A word on mass-produced art

This weekend, while I was on the way to meet my parents at the nearest giant purveyor of mass-produced Swedish furniture and home decor,


I drove on a stretch of I-85 near Lexington, NC that is named for artist Bob Timberlake. Bob is kind of the Thomas Kincaid of the southeast and he has a huge gallery/ furniture & home accents store/ coffee shop in Lexington. (BTW, Lexington is also home NC's "western style" barbecue. It is a town of about 20,000 people and it has 17 barbecue restaurants. They don't mess around.)

While I am generally not one for mass-produced art, I do appreciate the tremendous business success of artists like Bob Timberlake, Thomas Kincaid and yes, even Wyland:

Just one name, like Prince.

These guys really have a knack for marketing. They are EVERYWHERE. And honestly, Bob Timberlake is a talented painter. (Oh stop that you hoity- toity gallery crawler, you know he is) See:

His prints aren't my thing, but I think that it is cool that Mr. Timberlake has parlayed his artistic talent into an internationally successful business, headquartered in his rural hometown. He paints his state, generates alot of money for the local economy and he even has a major interstate named for him. While that may get scoffed at by academics in the art world, when you really think about it, it is a pretty great thing.