Todd McKie
He showed me his first painting, something which gave him
so much pleasure at the age of 10, and gives him pleasure still. It was
of a dog sitting in the grass with a tree to its left and a driveway to
the right. He said that even though the dog mostly resembled a brown smudge,
to him it seemed to be looking down the driveway. Twenty years ago, Todd
McKie came to Boston straight from art school and began a career here which
by now ranks him as one of Boston's finest and most influential artists.
What he does today depends on that same sense of touch, that same sense
of beingness alive in a gesture; a smudge.
The word "wonderful" was invented to describe Todd McKie's art.
It sparkles like a child's garden on a sunny blue day. It is an innocent
vision of life, objects at one, floating among the elements, half dream,
half glimpses of a plan. McKie says that they are all characters on a stage,
and points out one or two that look lost. Yes, lost in the garden, lost
with wonder. Todd McKie makes wonderful images of primary existence, plants,
animals, humans, vessels, furniture, fun.
There is something casual about this artist's work, as though it was all
about something happening. It is not surprising to hear that he started
out doing performance art. The work is almost just a record of some place
he is, or goes. The color is so rare it is startling. It has sound. When
I see it I hear it, and as if for the very first time. It is that original.
I couldn't get over it. Blues, greens, oranges - "smudges" of
genius.
On the wall adjacent to the one where his first painting clung to two nails
was a bulletin board with a few photographs and drawings pinned to it. The
photos were of Jesse, his son and only child who was killed last year. He
took down a drawing and showed it to me. It was something Jesse had done
of him that was like-spirited in both imagination and humor. The McKies
like their humor. Todd's wife, Judy, is a furnituremaker
whose work is as wild and playful as her husband's. He says that they share
the same inspiration. Then he went over to his stacks and pulled out a watercolor
that he and his son had done together when Jesse was 15. Jesse had painted
the fish. It was shiny and bright.
Addison Parks
Courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor, 1991