The Grandson Also Criticizes

Old John Easler Had a Farm

This was among my first attempts at waxing my artwork to a shiny, digital finish, circa 2001. Note the gimmicky inserts of scanned texture on the suit and the flame. I couldn’t resist those Photoshop bells and whistles back then. (And okay, that trick still pops up from time to time.)

This is a portrait, of sorts, of my great-grandfather, John Easler, who lived to the age of 98 in his upstate South Carolina farmhouse. I met him only a few times when I was still quite young. He was by then largely unintelligible, due to a lack of teeth and the wads of tobacco he kept stuffed in his jaws.

Despite his age, he did not die of natural causes as we generally apply the term. He had walked into the yard, alone, to light a fire in the oil drum pictured above when he slipped on the icy ground and couldn’t get up. Eventually, the bitter temperatures got the better of him. Hearing the news of his death was devastating to my father; I never saw him in that condition before or since.

Many years later, when I myself was living in that same upstate South Carolina territory, I created this portrait, produced a large print, and had a framer cut the mat to the wonky shape of the image you see here. It looked good enough to fetch a top prize in a group exhibit that year. Afterward, it hung in my kitchen.

My father made one of his rare visits a few years later - he avoided long drives in his old age. When he stepped inside the house, I directed his attention to the portrait.

”Do you know who that is?” I asked.

”No, who?”

”It’s John Easler.”

(long pause)

”Well, I gotta go pee.”

Dear old dad. Always a champion of the arts.

- A.H.

Incidentally, a knew I was steadily converting to the hillbilly lifestyle in those days when I considered that I could really use one of those old oil drums to burn trash in myself.

(And let’s not forget Ashley’s website, jam-packed with portraits and other drawings, his illustrated rant column, The Symptoms, his highly-affordable prints and books currently available, his eagerness for your portrait commission, and his contact email, thrdgll@gmail.com, where he longs to hear from you.)