seesa
05-04-2010, 09:37 AM
I almost forgot about the amazing Chuck Close until I came across him yesterday. What a remarkable painter!!! I remember seeing his work at the Art Museum in Chicago. His technique can not be copied. Some of his work was made from just his fingerprints. But what some people don't know his life was not so perfect.
When Close was 11, his life became pure hell. His father died. His mother, a trained pianist who in the Great Depression gave up her aspirations for concert career, got breast cancer. They lost their home because of medical bills. His grandmother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. And Close, an only child, spent most of the year in bed with nephritis, a nasty kidney infection. At the age of 49, Close was at the height of his career as a portrait painter when he was stricken with a spinal blood clot that left him a quadriplegic. Many thought his career was over.
As he came to grips with life in a motorized wheelchair, unable to move from the neck down, with little hope for improvement, his biggest fear was that "I was not going to make art. Since I'll never be able to move again, I would not be able to make art. I watched my muscles waste. My hands didn't work." With all that he made a new techinque and became better than ever. It goes to show no matter what tragedies happen in your life you can still hold your head up high and pursue what you love.
When Close was 11, his life became pure hell. His father died. His mother, a trained pianist who in the Great Depression gave up her aspirations for concert career, got breast cancer. They lost their home because of medical bills. His grandmother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. And Close, an only child, spent most of the year in bed with nephritis, a nasty kidney infection. At the age of 49, Close was at the height of his career as a portrait painter when he was stricken with a spinal blood clot that left him a quadriplegic. Many thought his career was over.
As he came to grips with life in a motorized wheelchair, unable to move from the neck down, with little hope for improvement, his biggest fear was that "I was not going to make art. Since I'll never be able to move again, I would not be able to make art. I watched my muscles waste. My hands didn't work." With all that he made a new techinque and became better than ever. It goes to show no matter what tragedies happen in your life you can still hold your head up high and pursue what you love.