Feeling politically incorrect?
Who’d have thought that a trade show booth at the Chicago Hilton and Towers would be the perfect refuge, a place where men and women could talk comfortably for hours on end about butt size, butt shape, comparative butt girth.
In a world where such conversation has become actionable, this was an oasis of accepted butt chat, occasioned by the appearance of a man with an unusual occupation: He draws pictures of people’s rear views for a living.
Krandel Lee Newton is “the creator of The Original Butt Sketch.”
Newton, 39, made a recent visit to Chicago to draw charcoal portraits of people’s backsides at a booth at the National Association of Mortgage Brokers convention meeting at the Hilton.
What a concept. And quite successful. Newton charges between $175 to $200 an hour (he mostly does trade shows) to pursue his special kind of artistry.
After an arduous work day, in which people wait in line up to several hours for a personal drawing, Newton reports he will wander through the convention site, only to have people waggling their rears at him hollering, “Hey, Buttman.”
Picasso probably had the same problem.
Newton, charming and congenial, says, “People feel compelled to tell me butt jokes. And puns, `You seem to be getting behind in your work. … You’re at the tail end.’ “
This pun thing has rubbed off on the man himself. He says he has five artists, a public relations aide and two “ass-istants” who now work for The Original Butt Sketch, an operation that brings in “six figures” each year.
On his visit here, hired by HomeSide Lending Inc. for the two-day convention, two friends waited 90 minutes to be sketched.
“My boyfriend’s a butt man,” explained Cindy Rouner. “I’m framing (the drawing) for his birthday.”
Her friend, Mary McClain, noted of her husband, Scott, “He’s a breast man, not a butt man.” Nonetheless, she too giggled with glee when she saw the drawing of her posterior.
“I’ve been accused of having a flattering hand,” said Newton when asked if he trims off inches when he draws. For sure, says Rouner, who concludes that he had reduced her size 10 to an 8, maybe a 6.
“He took a couple inches off my ass,” roared Thomas E. “Tommy” Adkins Jr., HomeSide Lending’s senior vice president.
“What a butt, man,” observed another HomeSide official, Terri Mullany, as one of her male co-workers had his posterior immortalized in charcoal pencil on a sketchpad that says, “HomeSide … We cover your bottom line.”(less than)$t-5(greater than)
Newton, who graduated in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, often is asked how he came up with this idea. He quit his engineering job with Westinghouse in Dallas, he says, to pursue a career as an artist. On a street corner there, he was creating a six-foot canvas of a rear view of parade watchers when an onlooker offered to buy it for $125.
The parade scenes evolved into a customized deal where he would put the buyer’s backside and the buyer’s friends’ backsides into the picture. Then, to fill out the group, he’d grab people walking down the street and draw their behinds into the picture too.
To thank these strangers for their cooperation, Newton would make a quick rear-view sketch for them to take home.
Then, much like that moment when the other Newton saw the apple fall from the tree, this Newton thought he could turn this endeavor into an offbeat career.
Before long, passersby were lining up for his drawings. One of those customers asked if he did trade shows and the rest is artistic history.
In the summer of 1987, “I came up with the phrase The Original Butt Sketch,” he says. “It titillates a little, makes people chuckle.”
More recently, “In the heightened sensitivity of sexual harassment, I didn’t want to get caught up in that,” he says. He thought of changing the name to “Derriere Drawings” or “Posterior Portraits” but decided against it.
And, in the 11 years since Butt Sketch began, he said there has not been a single complaint.
Before he started doing corporate work — where drawings are free to those who drop by clients’ booths — “I used to charge people based on their shape, whether they were `fat,’ `round,’ or `regular.’ (Those fees were $2, $2.50 and $3 respectively, he says.)
“I was just having fun.”
He still is. He tells one client that she has nice legs, gets repeated hugs from other clients and handshakes from the men — who are as captivated by the drawings of them in suits or Dockers as the women in slacks, skirts or dress-for-success suits are.
Many couples come by to be drawn together. The most popular place to hang the drawings when they get home is the bathroom, says Newton.
Newton says it takes about 2 1/2 minutes for a butt sketch. “That’s a minute and a quarter per cheek.”
Yes, he does nudes upon request — though not at trade shows.
“At private parties, they drop trou,” he says. “Then, people start drinking and they’re fully mooning me.
“Just another day at the office.”
