Tears for TIME

Back in 1989, I was a busy horror book cover artist hoping to move into editorial. I was trained as a trompe l'oeil painter at Paier College of Art as well as a portrait painter. So, I was living in Philadelphia, 24, and got a call to do a TIME cover. They had a Gilbert Stewart portrait of George Washington that they wanted a tear on. Rudy Hogland was the head AD at the time but I worked with Arthur Hochstein. I said that I needed to paint many tears so that they could drop the correct key down on the portrait. Photoshop was not yet a tool commonly used. So, I painted around 10 tears on a panel. One was chosen and I had my first cover of Time, shared with Gilbert Stewart. The tears are in the National Gallery. It took a while to get TIME to consider me for more than a tear until I began doing covers in the early 90's. They are the juice no other job can compare to for me. I have actually lost track of how many I've done and how many have run. I think it's healthy for me to not keep track. Recently TIME has undergone a redesign. For most of us, when a client we like switches ADs or Managing Editors or gets redesigned, we get anxious. Therefore, it was a pleasant and poignant surprise to hear Arthur call this week and ask me to paint a tear for the cover. A water drop is a formula and if you need to place one on a photo in 2007, Photoshop is the answer. So I painted several tears and one was chosen and is now on the cover of the redesign, running down Reagan's rosy cheek. It was fun to do and a cool bookend. The first cover was with the same sized logo. Just a few weeks ago at UARTS in Philadelphia, I painted some water drops on the wall, demonstrating artistic graffiti. When I was at Paier College it was a past time of my pal Steve Brennan and I to paint trompe l'oeil gags around the studio. I did a successful wall outlet that is still there 20 years later. Another thing was painting holes in the walls, pencil shavings on the floor and a quarter. Watching the custodian sweep over and over the pencil shavings was the highest form of praise a realist can get. I still find great joy out of fooling the eye.