A California builder established a “Thomas Kinkade themed community” near San Francisco called The Village at Hiddenbrooke. This housing development was conceived in an attempt to make the nostalgic, soft-focus world of the paintings a reality for fans. I pictured thatched cottages, soft-focus towns glowing like Jack-o-lanterns, ivy-covered arbors, dells and fields of flowers. What it was, however, was just a standard tract-home housing development as described by Janelle Brown in her story -Ticky-Tacky Houses from “The Painter of Lightâ„¢” In it, Brown points out that it ain’t exactly Olde Quainte Village….

Boing Boing notes the LA Times just printed a character-assassinating cover story on Thomas Kinkade, self-professed “Painter of Light”.

Kinkade is one of the most successful “artists” painting today, selling millions of dollars worth of kitschy cottages and lighthouses to unsophisticated buyers. He’s sold his soul to marketing and his paintings now grace potholders, calendars and tissue covers. He has a “factory” where giclee’s and prints are touched-up by hand to add highlights to his thatched cottages, arbors, and flower-laden gardens.

To read the story in the LA Times, you have to register, but it’s worth it.

When RoqlaRue had it’s parody show “Painters of Blight” , curated by Kipling West, Erin Norlin and David Miller, they documented it on the blog, Painters of Blight. It’s hilarious.

Thomas Kinkade and The Future of Architecture

The Future of Branded Living Space : Megachurch as Minitown

Jesus Has a Summer Cottage? Inside Thomas Kinkade’s Blinding Gazebo

Reuben Kinkade — Painter of Stuff