PAINTER OF LIGHT: LIGHTS OUT

Thomas Kinkade’s final resting place... as he might have painted it.

Thomas Kinkade, the self-styled Painter of Light, has now found permanent residence in a Dark Place at the age of 54.

Kinkade specialized in art that portrayed rustic stone cottages, grassy meadows, streams, country gardens, wooden bridges, lighthouses, and churches, all bathed in his signature Cozmik Glow™. It’s work that has a certain undeniable appeal... to the same sort of people who collect paintings of sad-eyed clowns and puppies, or who make their living selecting things to hang on the wall of the local Holiday Inn. And given his huge commercial success, there must be a whole lot of those folks out there.

I’ve written about Mr. Kinkade before, but to be honest, I did not expect that I would be dealing with Matters Obituary quite this soon.

Perhaps in the World to Come, Tom Kinkade and Bob Ross can paint glowing happy trees together while the shade of Vincent van Gogh gnashes his teeth enviously. Despite the tens of millions of dollars each one of van Gogh’s canvases fetches today, he never enjoyed any of those Big Bucks in his own lifetime, alas... unlike the prolific and crowd-pleasing Kinkade.

My only question: Will the place to which Good Painter Tom is headed be bathed in its own, err, ahhh... warm glow?