One of my favorite paintings at the Frick Museum in NYC is The Polish Rider, 1655 by Rembrandt (although there is a small minority that contests its attribution).  An amazing work full of mystery and atmospheric background, I used to stand my students in front of the painting and, to get them involved in the work and Rembrandt, would say to picture yourself as the avatar of the young rider, and that, like in a video game, you could travel through the majestic and strange romantic world of the Rider and discover wonderful things about yourself (and the world) in the process.

My painting is referenced from an old publicity photo of Kermit the Frog in Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas.  From 1977, it was one of the first Jim Henson Muppet specials, and although it didn’t star Kermit, it was a terrific new series of Muppets based on the Wind and the Willows-like world children’s book by Russell Hoban, illustrated by his then wife Lillian Hoban. In a twist of the O. Henry story the Gift of the Maji , young Emmet sacrifices his Ma’s washtub to turn into a washtub base for his jug-band to win a contest to give his Ma a present—and she sacrifices Emmet’s tools for a dress to win the contest to give a gift to her son.  It is a beautiful and melodic tale—and only in the beginning and ending does Kermit appear as a narrative (but not in all the versions, when he was edited out for TV, etc.).  The special originated on HBO, which I didn’t have growing up, so saw this special later, but it was terrifically innovative for Henson and his team, who developed animatronics, marionette puppetry, and other techniques to make their Muppets seem fully formed in a world of their own, able to have independence in their movements—rowing boats downstream in a river, and yes, for Kermit to ride his bike!  This was the second time they attempted this—the first was the Muppet Valentine’s Show from 1974 (a precursor to what would become the Muppet Show), but for Emmet Otter, the world was vaster and more seamless, the autumnal colors and environment a romantic melancholic world that espoused synesthetically the atmospheres that were perfect for this moving Christmas special.

I loved this image, which was an outtake from the special that didn’t appear in the program.  I searched long and hard for the original source image, to find one that wasn’t so “small” and pixelated, but to no avail, and decided to lean into the pixels, painting them as if they were real, or like a Seurat-like pointillist impressionist landscape.  The image must have first appeared in a TV Guide small or something, that someone must have scanned, and then was reproduced ad infinitum online, as the image isn’t so much made of pixels as like a daisy-flowered, moray-like pattern of mechanically reproduced color abstractions that I then tried to reproduce as faithfully as I could, allowing for a painterliness and emotion through my brushstrokes (but also allowing for the freedom and fun to paint as I was inspired, not always sticking to the grid of the distortions):

I’ve loved this image, which was an outtake from the special that didn’t appear in the program.  I searched long and hard for the original source image, to find one that wasn’t so “small” and pixelated, but to no avail, and decided to lean into the pixels, painting them as if they were real, or like a Seurat-like pointillist impressionist landscape.  The image must have first appeared in a TV Guide small or something, that someone must have scanned, and then was reproduced ad infinitum online, as the image isn’t so much made of pixels as like a daisy-flowered, moray-like pattern of mechanically reproduced color abstractions that I then tried to reproduce as faithfully as I could, allowing for a painterliness and emotion through my brushstrokes (but also allowing for the freedom and fun to paint as I was inspired, not always sticking to the grid of the distortions):

I was looking a lot at Seurat and some of the other Pointillism-inspired impressionists, whom were such favorites growing up, and realized they were also visionary and ahead of their time for how images might be broken up in modern printing for reproduction, and of course the pixels of our computer age.  But it was also fun painting through the distortion to the image, almost like painting through a fog of fractals, or a more painterly version of Lichtenstein’s Benday Dot patterns (that were originally used to emulate half-tones in comic books and strips of his time). In a spiritual way, it also reminded me of the interconnectedness of all things—humans vs. nature, as Kermit is so fully immersed in this scene—with his bird “familiar” (the name given to small animal spirit friends in Japanese Anime and other mythos).  Growing up in Colorado, I spent my weekends in the mountains skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer, and felt a deep connection to the wilderness of this image, so much like the wilderness of my own home environment of my youth where I came of age.

The whole notion of the puppet is that they can become avatars for the viewer, simplified and essentialized, and especially in the case of an anthropomorphized animal the character can be relatable arguably by anyone.  In the case of Kermit, I self-identified with this frog who was always kind and generous–and queer, as he didn’t have cis-male genitals, was on again/off again romantically involved with Miss Piggy—herself a gender-fluid being!).  In a somewhat non-patriarchal, heteronormative way, Kermit would also gently try to control the chaos of the Muppet madness surrounding him.  Originally inspired by Pogo the Possum, the iconic character created by Disney defector and comic strip artist Walt Kelly, who had his own quiet hero surrounded by wild egos and personalities of his allegorical Okefenokee Swamp, Kermit originates (at least in the first Muppet Movie from 1979) from his own swamp in Southern Florida.  In that film, Dom DeLuise, playing a Hollywood Agent, is lost in his boat and comes upon Kermit playing a lonely soliloquy of “The Rainbow Connection” on his banjo, and tells Kermit to go to Hollywood to make “millions of people happy”.  Kermit takes his advice, and brandishing his own bike, begins his journey.  Muppets on bikes had been a unique theme for Henson and Co. since the earlier days of Emmet Otter and the Valentines Show and was the amazing way that Henson could show his eponymous character to have truly a “life of his own”—like Pinocchio, the puppet “with no strings”!  Identifying with Kermit was also a way for a person to identify with their own free-standing agency and spirit—a self that went beyond the flesh, transcending into another avatar free in another world.

I’m hoping with this work, like standing in front of Rembrandt’s Polish Rider, that the viewer can relate and identify with Kermit in his own mysterious and romantic journey into another world, guided by his own Jiminy Cricket-like superego epitomized by Kermit’s bird friend. As the viewer makes sense of the pointillist-like architecture of the painted frenzy of abstracted brush marks to put together in their mind the scene, hopefully this little bit of brainwork also helps to engage and relate more their own experiences they might reflect upon while viewing the scene.  Also, for myself while painting (being a son of a psychoanalyst with a penchant for the unconscious!), hoping the distortions help to have my own inner mind seeping into and opening through my own projection and meditation while painting, I hope the background and elements break into micro-managed dream like worlds that Kermit can be guiding the viewer into, like a living dream.  The bottom part of the painting is less micro-managed into fragments, as I hope that this also gives a sense of movement—the subjective motion of elements breaking away from the tires of the bike as Kermit rides from this world of enigmatic beauty into a future of confidence and strength, a new resolve out of the forest of the symbolic space of fairytales and folklore, using the story of what was learned on the journey, to make life a better place in the real world.