Sloane but not forgotten

I’m gonna tear me off a rainbow and wear it for a tie

I never told the truth so I can never tell a lie – from Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard by Tom Waits

American underground art has lost one of its eccentrics in the person of R.K. Sloane, who reportedly passed away last October.

Let me quote the obit on his website: "R.K. Sloane was the most punk rock, keen-witted, cigarette-smoking, pen-and-inkin’, Tom-Waits-listening, never-compromising, dream-pursuing, vodka-drinking bad-ass artist… ever! As Tom would say, ‘nothing sweeter than ridin’ the rails.’" Thanks for sharing your gift with us and leaving us with all the pretty paintings." And it’s signed – "From everyone who ever thought ugly could be the most beautiful thing."

R.K. Sloane painted poignant un-pretty subjects such as sideshow freaks, serial killers, evil clowns, Satanists, Death, devils, cancerous growths, mutations, insane asylum inmates and other things critics not for one second would consider "high art." (For one, viewers would never find Sloane’s "Tommy Tumor" beside, say, a critically acclaimed, comic-rip-off, un-enthralling Lichtenstein painting in a museum.) Dementia and depravity are a few of Sloane’s favorite things.

Sloane, not like other kids born in the ’50s, dreamed of having his own carnival sideshow act, which included "biting off the heads of defenseless critters while riding a unicycle standing on his head." Bozo meets Ozzy in the rollicking circus from hell. Lore has it that Sloane moonlighted as a gravedigger until he managed to eke out a living as an underground artist. But the artist’s obsession with carnivals (along with clowns and beautiful freaks, etc.) never waned.

Aside from creating paintings with lurid colors and disturbing subjects, Sloane created artworks for Roth’s Rat Fink comics in the ’80s and ’90s, as well as for a Starhead anthology, becoming one of the main figures of outsider/outlaw art.

A website once quoted Sloane as saying, "Evil is good. Bad is fun. Ugly is beautiful. I’ve had these thoughts since childhood. The strange and bizarre have always fascinated me."

I first learned about Sloane when I found out he was responsible for Guns N’ Roses’ pistols-and-flowers logo and other designs (for T-shirts, posters, etc.) for the once-mighty LA hard rock band. One person who posted a message on Sloane’s website said he will miss the artist’s Slash stories (which, until a book on Sloane comes out, we will never know), and how the artist drove around in his 1965 Cadillac hearse like Death’s Own Driver. "We will see you in our memories, on our walls, at the carnival," posted another.

The world has lost another true rebel artist (in an age when artists have been commodified and conveniently categorized in Wikepedia). A guy who has created artworks as jarring, unnerving and visually-arresting as the paintings and illustrations of outsiders such as Robert Williams, Ralph Steadman, S. Clay Wilson, Mark Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia, Joe Sorren and Daniel Johnston.

Weird has lost a warrior. Cue sad carnival music.

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For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations, e-mail iganja_ys@yahoo.com.