In ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ Garth Benton spills the beans, tells the world the secret of Rosamond’s success. When I discovered it in 1973, Christine became very dismayed, told me she does not feel like an artist, and asked me to help her.
“Christine worked almost exclusively from photographs and figures she cut from magazines like Vanity Fair and Vogue and Glamour,” Garth recalls. “That’s why the women in her middle period were so exquisite – the inspiration for them came from elegant magazines that set the standard.”
Trying to find her bathroom, I opened a door to a closet, and found her large art projector where she put fashion photos under it and projected them on to a canvas. She had gotten behind in her contract to Ira Cohen who rejected her first ten works. She had meant to fill up the canvas, but when Ira came over and saw her infamous “empty spaces” he told her this was her style.
Gone is Julie Lynches’ sad story of Rosamond crawling into a closet with a flashlight! Death to the old crone school teacher!
Christine offered to teach me the tricks of the trade so I could be rich and famous, too. But, I was a purist. In hindsight I should have said “Yes!” if I could get Rena to be my model.
“Hello, Rena! How would you like to become a famous Artist’s Model in ten easy lessons. There’s much money to be had – and some real Bling Bling.”
Later, Christine would insist her satellite galleries send a limo for her when she came to town. Picture Christine getting out of a stretch limo, then myself, and alas, Rena Christensen wearing a sleek black dress and a diamond neckless. Rena would be the first superstar of the art world. Forget about Warhol and his degenerate crowd.
“And, here is their lovely Muse who came upon these gifted siblings in their darkest hour. She brought light, love, and untold fortune to these beautiful siblings that grew up in abject poverty.
Yoo-hoo! Miss Christensen. Can we have a minute of your time!”
When I called Rena at her grandmothers in the summer of 1971, I asked her to send me a photo of her in profile. A week later I got a tiny little photo in the mail that she took in a photo booth in a market in Grand Island. Her hand is holding back her hair. She has sunglasses sitting atop her head which made me jealous, because I now owned a vision of her walking down Main street like a model down a runway, dudes in trucks giving her cowboy greetings with their tanned bare arms resting on the widow edge making their guns look bigger. Rena was the Cowboy Queen of the Town.
If Rena had agreed to become my model, I would have insisted she get the hell out of Nebraska and come be with me. As it was, I had to use a magnifying glass to see her tiny photo – that I lost!
You see, in the real world, the real artist, always loses everything, especially the girl of his dreams. It’s just the fucking way it is! This is why I have no qualms about my post ‘James Harkins Is Gone’ because he competed with me on every level, he fights me hard to be The Artist in our peer group. He read art books galore, and not once, did he get a glimpse that he was in fact – a shitty artist!
James utterly ignored Rosamond’s success, lest he have to consider the DNA factor. And, he ignored the first painting I did of Rena in Roxbury, that saved a mother’s life.
What is truly interesting, is, that James was a more honest artist then Rosamond. He died not knowing this. He could have read it on this blog – if he had lived a little longer.
C’mon Rena! Send me those old photos of you!
Jon Presco
Copyright 2013
Copyright 2013
Rosamond Press 
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