THE STORY OF GUS

Some years ago I was living in New Mexico in the little artist colony town of Taos, where Easy Rider was filmed and where Dennis Hopper called home for a while. I rented a tiny art studio, upstairs among 8 or so other artist studios.

Corner of Taos Plaza, artist studios upstairs

A few of us lived in our studios, covertly, outfitting them with dorm-sized refridgerators and sleeping on the floor. There was myself, and a former Russian ballerina who defected, joined the San Francisco Ballet, retired from dancing and became a still-life painter, and a gay dude named Rodney who was an impressionist .  Next door to my studio lived a crusty, hygienically-challenged old drunk with no front teeth, named Gus who also happened to be the best painter I ever met. He was my next-studio neighbor. It always seemed odd to me that he was an artist...he seemed more like he would have been a tow-truck driver or a rancher. There was a very open, friendly vibe to the place. We were always dropping over, visiting one another, borrowing paint when one of us was low, sharing a beer or a tequila shot and commenting on each other's current work. It was very honest...especially Gus. He was old-school and didn't offer any empty compliments. If he liked something, you knew you had something good, and if he didn't he had no problem telling you it was lousy. Gus had been some hot shot illustrator in Chicago years before and made the big bucks. Use to fly to Alcapulco to play golf. Illustrated for some major magazines back in the day. He had a wife and family and big house and cars and one day he just walked away from everything. Said he couldn't take the pressure anymore. He ended up in Taos and rented the studio next to mine. Built an easel out of old two-by-fours with a bare light bulb over head. Had a ratty old blanket and an even rattier old foam pad that he slept on. There was an old TV in the corner that only the bottom half of the picture worked, that was always on. He had one of those dorm-sized refridgerators but didn't use it and warned people not to open it. To add to the general ambiance, he had randomly distributed old, half-empty cans of Spam with plastic forks stuck into...whatever the contents had evolved into.

There were piles of Beer cans everywhere....really cheap beer...the kind that is $1. 89 a six pack. The floor was covered in cigarette butts and ashes. Gus would would start his day with a styrofoam cup of coffee he got from McDonald's and a cigarette and a six pack of the cheap beer. Then he would sit in his folding metal chair and pick up a canvas that he had already painted over 15 or 20 times and begin to work. Gus didn't have much of a social life...just us, mostly and he was always happy when someone dropped over. He would tell you to shove the books off the other folding chair and have a seat...offer you a beer and talk to you while he painted. His brushes were mostly shit...he bought them at the grocery store and they came 6 to a pack, variety of sizes, with brightly colored all plastic handles for $1. 69 a pack. They were made by Crayola. Didn't matter. Gus could paint with a stick if that was all that was available. I would sit, talk with him, drink one of his crappy beers and watch him paint. He had no method...employed no tricks...he began by what he called "hacking". "Hacking" involved taking paint and just sort of sticking it on the canvas in what seemed to be a random approach. No drawing there yet...just sort of finding his way into something. Then, gradually, the most amazing image would begin to appear. He would use very rough brushwork, put down light, shadow, shape it, move it, and something absolutely beautiful would emerge from this non-teqhnique. At some point, he would put in a rough drawing with his brush and continue to bring the painting to life.

He painted old missions, horses, a young girl holding a bucket, a clipper ship, indians, a still life, a portrait. By noon there was always something exceptional on the canvas. He would chat, smoke, drink his beer...beer cans piling up on the floor. Around noon he would have finished the six-pack and would walk over to Ralph's to buy the second one for the afternoon session. Come back and keep working...open another beer, light another camel, and keep working. Once into his second six-pack, things would begin to go downhill. He got a little more careless, his colors becoming muddy, convinced that it didn't matter because he was getting to something. We, who were watching, would silently watch something exquisite turn into a grey, sloppy piece of crap. Gus, by then well into his second six-pack, was convinced he had a masterpiece. He loved the thing. Next morning he would be starting all over, having painted the whole previous day's work out. "What happened Gus? I thought you loved it?"

"I did," he would reply, "but I was fucking drunk"...so he would start again, undaunted. We use to joke that he should sell his paintings by the pound, they got so thick. I was amazed that this whole process, which was pretty much repeated every day, didn't discourage him...but it didn't. Gus just loved to paint...the outcome didn't seem to matter to him all that much. It was more painful for the rest of us to watch than it seemed to be for him. Countless masterpieces came and went, lost forever in a haze of cheap beer. We use to say, if you could get one of his paintings off the easel before noon you would have something exceptional. Occassionally, someone would do it...just grab the thing away as he began to get too drunk and put a new canvas up on his easel before he could protest too much. In general though, his paintings usually didn't get finished...they just kept changing into something else. There was one gallery that would periodically have a show of his work...and somehow, he would manage to actually finish a dozen or so of the canvasses leaning up against the walls in his studio. The show would always sell out right away because people who knew art, knew how good he was. But that was rare. It always seemed like a miracle that he was able to actually complete enough for a show. Gus was a true friend...he was intelligent, had a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off his back...(you wouldn't want it, but still, he would give it to you if you did.) He was a no-bullshit, straight up, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. He was the most loyal friend a person could have. He had no phone or address and when I moved away from Taos I lost track of him. I think of him often and over the years I realized how much I learned from watching him paint. His approach was absolute honesty...no flashy tricks or techniques...nothing intelletual or conceptual...just incredibly good painting from someone who knew what he was doing and wanted nothing more than to keep doing it. I really miss him sometimes.

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