Hollywooding

After the usual nightmare that is guaranteed to occur when one flies from Philadelphia Airport, arrived in San Diego, which had the also usual perfect day, and drove to Hollywood to see my daughter and some friends.

Windy streets overlooking Universal City and the whole valley below afforded a spectacular sunset view from every room in the house, and also discovered that a few doors down was William Shatner's home.

It got me to think how Captain Kirk is a living example not only to actors but artists of all sorts.

If anyone could have been typecast by early success it was Shatner. The cult status of Star Trek gave Shatner and Nimoy and others worldwide fame and also could have trapped Shatner into a typecast (like it did for Adam West for example) role.

Shatner grabbed the typecast noose and instead of succumbing to the temptation to give up, he used it to rope us all in and kept re-inventing himself and coming back generation after generation, be it via TJ Hooker or Boston Legal or even that forgettable recording of that Elton John song that shall remain nameless.

This is a lesson for visual artists as well. Witness the typecasting of Piet Mondrian's work once he discovered the success formula for his best-known body of works.

Picasso once said "God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the ant. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things."

That's what Shatner did and there's a lesson in there for young visual artists.

Bravo Captain!