Portrait of William S. Burroughs

I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of the writer William S. Burroughs in 1986. He was living in nearby Lawrence, KS. He was doing artwork himself at the time, abstract paintings on wood panels that involved gunshots. He agreed to blow a hole in a painting for me but he had no idea that I was going to paint a portrait of him. When I first showed it to him and told him that I wanted for him to shoot it he refused to, since he liked it. I'd already mounted it on a panel and everything. Later he did some experiments and called me up to say that he'd changed his mind. We went out to shoot it on Easter of 1987.

Aside from the gun blast with paint splatter that he put in it for me, there are two other odd elements in the painting. If I were to do it today (which, of course, I can't, since Burroughs has passed on) I would not include the two collage elements, but they are a cut out cat and a small drawing of the "orgasm-death gimmick."

The current publication of "Queer" had a painting by Baselitz on the cover. Of course, it was an upside-down face, but I noticed that when I looked at it right-side-up that the image seemed to form a crude cat. Burroughs was crazy about cats and owned about three. So I cut that image out and used it as a cat that's sitting on the railing to the left side. The small cartoonish drawing of the "orgasm-death gimmick" is on a piece of paper that extends from the typewriter that's visible through the one window. It's only a pencil drawing of a man being hanged on a noose, ejaculating. Burroughs couldn't see well enough to make it out.

It's amusing that this painting was included in an art exhibit that traveled to three different locations in the area, and when the show went to a department store people were telling me that they'd gone to see it but that they couldn't find this painting. I went over myself to see what the situation was, and found that they'd hung it in the men's dressing room. Apparently the old ladies on the committee COULD see well enough to make out the depiction of the "orgasm-death gimmick."

Whenever I would leave Burroughs' house in the evening after a visit he would come out onto the porch and see me off, standing there with his cane until I had gone. With the light of the porch light he always made me think of the Tarot archetype of the Hermit, which is pretty appropriate for him. Anyway, the sight of him standing in the porch light with his cane is what inspired the setting of this.

I've also got an essay on this site concerning my acquaintance with William Burroughs, To go directly there you can click here.

 

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