The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists

Les Blank, best known for his Herzog doc, BURDEN OF DREAMS, which won a British Academy Award, has spent 40 some years making acute, incisive, documentaries about unique individuals, Louisiana culture, food, and music as his main themes. MAESTRO is an enormously entertaining film about an unconventional "cowboy" artist who sets himself against Andy Warhol and refuses to accept any money for his art. Les Blank creates a curious ethnography of The Maestro's way of life and ideologies. Visit Les' website to find out more about his films.

It's another of Les Blank's documentaries about modestly successful artists you've never heard about. Here, his subject is Gerry Gaxiola, a man who quit his job to become an artist. His style of painting is a bit primitive and highly influenced by Vincent van Gogh, and he admires the old B movie cowboys. He has learned to promote himself, with festivals, but remains happily and perhaps defiantly naive, taking pleasure in singing about his work humorously, dressing the part and holding competitions for best-dressed cowboy, and taking pleasure in a pair of socks he bought at a store for religious wear, bright red "Cardinal socks".

As with all of Blank's documentaries, it's filled with good humor and honest observations. I doubt it will convince you to become a collector of Gaxiola's art, but it does make me admire his attitude towards art and life.

Les Blank, in this viewer's view, never made a bad film. He fixed his lens on artists and cultures that would have been (were) otherwise largely ignored and would have disappeared, with time, without a trace. The subject here is quite a character as well as an impressively talented painter, sculptor, songwriter, musicians, and spectacle-maker. The film is a delight.