Undoubtedly, Bill was not the child they had envisioned.   His first known painting was a wildlife scene painted on an Idaho license plate using oil paints that his brother George had gifted to him (attributed to Bill at about age eight).  This work existed as late as 1980, with his parents, but it is unknown if the piece survives today.

 

The family expectation was that the boys would go into the military and return to Idaho's logging or mining industry.   After serving the U.S. Navy in World War II, likely fodder for the looming Battle for the Pacific aborted by Mr. Truman's use of atomic warfare, Bill returned to Idaho--but logging was out of the question for him.   Bill once said "after seeing a pea shelling machine shell a ton of peas an hour, it is hard to get people to shell them by hand."  Bill believed, in later life, that World War II was the defining event of change for his generation.  He attributed to it, for him, along with the G.I. Bill, a means to a greater awareness of the World.

 

Ultimately, however, several of his brothers did go into the logging business.   Long after moving on to the artist's way and a beatnik lifestyle, it was with great sadness that Bill learned that the one brother whom he had loved particularly, George, the one who bought him his first paints, died in a tragic logging accident in Idaho--still in his the prime of youth and leaving many children and his wife without means.  For Bill's children, the event was unique because it revealed an undisclosed depth of, and reservoir of, emotion in Bill that the new family did not know prior to that time.

 

In later life some, with little understanding of the creative process, perhaps, assumed that Bill lacked the skill to create "realistic" scenes.  The irony is that as a mere teenager Bill had produced line ink drawings perfectly portraying natural scenes from his native Idaho.  His skill was so strong and obvious that the local hardware store had a set printed up (showing moutains, deer and rivers) to give away as a Chirstmas bonus for good customers.  A few examples of these survive with his daughter, Rosa Beatrice Rane Herrington of Taos, NM, having one in her collection of Bill Rane works. 

 

While some of the public might assume that Bill lacked the skill for "realism", his first images were all "realistic" to an amazing degree and accuracy.  Likewise, in the US Navy and later as a cartoonist in Gautamala for that nation's leading newspaper, he was often called upon to create such straight-forward faire.   While there can be no doubt of his ability for such matters, there is no evidence that he took any joy from creating them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the time of its creation, the work was untitled.  However, during Bill's life it became to be known as the "Talfulano Painting".  This is a reference to Bill's only published work of poetry/fiction, a book of the same name, Talfulano [The Smith, Horrizon Press]   The word Talfulano, or Fulano de Tal, is a reference to a largely uninterprettable Spanish phrase used particuarly in Guatemala.   A loose translation might be John Doe (as related to legal documents) or "such a fellow" or even "such a fool".  Bill adopted the reference in respect to his childhood and his ultimate rejection of the values that form the basis of the dispair of this painting.   In rejecting the old, and the fosilized, Bill devoted himself to "new" Gods and to the cross-pollination of the merging and mixing of cultures and experience rather than the fight to maintain in stasis.  As such, it is a view that is the antithesesis of xenophobia.  This alone marks Bill's remarkable affinity with Post Modern sensibilities.

 

This work shows the distorted youth confronting the ambivalence of sexuality and the power of the "Ancestor God".   There is little of harmony, joy or hope portrayed.

 

In creating this image, Bill accepted that there are times for an artist, as with Picasso's Guernica, where unredeemed discord must be pursued and, even, presented.  Whether at the level of the personal or the universal, these works illustrate that point.  Talfulano Painting is the only known example of such a work in all of Bill's creation--a single sad painting that stands absolutely alone and without any sibbling--or shared context--whatsoever.  It is indeed remarkably and absolutely sui generis [an entire class of only one].

 

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Some commentators have, perhaps, suggested that Talfulano is a Spanish phrase that points to the notion of "anyone" as if  "any single random one of the very many".   This is, of course, superficially correct.   We do not believe here that this is the basis of Bill's totem, however.  Bill did not think, sadly, that every person took the opportunity that life bestowed upon all.  That anyone of us could, that seems implied; but that everyone would, that was an entirely different matter for Bill. 

 

We do not, here, view Bill's philosophy as one of embrace equally for all potential beyond that potential itself.   Potential was one thing for Bill; manifestation, another.  He respected potential fulfilled--or at least potential that struggled for fulfillment.   

 

His life was disciplined, focused and kept a final view on the objective of entering into the co-creation of beauty in a timeless, always relevant, and totally univerally coordinated synergistic, manner.  It was always hard work and great fun.  But it was far from an "everyday" affair from that stand point of the broader society or culture of his time. 

 

It was something he hoped could be shared with everyperson but he recognized that while ultimately none should be left behind--along the way it was naive and counterproductive to think that everyone was ready--just yet.  It was a matter of leadership not a matter of utopia already achieved--let alone a static, already given, utopia with no process at all.   Once again, this led to misunderstandings of those around Bill.   His political views, for example, could easily be interpretted as either anarchy or meritocracy.  But, of course, he was niether communist nor cold-blooded libertarian; neither a populast nor an elitist.

 

He defined himself absolutely, in his own metaphor and 'game', and that others would not, or even could not, understand did not concern him.  He loved the romantic view of a talented person who had accomplished much in the complex materialistic world but rejected that for the simple, odd, but somehow connected and spiritual--such as a Michael Milken type who decided to sell Polish Dogs from a sleek cart on lower Manhattan and give stock tips to his deserving customers along with the grilled onions and stone ground mustard.  Bill did love the "everyman/everywoman" beyond compare but he particularly loved that which allowed the infinite to manifest definitely within an indivual with a unique, and specific, contribution to the milleau of humanity and the universal continuum. 

 

Bill was no simple fellow. 

 

He could respect the World Tiddlywinks Champion and the Great Symphony Cellist equally but he would not understand the waste of a life that would not engage somewhere on something.  His love for the "everyman/everywoman", or, it would seem, "everyone" was like the love of  a sculptor for the potential implied in a large block of the world's finest stone--a good, blessed and exciting start that need look toward finding its "God" in the "end" not at the "beginning".  A block of stone ready for struggle, mistakes, work, and, then, resolution, balance, harmony and, ultimately, beauty--the beauty that, for Bill, defined love.  

 

Bill certainly did not believe that every person was beautiful;  he believed that every person could be/should be--and one day would be--beautiful.  Here at The Bill Rane Story we believe that it is our job to join with Bill and others in furthering that as yet unrealized vision--of every person choosing, working and struggling for, what is beautiful both within themselves and all around all of us.  And that is what Bill's original oil paintings are all about--they are about giving us tools to go about that very task.

 

Much has been written about the Post Modern sythesis of "religion" to our "poplular" culture such typified by this Joan Osbourne Tune.    Perhaps, Bill's view, was it similar?