Images By Dirk
Here are copies of photographs of my artwork, saved over the years as Polaroids, snapshots, copies of newspaper & magazine pages. Some of the shots are a little fuzzy. Sorry! I never dreamed of publishing them! It also never occurred to me to keep records, so my recollection of the background of the paintings, when & why I painted them, who bought them, or who I gave them to, are as hazy as some of the images. They are mostly in chronological order, more or less. I have probably made a few mistakes when guessing the years. But they're close guesses.
I was just out of college, in the early'50s, when I started signing my drawings & paintings as "Dirk." Those were the days of one-name Gay artists, like "Quaintance" & "Etienne" & "Kris." One of my classmates & coffee-buddies at the U of U was a very sexy student from Holland, Dirk Van Der Elst. I decided that my pen-name would be Dirk Vanden & my nom-de-paintbrush would be "Dirk." For several years it was just a pseudonym; I was called "Dick." It had been a very common nick-name during all my school years. But to me, dick was a cock, a prick, a man-handle, but not a good artist's signature. But "Dirk" is more memorable. Anyway, when I moved in with Herb, he decided I would be Dirk. He called it my "chosen" not "given" name. We both assumed that my career as a writer would continue & it would be less confusing if I used the same name for everything.
"Deeper & Deeper..." a digital image by Dirk.
Sabra's Rose. When Sabra Hill, one of my co-workers, saw the red-red rose named "Deeper & Deeper," she wanted an enlargement 22"x28" to fit above the fireplace in her new home. (A good Christian mother of 3 kids, she has a tattoo of a rose on her shoulder.) That color would match her sofa & love-seat & carpet. The digital image couldn't be enlarged that much without its pixels showing, so I offered to paint it in oils for her & she accepted. She gave it to herself & her family for Christmas, 2006. It features my favorite oil color: Rose Madder.
One of my earliest paintings was a self-portrait: "The Flower Died" - oil on canvas, 1959. The first part of my Gay life was mostly unhappy & I tried to express those feelings in "The Flower Died." For years it hung on my parents' living room wall, in Salt Lake City - which will tell you something about my relationship with them & their perception - or lack of it - with me. They were Mormons. "Sad Clown" - oil on canvas board - 36"x24" - was painted in Hollywood, early 60s. One of several clown paintings, but the only good photograph. My life felt like a circus, after all the fun stuff had left town. I sold that for $35 to someone who felt much the same. Then I met Winn & everything changed.
I have a BFA in Theatre Art from the UofU in SLC. A few years after graduating, I was directing Children's Theater at The Eaglet Theater in Sacramento, 1962, when Winson Strickland came to tryouts to read for Prince Charming. Unfortunately, he couldn't act at all, even though he certainly looked the part, so I gave him the job of stage manager, which he performed perfectly for several years, first in Sacramento & then in Sherman Oaks, at the Valley Music Theater, for my children's theater, both places. He was an excellent artist in his own right & painted lots of our scenery. Somewhere in between, the inevitable happened & we became lovers. In Hollywood, he was the hit of the year at The Gauntlet, a Gay-motorcycle-club bar, on Melrose, when we moved South to try to get him into The Movies! "Winn" - oil on burlap - 1967 He looked great in black leather!
We also started patronizing the Gay baths in Glendale, bartering my drawings in their advertising for free admission to the baths. We had an "open" relationship by then. Winn was very popular at the baths - like a flower being followed by a swarm of hungry bees! This was the logo for a bar called The Jaguar by the same great guys who gave you The Gauntlet, Dale & Lucky. The framed original hung in the bar & was featured in their advertising, on cocktail napkins, etc., for years.
In 1967, Winn got a job with a Hollywood scene-shop, painting scenery for one of the shows in Las Vegas & we eventually moved there - where he fell in love with one of the dancers at Caesar's Palace & asked out of our relationship. It was actually a relief to have it be over without any fights or recriminations. We wished each other well.The connection between us had stopped working. We were from very different generations. He was a handsome Hippie Swinger (a woman in Sacramento claimed that he had sired her baby on one of his trips home &, in fact, she & the baby & her current boyfriend all moved in with us in Glendale for a horrible month or so until tests eventually proved the kid wasn't his & she moved out, but I understood her reason for wanting to hook him! He was gorgeous & could have anyone he wanted, male or female) & I was an average-looking Gay Ex-Mormon Beatnik. From Las Vegas, I moved to Sacramento, where my folks were living at the time, then to San Francisco, after I met Herb Finger, who looked enough like me to be my brother. In fact, many people asked if we were twins. We had a "Gay brotherly" relationship for 18 years.
In 1969, Herb & I visited Southern California on a vacation, & I was asked by Dale & Lucky to do a mural for their new bar, The Arena. I called it "The Cosmic Cock" & painted it with acrylic house-paint on the back wall of the bar. It took almost a week. I did the life-size figures while Herb painted & stylized the cock. Look closely & you'll see both our astrological signs therein. I still have no idea what the painting means! All I had with me was a Polaroid camera.
An illustration that never made it into the published version of TWIN ORBS ("EXILE IN PARADISE") 1969
In San Francisco, living with Herb, up on Buena Vista Terrace, overlooking the Castro, "Frenchy," of LeSalon asked me to draw the covers for my own books & several other of Frenchy's Gay Line's early publications. Repeating my successful gambit of exchanging advertising art for passes & beer in L. A., when I moved to San Francisco I approached the owners of DAVE'S BATHS for free passes in return for artwork. We got our free beer at THE STUD. My paintings hung in both. "Water boy" in oils, 24"x36". hung in Dave's TV lounge for many years.
"The Nicest Things Happen" - pencil on poster board. This was at first an ad in the program of a Drag production of Hello Dolly. It drew so much comment that they made it into a 20"x30" poster and gave one with each admission, on Christmas, 1972. I have heard that the poster had been colored with markers, framed & hung, in several Gay homesteads in northern California.
"SMILES ARE MADE AT DAVE'S" Newspaper & Magazine ad - Pencil on paper - 1973
"Assorted Fruit Wreath" - Christmas ad, 1973, Pointillism - ink dots on paper
The same company that owned the Dave's Baths chain also owned several bars in Washington & in Nevada. The VIP Club was near Reno. "VIP COUNTRY" - pencil on poster board, 1973. They made posters of this one, too.
"EMBRACE" - oil on canvas - 24x30 - 1970. It hung briefly at The Stud & sold quickly for $75
In Sacramento, around 1971 - '73, a friend whom I had directed in Sacramento's first all-black production, Raisin in the Sun, Ernie Brown, had just opened his own Gay dance-bar, "Ernie's Place" in West Sacramento. He asked me to do a "signature painting" for over the bar. "Ernie's Cowboy" Acrylic on masonite panel, hung behind the bar, along with other of my paintings or drawings, all for sale.
"SPACED OUT" - Acrylic Mural on masonite panel which hung on the wall behind the dance area. Overhead I hung a mobile made of variously sized styrofoam balls painted to look like planets, suspended by black thread, invisible against the black ceiling. The Planets moved constantly, especially when dancers were dancing. Under blacklight it looked like 3-D. The Rolling Stones' "2000 LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME" was on the juke box. We called it a "mindfuck!"
Ernie's Xmas Card, 1973. Look closely at the picture; both framed paintings for sale, plus the cowboy, are mine & the book on the cash register, also for sale, is: I WANT IT ALL.
Part of Herb's job at Fireman's Fund was putting together American Express advertising material & he commissioned me to do a cover for a special fund report. COLLAGE COVER FOR AMERICAN EXPRESS 1973. "GOLDEN GATE/ SAN FRANCISCO" was a collage of sorts, created by wetting large patches of colored paper &, applying them unevenly to the media surface, then pulling them away. Over that background, pieces of colored tissue paper were pasted.
"HERBERT THE GOOD" AKA "MONA HERBERT" - oil on canvas - 18x24 - 1972. Herb was a weekend-hippie (& so was I) & called himself "Herbert-the-Good." He made & sold "Jools" (he was Jewish) - macrame necklaces made with rare beads which he scrounged from second-hand shops & antique stores, & sold at the many Peddler's Fairs in the area. One such creation is the turquoise-covered-shell-with-genuine-Indian-trade-beads necklace he is wearing in the painting.
"ELF" - oil on canvas - 24x30 - 1974. One of Herb's Gay Peddler-buddies was a very small man who called himself "Elf." Indeed, he looked like an elf - always up to some kind of mischief. I never knew his real name. He had a scrappy little brown wire-haired terrier named "Buffalo." He made "Magic Jewels" & sold them beside Herb's "Jools." He had vanished from San Francisco by the time I finished his portrait. No one knew where he had gone or what had happened to him. It really looks like him.
"ELF WITH MAGIC JEWELS". Study his eyes; first they are looking at his magic jewel, then they are looking right at you!
"DIVINE BM" ACRYLIC ON CANVAS - 24X30 - 1972. Then 4 of us took Acid & went to see THE DIVINE MISS M at the Boarding House, on her second national tour. This painting is based on the picture on the back of her first album. She & her all-Gay audience made for an unforgettable, truly divine experience! "Rapture!" expresses it. I was totally unprepared for the next time we took LSD, at Dave's Baths, on Christmas day. Quite literally, it blew my mind!
"ICDLITE" (My GMC Pickup's license plate) oil on canvas - 24 x30 - 1972.
FRANK & ERNIE in my old Jimmy pickup. Years later, after we'd both got "vanity plates" his was CHEFONE & mine ICDLITE. One dark night, we heard a crash outside that sounded much too close & we ran out to find that some hit-&-run idiot had totaled my old Jimmy pickup, parked out front. This license plate was all I salvaged. But that was later. Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, I tried to express what I had "seen" on LSD
"TAKE AWAY THE CROSS!" - oil on canvas - 30x40 - 1971. "TAKE AWAY THE CROSS" featured some my favorite Rock Stars. That's Herb to the right of Michelangelo's"Jesus Rising."
"JUMPING JESUS" - oil on canvas - 16x20 - 1971
'HAPPY LITTLE BLUEBIRDS" - Acrylic on canvas - 48x48 - 1975
"RAINBOW SEED FARMS" - Acrylic on canvas -18x24 - 1976. This painting turned out to be prophetic. In 1976, Herb's job of Art Director at Fireman's Fund moved with the company to Marin & he decided he didn't want to go with it, so we packed up bag & baggage & a White German Shepherd named Luv & moved to Roseville, a suburb of Sacramento, then to our own little farm in Fair Oaks, another suburb, fairly near the American River, with a view of the mountains!
"LUV IS PURE LOVE IN THE SHAPE OF A DOG" at home in Roseville, 1977
"ALMOST HOME" oil on canvas 36x96 – 1976. Check the reflection of a dog in front of the first horse. He's there in the top part, but you have to look very closely. That's Luv, leading Herb and me, almost home. There's a light in the window.
"A PLACE TO GO (FOR A VISIT)" - acrylic on canvas - 36x48 -1977
"PURPLE RAIN" acrylic on canvas, 1977
"RAINBOWS AT MIDNIGHT" - acrylic on canvas 1976. That's me in the window with my dog by my side
"RAINBOWS IN DISGUISE" acrylic on canvas - 36x36 - 1980. It was painted for a Lesbian couple; the central balloon features their favorite colors.
Gay Real Estate company's Rainbow Festival T-Shirt - 1991
In 1978 Herb & I had settled down on our own little farm - 1 1/2 acres on Leedy Lane, in Fair Oaks, (where I grew organic vegetables, grapes & berries, which Herb used in his catering) - working together in our new business - LITTLE RED HEN ENTERPRISES - we combined advertising (Herb had been Art Director at Fireman's Fund, so he ran the business & I drew & painted & wrote ad-copy & answered the phone) and Gourmet Catering. (He was also a phenomenal cook.) He wanted to open a restaurant called "GOOD EATS" featuring "California Cuisine"
"CHEFONE" (licence plate on his Volkswagen Bug) - oil on canvas - 36x54, slightly larger than life. This painting hung in the entry of Brewster House in Davis (the background is supposed to look like the smoke from the fire that destroyed his previous, very successful "BON APPETIT" in Fair Oaks) until he "retired for reasons of his health" - having tested positive for HIV in 1984. He had been known as "Sacramento's Celebrity Chef" & had his own little show on channel 13's noontime news, showing how to cook "gourmet-style" using a microwave oven. He was the Litton spokesman in the area, demonstrating their microwaves. He cooked for Governers& catered for Presidents. He died of AIDS January 22, 1987, at age 51.
Us in happier days. He has 2 panels in The Quilt, both from me. We had a good thing going, & I really miss him. But life goes on. After Herb died, I sold our little farm & tried selling Real Estate myself, using my self-portrait on my business cards. Trying to sell Real Estate for two years finally gave me a heart attack, so I stopped. I thought about becoming a cartoonist - then decided not to.
All my life I've been fascinated by clouds & have painted a number of "Cloudscapes," EARLY CLOUDS - oil on canvas panel - late 1960s
"RIDING THE WIND" acrylic - 1969
"ABOVE THE STORM" oil on canvas - '71 or '72
"HOW NOW, BROWN CLOUD?" oil on canvas - 36x48 -1985
"J.L. SEAGULL" - oil on canvas - 36x40 - 1973
"DAWN ON THE FARM" oil on canvas - 24x36 - 1985
"CHRISTMAS EVE OR MORNING, DEPENDING ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT." acrylic on canvas. - 12x18 -'78
"BEACH WITHOUT PATRICK" THE VIEW FROM SEA RANCH - oil on canvas, about 60"x96". Patrick was the good friend who had taken us to Bette's concert & provided those tabs of acid to heighten the experience. He had access to a condo in Northern California called "Sea Ranch". Six of us spent a very stony weekend there. I took his picture on the beach, then started a mural-size portrait of him standing in the dunes at Sea Ranch. He died of AIDS before I could finish it. For years, the unfinished painting was stored in my junkroom. There was a blank spot where Patrick should have been that almost looked like his ghost - I'd started to pencil-in his portrait so you could tell it was Patrick. Either I had to chuck the painting in the junk, paint over it, or fill in the blank. Sometimes I think I can still see that outline in the the grass & sand - where Patrick should have been.
In 1995 I was persuaded to republish my Gay Trilogy: I WANT IT ALL, ALL OR NOTHING, & ALL IS WELL! I revised I WANT IT ALL & painted the new cover: "I WANT IT ALL" - oil on canvas panel - 1995 Getting the book printed cost way more than I had planned; I ran out of money & couldn't afford to have a full-color cover. I got caught up in the fever of starting a new Gay business, all my own, to republish my books and maybe some artwork. I was planning on calling it "OUR WORLD"
'UNIFIED DIVERSITY - THE TRIANGLE TRANSFORMED" acrylic, 1995, printed on 500 postcards - most of which I still have for sale: Dirk@ImagesbyDirk.com.
"KING DAVID'S RAINBOW" for Gay Jews - 1995
"GAY BALLOONS" for Birthday cards - 1995
"WEB OF LIGHT" Acrylic on canvas board
In 1987, I started painting giant flowers, al la Georgia O'Keefe: "PAM'S IRIS" - Acrylic on canvas - 24"x24" - 1989
"SHIRLEY'S BLUE GIRL" - oil on canvas - 36x36 - 1990
"APRIL SHOWER" - oil on canvas - 36"x36" - 1990
San Francisco Rose, "MOJAVE" - oil on canvas, 24x36 - 1992
"YELLOW ROSE" - oil on canvas - 36"x36" - 1993
& back where we started, with Sabra's Rose. "Sabra's Rose" oil & acrylic on canvas - 22"x28" - 2006
Thanks for coming! Please come again soon!
Digitally imaged on 3/25/05
Please feel free to download any of the paintings or drawings & print them on your own printer. The DPIs will be low, but will make a passable 8x10 for the refrigerator door. Many of the images herein are available as posters. (& refrigerator magnets!) Starting with my digital image on a CD, the folks at Office Depot can enlarge it to whatever size you want. Please inquire at Dirk@DirkVanden.net for sizes & prices. Also please use that address to let me know what you think of my website. Thanks for coming! :>D
PS: Please allow me to introduce an excellent fellow artist, Shannon McCarthy. She has quoted my San Francisco Rose -- the orange one -- in her latest painting. See if you can find it -- and other goodies on:
Also I'll remind you that two of my paintings are featured on the pages of jesusinlove - "Jumping Jesus" & "Take Away the Cross," Thanks, Kitt. You might enjoy reading Jesus in Love: A Novel by Kittredge Cherry "Jesus in Love serves gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who have ... Jesus in Love frees the reader to imagine and experience Christ in new ways. ..." jesusinlove.org/newbook.php