PAUL STANLEY: 'Art Is A Very Personal Thing'

KISS guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley recently spoke to Tom Lounges of The Times about his love for painting.

"I started painting about seven years ago when I got divorced," Stanley said of what led to his new career as a painter of abstract art. "My friends got tired of me ranting and screaming, and one of them suggested I take up painting, so I did.

"Pretty much as soon as I put a painting up in the house, people kept asking, 'Who did that?' and 'Where can I get a painting like that?' so I knew I was on to something. It's pretty cool, because I really like that people now are getting to see another side of me, besides just the music," he said.

"When I first started out, I knew that I didn't want to paint a tea cup that looked like a tea cup," he continued. "I do a lot of abstract, because I want people to connect ... and, more importantly, ME to connect with the painting(s) emotionally rather than intellectually. I wanted them to say it made them feel a certain way, rather than say, 'Wow, that tree really looks like a tree.' That's not what I go for when I pick up a brush."

Stanley is a firm believer in the old adage that art is in the eye of the beholder.

"Many people get intimidated by the idea that they need to know a lot about art to know what 'good art' is," Stanley said.

"(That's) ... nonsense. ... Art is a very personal thing and if YOU like a piece of art, then it's 'good art' to YOU, plain and simple."

The paintings are of various sizes and range from several hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars.

"I don't know, you can find something there for $900 and you can find something for $60,000," Stanley said when asked to give ballpark figures on how deep a checkbook a person might need to own a Stanley original.

Read the entire article at The Times.