Sometimes what seems at first like the gentle surveillance of a curious fan turns out in the end to be an obsessive invasion of one's privacy. I've had my share of adoring followers, those foolish few who, indifferent to the protocols of socially accepted boundries innocently trespassed the exclusive acres of my intimacy. I've dealt with them all in different but similar ways (typically involving my friend Etienne Mendès-Gratin, préfet de police de Montparnasse). My American colleague David Schoffman has a much greater challenge in the wild, wild west of southern California.
David has a midnight stalker who, though still within the precincts of the relatively harmless, might possibly be upgraded to the category of the unhinged. He/she has within him/her the potential of destroying/upending the very foundation of Schoffman's already crumbling/disintegrating way of life.
Irrationally paranoid, David is terrified of the prospect of some third-rate, trust-funded, near-sighted graduate student stealing his hard-earned ideas. Combine that with an equally consuming fear of enclosed spaces and you have a plausible rationale for Schoffman's peculiar work habits.
You see, he paints only in the middle of the night (generally from 11:30 pm to about 4:30 am). He also keeps his ground level industrial studio door wide open regardless of the weather or the time of year. In this way he avoids the bustle of normal working hours with all its unrewarding disturbances. Put another way, he is able to completely evade reality.
Just imagine his astonishment when photographs like the ones reproduced here started appearing on websites like studiosLA.com and Today'sAvant-Garde.com.
Close-ups with telephoto lenses have already captured David concocting his oil painting glazes with their secret recipes. Hazy snapshots have substantiated the long held rumor that Schoffman uses magazine clippings to access images for his work. We now have documented evidence that he uses tracing paper, projectors, grids and graphite transfer sheets in order to compensate for his faulty draftsmanship. There is now incontrovertible proof that Schoffman's claim that all his materials are first-rate, lightfast, archival and ph neutral is patently false and misleading.
What also comes as a slight revelation is that despite his vehement denials, David's nocturnal routines are not confined to the making of art.
Close-ups with telephoto lenses have already captured David concocting his oil painting glazes with their secret recipes. Hazy snapshots have substantiated the long held rumor that Schoffman uses magazine clippings to access images for his work. We now have documented evidence that he uses tracing paper, projectors, grids and graphite transfer sheets in order to compensate for his faulty draftsmanship. There is now incontrovertible proof that Schoffman's claim that all his materials are first-rate, lightfast, archival and ph neutral is patently false and misleading.
What also comes as a slight revelation is that despite his vehement denials, David's nocturnal routines are not confined to the making of art.
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