Chuck Close

Speaking of Lisa Yuskavage: At her opening on February 19, I saw Chuck Close cruising around in his extremely cool wheelchair, which can rear up on two wheels. It's called an iBot and is apparently no longer being made despite how awesome it is. Being able to go up on its hind wheels like that has the salutary effect of a) making the user look like a badass cyborg Transformer and b) bringing the user's face up to eye level so they don't have to feel like they're being talked down to all the time.

For those of you who don't know: Mr. Close suffered a spinal artery aneurysm which left him a quadriplegic thirty years into his nearly fifty-year-long (so far) art career. I didn't realize he relies on a wheelchair until I saw Joe Fig's sculpture of him. I found out then that we both use Gamblin paints -- so we have something in common, that we're both former airbrush artists who now use Gamblin. Sometime later I saw a documentary about his career which filled in more details.

I greatly admire Mr. Close. I can only imagine the difficulties and frustrations he's had to face. It seems to me to be bad enough to find oneself paralyzed; to be paralyzed when you're an artist is that much worse; and then to be a paralyzed airbrush artist -- I don't think anyone who hasn't airbrushed can appreciate the level of precision, control, and practice it requires. Mr. Close's airbrush works show he was an absolute master of his instrument. To have all that taken away -- I've heard about more than one painter who, after having a stroke paralyzing their dominant arm, re-learned to paint using their other hand. That's impressive. But what Mr. Close has done is an order of magnitude more difficult.

I wish I could've talked to him to tell him how much I admire him. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I'm telling you.