ARTIST STEVE PENLEY CALLS FOR "RECONSTRUCTION" OF AMERICA
Well, hey, everyone!
I had an interesting experience last week. I met a man who is calling for the "Reconstruction" of America but who says he never heard of Rushdoony! His name is Steve Penley. I received an autographed copy of his book and wrote the review which you will see below, which will be published soon in the Southside Arts Agenda, a weekly electronic newsletter covering the arts scene in the counties south of Atlanta, GA.
Sincerely,
Forrest
Steve Penley Celebrates America
A Review of
Steve Penley The Reconstruction of America (Mercer Univ. Press, 2008)
128 pp $45.00 ISBN-10: 0881461393 ISBN-13: 978-0881461398
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
One of America's greatest artists, whose paintings are sold all over the country, lives right here on the Southside -- Steve Penley of Carrollton. The best way to get acquainted with Penley's art is by means of the book under review here, which contains many of his paintings, accompanied by his own brief comments on their significance, written in his own handwriting either on each painting or to the left of, right of, above, or below the painting. These comments are either hard-hitting, thought-provoking, encouraging or humorous -- or some combination thereof -- and are so well written that they are as memorable as the paintings themselves. In short, we have here in this book a fusion of visual art with literary art, i.e. Penley is as good a writer as he is a painter.
The theme of Penley's book and paintings is the celebration of America. His goal and purpose is indicated in the title of his book -- The reconstruction of America. In our time there have been numerous criticisms of America -- unfortunately, many of them justified. In order to know how to appropriately respond to these criticisms we need to know and appreciate America's greatness so that we will see our task as working to restore that greatness when deviations from it have occurred. There have been many learned treatises dealing with this subject, such as those by Newt Gingrich, who wrote a plaudit which appears on the book's rear jacket, but I have never seen anything so far produced which is like Penley's book. It is in a class by itself.
Penley celebrates not only what we would expect -- the greatness of America's founding fathers and her civic institutions, inventors, scientists, artists, economic achievements, etc. -- but he also applauds (with equal skill) America's pop culture: football, hamburgers, Cokes, Elvis, et alia. To illustrate what I mean, turn to the page with the painting of the whopper of a burger accompanied by the whopper of a panegyric so skillfully done that there is no way a cardiologist could come along and object to the burger's cholesterol without sounding like a wet blanket! He even uses artistic terminology here, referring to these things as the icons of America's popular culture! So there is fun here as well as serious stuff.
Since we Americans are such a diverse lot and are such individualists, not everyone will respond to the book in the same way. We can hope that one result will be more Americans having a deeper appreciation of the greatness of our country along with a desire to maintain its greatness and to restore its greatness when it is in danger of being lost.
For the reasons noted here, Penley is definitely an artist with whom you should become acquainted and this book is a good way to start.
I had an interesting experience last week. I met a man who is calling for the "Reconstruction" of America but who says he never heard of Rushdoony! His name is Steve Penley. I received an autographed copy of his book and wrote the review which you will see below, which will be published soon in the Southside Arts Agenda, a weekly electronic newsletter covering the arts scene in the counties south of Atlanta, GA.
Sincerely,
Forrest
Steve Penley Celebrates America
A Review of
Steve Penley The Reconstruction of America (Mercer Univ. Press, 2008)
128 pp $45.00 ISBN-10: 0881461393 ISBN-13: 978-0881461398
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
One of America's greatest artists, whose paintings are sold all over the country, lives right here on the Southside -- Steve Penley of Carrollton. The best way to get acquainted with Penley's art is by means of the book under review here, which contains many of his paintings, accompanied by his own brief comments on their significance, written in his own handwriting either on each painting or to the left of, right of, above, or below the painting. These comments are either hard-hitting, thought-provoking, encouraging or humorous -- or some combination thereof -- and are so well written that they are as memorable as the paintings themselves. In short, we have here in this book a fusion of visual art with literary art, i.e. Penley is as good a writer as he is a painter.
The theme of Penley's book and paintings is the celebration of America. His goal and purpose is indicated in the title of his book -- The reconstruction of America. In our time there have been numerous criticisms of America -- unfortunately, many of them justified. In order to know how to appropriately respond to these criticisms we need to know and appreciate America's greatness so that we will see our task as working to restore that greatness when deviations from it have occurred. There have been many learned treatises dealing with this subject, such as those by Newt Gingrich, who wrote a plaudit which appears on the book's rear jacket, but I have never seen anything so far produced which is like Penley's book. It is in a class by itself.
Penley celebrates not only what we would expect -- the greatness of America's founding fathers and her civic institutions, inventors, scientists, artists, economic achievements, etc. -- but he also applauds (with equal skill) America's pop culture: football, hamburgers, Cokes, Elvis, et alia. To illustrate what I mean, turn to the page with the painting of the whopper of a burger accompanied by the whopper of a panegyric so skillfully done that there is no way a cardiologist could come along and object to the burger's cholesterol without sounding like a wet blanket! He even uses artistic terminology here, referring to these things as the icons of America's popular culture! So there is fun here as well as serious stuff.
Since we Americans are such a diverse lot and are such individualists, not everyone will respond to the book in the same way. We can hope that one result will be more Americans having a deeper appreciation of the greatness of our country along with a desire to maintain its greatness and to restore its greatness when it is in danger of being lost.
For the reasons noted here, Penley is definitely an artist with whom you should become acquainted and this book is a good way to start.
posted by Forrest Schultz @ 12:40 PM
2 Comments:
At Wednesday, November 04, 2009,
Unknown said…
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE KIND WORDS. YOU MAKE ME SOUND MUCH BETTER THAN I REALLY AM. I'M FLATTERED THAT SOMEONE WOULD SAY THAT I AM A GOOD WRITER BECAUSE THAT IS A KIND STRETCHING OF THE TRUTH. YOUR FRIEND, STEVE PENLEY
At Wednesday, November 04, 2009,
Forrest Schultz said…
No, it is NOT stretching the truth. You really ARE a good writer. AND the way the comments were placed on the same or the adjoining page as the paintings is very superior to the usual layout in books of art where often the comments are on a different page from where the painting is. (That is a real nuisance to have to go back and forth between the respective pages.) You need to compliment your publisher, esp. whoever there did the layout for a superior job. Also the paintings in the book were of the same or almost the same size as the actual paintings. AND having your comments in your handwriting (instead of being typed) and virtually fused with the paintings themselves is almost like having them incorporated into the very paintings AND LOOKS much better than a typed page!! That is what I meant by a fusion of visual and literary art. I very carefully thought out what I wrote and I meant it. Steve, you need to broaden your self-concept -- you are a good writer! And I would encourage you to publish any future books the way this one was done.
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