The story of The Drain in My Kitchen Floor

John Pohl

I don’t remember exactly why I decided to make a painting of my kitchen, but I think it was the multiple angles made by the floor mats against the kitchen cabinets, the tops of cabinets and the frame around the back door, as I stood in the doorway, reeling from the discovery that Marlowe’s latest client, a busty blonde with long red fingernails, was trying to steer the laconic detective onto the hot seat at Sing Sing.

No, that’s not true. It really was the angles and rectangles that intrigued me. Could I make an interesting painting from such an ordinary scene? Could I create a plausible perspective and a colour scheme that that would compel some rich asshole to plunk down my usual fee of $50,000 for a piece of art history?

I started with abstract swirls of paint in February 2023, seeing if I could do the design with few enough layers of colour that the underpainting could persist, no matter how faintly, to the finished painting. It’s rare that it happens, but it’s fun to try.

By May 7, the painting was taking shape. Unfortunately, I was painting in acrylic over an old painting that I thought was also made with acrylic paint. The paint was not adhering to the canvas. I tried to scrub off the acrylic paint and redo it in oil. Some came off, but not all of it. My scrubbing had made the canvas a gooey mess.

I photographed the failed painting for the record, and photographed it again in the garbage area of my studio building.

But I liked how the painting was taking shape, so I bought a new canvas and started over with oil paint.

Six months later, on November 19, 2023, I photographed the actual scene of the painting in an attempt to improve the perspective on the right side of the painting, where the angle between the counter and the floor widens.

I photographed the painting that same day. I could have stopped right then with a simple, beautiful painting with soft, agreeable colours, just adding a few lines to indicate the door and the cabinets.

But no, I had to forge ahead, first connecting the floor mats and then breaking up the flat surface of the floor until a vortex started to appear that resembled a drain.

By February 23, 2025, I called the painting done. I was mostly happy with the painting, except for some of the acid greens, but also feared overworking it to death.

I have only exhibited it on social media, where my young niece, Clare, of Oakland, Calif., saw it and asked if her band could use the image for the cover of their first CD. Clare made the design for the cover of the Dog Band’s EP, “All the Ugly Things They Say and All the Ugly Things They Do.”

The physical painting is now featured in my art gallery basement TV room, where I usually have to move a lamp to ponder all the ugly greens.

Even if the painting never leaves my basement wall, I will some day be living high off the royalties from that one CD.

Clare said she had a budget of $300 for the cover art, but I declined, looking for a more lucrative long term deal. I think that getting 99 per cent of my niece’s lifetime earnings, starting in 2075, for free use of a fantastic image now, is a good deal all around.

Remember the cartoon character who said, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today?” It’s the same thing.

Hear and see the Dog Band on instagram: instagram.com/p/DR2g2nlkqNw/? hl=en&img_index=1