Put a Happy Face on it

Death Becomes You, acrylic paint on canvas, 2024 Otto Von Miller.

Thee Optimist was thinking recently, while in the guise of his alter ego, Otto Von Miller.  

Yes, thinking, very bad idea.

Nevertheless, he was thinking about the 20th century Swiss/German painter, Paul Klee.  Otto is a fan of Paul Klee.

Although Klee was a veteran of World War I on the German side, he found himself harassed by the Nazis in the early 1930s.  This was because they considered his art work "degenerate."

If they thought Klee was degenerate, they should have lived to see the 21st century.

Klee moved to Switzerland (the country where he had been born) in 1933, to get away from the insufferable Nazis.  But the Swiss wouldn't extend him citizenship, also because of his apparent degeneracy.  

He then spent 7 years as a man without a country, living in Switzerland, but subject to deportation at any time.

He died in 1940, of a then-untreatable, and very painful autoimmune disorder, at the age of 60.  

The last years of his life were among his most productive, even though he was in such pain he could barely grip the brushes anymore.  Impending death has a way of focusing the mind.

In particular, Otto is a fan of an earlier Klee painting, known as Red Balloon.

Red Balloon, 1922 Paul Klee, oil paint on muslin primed with chalk.

Thee Optimist (or Otto, or whoever) was thinking about this painting in relation to the last years of Klee's life.

And a phrase occurred to Thee Optimist.

"Death Becomes You."

Not in the sense that Death becomes you when it grows up.  In the sense that Death looks good on you.  

Death is very becoming.  You wear Death well.

So Otto went to his dungeon deep underground and made a painting that reflected this idea.

Death Becomes You, original very abstract version.

Thee Optimist is no Paul Klee.  That much is clear.

But he doesn't have to be.  He just has to do his best, and be kind, as well as he can.

A second bite on the painting added the details you see at the top of this post, including the Happy Face on the yellow balloon.

So basically we have a dead person in a ghost costume, hovering over a puddle of blood, holding a yellow Happy Face balloon.

No, I really have no idea what it means, either.  

But the good people at the Etsy store "Artists for Earth," liked it well enough that they made a t-shirt out of it.

This is a t-shirt which will impress your friends.  Complete strangers will want to talk to you.  Some will make hex or evil eye symbols at you with their hands, because they think you are an agent of the Devil.

That's pretty cool.  

Five percent of "Artists for Earth" profits go to tree planting efforts.  That's even cooler.

If I catch you wearing this shirt, I will sign it for you in indelible marker.  Preferably when you are looking away and don't notice what I'm doing.

"Put a Happy Face on it," design by Otto Von Miller.

Click Here to get the shirt.

Words of Wisdom

"I cannot be grasped in the here and now, for my dwelling place is as much among the dead as the yet unborn."

- Paul Klee