcement. But not NPR. They don’t like inflections.

So it was painful, but Norman Rockwell is worth it. I listened to the announcements all week, to and from work. Finally, on Friday they reran the announcemt. It turns out the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art will be having a Norman Rockwell exhibit. The problem is that, this being NPR, I zoned out before they got to the part where they tell you when the exhibit will be. But I overcame that issue, because now we have the internet. So, when I got to the office, I looked up the museum’s phone number and called, resulting in the above conversation.

But that’s not the point. The point is that I really like Norman Rockwell as an artist. I get the impression a lot of people consider him a lightweight as an artist. They call him an illustrator, trying to say it in a way that makes it sound like an insult. But in the end, it’s really a question of what speaks to you. Mostly, paintings of dragons and warrior princesses speak to me. But Norman Rockwell paintings speak to me too. This would make sense, I supposed, because Norman Rockwell was not painting reality. He was painting an idealised version of reality.

That’s what happens when you are an illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, and for the Boy Scouts, and for Life magazine. Later in his career he took on the racism question, and that was also impressive, but for different reasons.

 Plus, as this article expertely points out, he was a decent guy, aside from his art. I’m so excited, I think I’ll go pick up my brush and paints right now!