Psst. I have to tell you something. Something I’m not proud of. It’s pretty embarrassing, actually. Not “I caught herpes from the town skank” embarrassing. More in the range of “I had to take my sister to the prom because no one else would go with me.” But still, it’s bad enough…

You see, when I was younger — much younger, you understand — I went through a phase when I, um, actually kinda-sorta liked the artwork of… are ready for this? Thomas Kinkade.

Yes, that Thomas Kinkade, the self-proclaimed “Painter of Light” whose highly sentimental paintings of quaint cottages and Victorian holiday scenes and just-too-perfect landscapes have been licensed to appear on everything from Christmas-tree ornaments to calendars and greeting cards, to “collectible” plates to, I don’t know, sanitary napkins, probably. The guy who earned fortunes selling mass-produced kitsch to the QVC crowd while being utterly reviled by serious art lovers. Yeah, him.

As I said, I was young. And I had what seemed like perfectly legitimate reasons at the time. It happened just after I got back from a month-long stay in Cambridge, England, back in 1993. It had been my first time away from home on my own, the fulfillment of a wish I’d nurtured for a very long time, and I loved just about everything about the experience, and about the place. I was especially taken by the soft, fluid quality of the light over there, especially as evening approaches and the summer twilight stretches out for hours after the sun actually goes down. It was so different from the crystalline desert skies I was accustomed to back home… and it was so difficult to describe to my friends and family when I returned.

And then I stumbled across a painting that seemed to capture the qualities I remembered. I think it may have been this painting right here:

That’s Kinkade’s “Lamplight Inn,” released in 1994 according to the info I found, so the timing coincides nicely with my return from Cambridge and period of maximum nostalgia for the place. Looking at it now, nearly 20 years down the line, I’m not quite sure why it reminded me so strongly of my beloved Cambridge, what specifically I saw there that so strongly activated my memories. But it did. The bridge was probably a factor, as there are a number of bridges on the river Cam that look like that. And the lights reflecting in the water remind me of several wonderful evenings. In any event, I decided I liked this painting’s evocative power, and I developed a brief infatuation with Kinkade’s work. I enjoyed it for exactly the reasons, I imagine, his hardcore fans do: his idealized vision of a cleaner, simpler world appealed to my desire for escape and peace. And I thought many of his paintings were simply pretty to the eye. To tell the truth, I still like a couple of them.

But as time passed, my feelings toward Kinkade started to curdle. First, I thought it was tacky when he trademarked the “Painter of Light” nickname. Then his paintings seemed to cross the line from colorful to garish, and their nostalgic tone started to feel more like calculated schmaltz. They began to strike me as cutesy, and one thing I cannot abide is cutesy. I was also repelled when he started wearing his religion on his sleeve and infusing simple subjects with overwrought symbolism. No offense to any of my readers who may actually like cutesy religious paintings, but they’re not my thing.

The biggest problem, though, was the ubiquity of his work. I’ve said before I actually tend to prefer commercial illustration to fine art, so I wasn’t bothered by Kinkade’s stuff being mass-produced, at least not in principle. But the licensing got so out of hand — this crap really was everywhere, and on everything, and it got very tiresome.

And then came the revelations that Kinkade wasn’t the good Christian he proclaimed himself to be, that he was actually fleecing the poor believers who’d bought into his franchised gallery business, and that he frequently behaved like a drunken boor… well, I decided I was done with Thomas Kinkade at that point. Now when the subject comes up, I feel like I do when I’m suffering a mild hangover: slightly ill, and vaguely ashamed of myself.

Even so, I was shocked and a bit saddened to hear that he died this past weekend at the age of 54. That’s only 12 years older than myself, way too early in my book. And once upon a time, I really did find value in at least some of his paintings. So I offer my sincere condolences to his family and to his fans…