Portrait Of Christel I
Author
William E. Elston
Published
Jun 25, 2017
Tags
From 1989 to 1997 I lived with a woman named Christel Kratohvil. At that time she was a talented painter, but also very temperamental. My late friend Mark Perry claimed that she was as “crazy as a peach orchard boar.”
We lived first on Queen Anne, then moved into a large live/work space in the Sunny Arms art cooperative. We also spent a few years living in the top floor of the Horton Bank Building, a constantly leaking 9 rooms in Georgetown. We traveled to California together, as well as Chicago, Washington DC, New York, Denver, etc. We made many trips to Portland OR, as I was showing at Elizabeth Leach Gallery then. Our relationship eventually collapsed amidst constant bickering and endless arguments, the subjects of which continually eluded me. Christel eventually ran off with a Flamenco dance cult, and took her mala leche with her.
This painting was done very rapidly in the studios we shared at Sunny Arms. Christel didn’t like to pose, and I had to work quickly. I’ve never been sure if it is truly finished, and she eventually gave up posing altogether. It was around this same time that the Northwest Figurative Artists’ Alliance was founded, in the same studio.
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Christel I, oil on canvas, 23 x 22 inches, copyright ©1991
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