A while ago someone asked me to do an essay on Captain Outrageous and I wasn't really sure I could pull it off. I was encouraged by the arrival at the Conch Republic Bed races, of a Captain Outrageous Cushman which I photographed as much as I could before it pulled away heading back to it's home base at the Fairvilla store:
I'm a bit vague on the details as I only ever met Captain Outrageous in passing but I believe he was a financial wizard Up North and he decided to do the old fashioned thing and drop out and tune in to his inner muse which produced some particular artwork:
The larger than life colors and the comic book like characters are pure captain Outrageous, and once seen never confused with someone else's work. He liked to paint vehicles but he would transform any utilitarian article into something worth looking at.
A van he painted was driven by a man who lived in my marina a few years back and it was a novel on wheels, but even something as small as a bicycle could get the Captain's attention:
Even though I am no collector I regret now that I didn't get myself something painted by the artist. He died a a year or so ago, shortly after he opened in his own gallery downtown. So now the only way to get a piece of Captain Outrageous's art is to buy it.
Or, if you are lucky you may stumble across a piece of it parked around town. Some owners are I expect, hoarding his irreplaceable work, but you'd be amazed how much of his rolling art is...rolling around town and in daily use.
His website is still up and functioning, so it might be best for those that are interested to zip on over and see the late great Captain Outrageous in his own, posthumous words:Please note: he is DEAD and not answering his mail anymore. This link is just to check out his artwork if you feel like it, OK?
6 comments:
The pictures on that same site are pretty amazing. Almost a historic keeper via snapshots of everyday life in Key West from what appears to be the early 1980s to recent. Kind of like Mr. Conchscooter is today. :)
I was fortunate to get the last bicycle Captain Outrageous painted to add to my Keys Treasures.
Dear Badger:
If I ever have any money again, I would make it my business to own a scooter, or something scooter-like, that Captain Outrageous painted. But it could never leave the Keys. Very few people would understand its value, and you'd hate get a vehicle like this caught in weather that would hasten the decline of the artwork.
Fondest regards,
Toad
Mr. Badger and Mr. Toad, both commented on the Naked Lunch in a former essay (due to a picture by Mr. Badger).
I knew I had heard the reference and found the tome. A book of the same name from Willam S. Burroughs. A tome about Greenwich Village, NYC.
As the beatniks would say, "The naked lunch is an Easter Brunch"
Dear Keys Treasures: I have the last two cycles painted by Captain Outrageous. As fate would have it, the last one is only halfway completed...
Excellent. Like Turandot which was never completed by Puccini who died prematurely. "Here the maestro put down his pen" Toscanini said, when the orchestra arrived at that point in the premiere. A work eternally in progress.
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