Over 11 years and 570 episodes, John Rabe and Team Off-Ramp scoured SoCal for the people, places, and ideas whose stories needed to be told, and the show became a love-letter to Los Angeles. Now, John is sharing selections from the Off-Ramp vault to help you explore this imperfect paradise.
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Thirty years ago, California Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled his official gubernatorial portrait. The work, created by Santa Monica portrait artist Don Bachardy, was a far cry from the traditional portraits. Instead of a photorealistic snapshot of a heroic politician, it showed the governor surrounded by gray, his angular face and falcon-like glare staring directly at the viewer.
It didn't go over well at the California State Capitol. New York Magazine wrote that one state legislator said it looked like Bachardy painted it with "spilled ketchup and soy sauce." The portrait was tucked away on the Capitol's third floor, far from the other gubernatorial portraits.
But what was painting the famous portrait like? Don Bachardy, who has a new book of portraiture out now called "Hollywood," explained the process.
Bachardy estimates he did at least 15 different portraits while on the search for the perfect one. The governor attended five sittings in all, but it wasn't easy getting through them.
"He couldn't understand why I'd want him for five sittings," Bachardy told Off-Ramp host John Rabe. "He found sitting still very difficult. He felt vulnerable. He's not used to being passive, or he felt it was a case of my dominating him."
Although the portrait got a chilly reception at first, many grew to embrace the work. When Brown was re-elected governor in 2010, he said the unfinished nature of the portrait reflects his "unfinished work while in office."