Courtesy of indy500.com Trackside Report --
Artist Thomas Kinkade, known as The Painter of Light™, is the featured artist for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Centennial Era. He painted a special portrait for the Centennial Era Gala on Feb. 27 and also painted the portrait that appears on the covers of the 2009 Indianapolis 500 Official Program and Indianapolis 500 Media Guide.
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THOMAS KINKADE on the passion and work that went into the painting:
"The passion I have is to capture memories, to evoke the emotional connection we have to an experience. I came out here and stood up on the bleachers and looked around, and I saw all the elements of the track. It was empty at the time. But I saw the stadium, how the track laid out, the horizon, the skyline of Indianapolis and the Pagoda. I saw it all in my imagination.
I began thinking, 'I want to get this energy - what I call the excitement of the moment- into this painting.' As I began working on it, I thought, 'Well you have this big piece of asphalt, the huge spectator stands; I've got to do something to get some movement.' So I just started throwing flags into it. It gives it kind of a patriotic excitement."
On some of the fine details in the painting:
"I just love the idea of the diversity of the crowd. I like having characters in the crowd. I started hiding people in it. I put Norman Rockwell in there. As far as I know he never went to the track, but he did now. Because he's one of my heroes in the race world, I put a portrait of Dale Earnhardt. I tried to represent the different generations.
I view this painting as a piece of history. I will tell you, of the best events of my artistic career doing sporting events, number two would have been when I did the farewell portrait for Yankee Stadium. But the greatest event was taking this painting down through downtown Indianapolis during the parade (Saturday). That was fabulous."
