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Friday, October 6, 2006

A Postcard From Terminal B

posted by on October 6 at 12:49 PM

Jen Graves just called me from Terminal B of the George H.W. Bush airport in Houston, Texas.

“What can you see?” I asked.
“Miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of Texas.”
“What does it smell like?”
“Rug. New rug.”

She was calling to tell me that a painting, called Honorific by Seattle artist Joe Park made an appearance on last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

“What scene was it in?” I asked.
“I don’t know, someone else just called me about it, but I’m going to download the episode as soon as I get to Dallas.”

Jen wrote her first-ever review for Art in America about Joseph Park. (I couldn’t find it archived on their site, but there’s a digital “reprint” of the piece here. In it, she says:

The surfaces of the oils on linen and canvas are as smooth as television cartoons. Park often substitutes bears, bunnies and elephants for human subjects and makes the light moody and cinematic. His scenes, in which the characters wear stylized masks, are cloaked in the conventions of film, photography, animation, pinup posters or French painting of the 18th and 19th centuries… The images invoke a specific, usually anxious, moment within a story that is never explained, only suggested.

I couldn’t find an internet image of Honorific, but here’s one called Chess:

01367.jpg

And here’s another, called Harem (After Elvgren):

01480.jpg

(Gil Evlgren, in case you were wondering, was a pin-up artist.)

And this melancholy little guy (which, improbably, makes an image of a Japanese altar romantic in a dusty, European, Django Reinhardt kind of way) called Crescent Silhouette:

02686l.jpg

Anyway—Jen wants you all to know that one of this guy’s paintings was on Grey’s Anatomy. She’ll write more about it later.

“One more thing,” she said. “There’s a voice coming over the intercom advertising the interfaith chapel, saying it’s ‘open twenty-four hours, all day.’ That’s ‘twenty-four hours comma all day.’ Except when she says all day it sounds like all die—because we’re in Texas.”

RSS icon Comments

1

The bronze statue they have of HW bush in that airport looks like what the statute of lenin in fremont would look like if soviet russia had mail-order catalogues.

both have a windswept image of an iconic man, only if I recall correctly unlike lenin bush isn't wearing his jacket, its slung over his shoulder.

Posted by charles | October 6, 2006 1:27 PM
2

I love how that it had to be "Intercontinental" just to emphasize this isn't any dinky airport. No jaunts to Mexico and Canada, we're Europe and Asia bound here!

When I try to conjure an image of purgatory, the DFW airport comes to mind. Houston is hell.

Posted by golob | October 6, 2006 1:34 PM
3

Yeah, and the jacket's shooting straight back from his shoulder to suggest a strong wind, which comes off pretty hilarious indoors (and bronze). How I wish it were Fremont-Lenin-sized!

Posted by Jared | October 6, 2006 1:38 PM
4

The rabbits are playing Go but the piece is called Chess. Go figure (wocka wocka wocka)

Posted by Thank You, Thank You, You're Too Kind. I'll Be Here All Week. | October 6, 2006 1:39 PM
5

You know what I'm always noticing in Grey's Anatomy? There's a Low - The Great Destroyer poster that's always popping up in different locations. Sometimes it's behind the nurses' desk, sometimes it's in the MRI room . . . I've seen a Postal Service poster a couple times, too.

Posted by Levislade | October 6, 2006 1:57 PM
6

Another Seattle artist has been featured since the first season. My friend and Seatle artist, Joey Robinson. Two of his black maids are in one frame above Dr. Burke's buffet.
You should interview him. It is a great story on how he was "discovered."

Posted by Friend of Joey's | October 6, 2006 5:06 PM

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