One Man by Himself by Sam Messer

Sam Messer
Critical Praise

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One Man By Himself
By Sam Messer

ISBN 0-9638433-6-2

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List Price: $45.00
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In December of 1990, Sam Messer met Jon Serl. Serl was ninety-six, Messer was thirty-four. Messer had heard that Serl was a great, self-taught painter and he drove to the desert town of Lake Elsinore, California to find him. Messer couldn't follow Serl's directions, but when he saw a large sign which read "HERE" he knew he had arrived.

The gate to Serl's paint-peeling, ramshackle house came off in Messer's hand. Standing on the porch next to a sign that read: CLEAN ENOUGH TO BE HEALTHY, DIRTY ENOUGH TO BE HAPPY, Serl laughted, "It's a dump, but it's a nice dump." Messer followed Serl and Patches, a yapping Chihuahua, through a maze of rooms overflowing with paintings. A family of mice and a chicken scurried out of their way. "It's a good way to live. You get tired of living the sissy way, pushing buttons," Serl said, opening his studio door and ushering Messer inside, "There's no TV, no radio, you have to invent for yourself. " That first visit lasted twelve hours.

After that, Messer went to see Serl almost every week and started painting him. One day while Serl was posing, he fell asleep. "I can't just sit here and fall asleep. I have to push and give you more to feel." Their empathy for each other -- and the visceral recognition of himself in the other -- changed their relationship from that of model and artist to a collaboration between the "sitting painter" and the "working painter." Together they went on to paint almost fifty portraits, right up until the day Jon Serl died.

This book brings together many of these portraits, 25 full color plates in all. In additon there are several drawings. With essays by Dennis Johnson and Red Lips.

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