Masters-inspired artists play (and paint) by their own set of rules

This is the season for artwork inspired by a true rite of spring (no registered trademark necessary), the Masters golf tournament, presented by your pals at the Augusta National Golf Club. I have a new leader in the clubhouse, though this is an area of life that really should not have any ranking system, beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that. What I should say is that I am drawn to Masters/Augusta/New Season/Ye Olde Game art that celebrates the mirth of it all, along with golf’s enduring charm. Modern life is trying to snuff that out. There are artists, thankfully, painting a line in the sand with their brushes.

One of my favorites in this category is a Bruce McCall painting that ran on the cover of The New Yorker on April 11, 2011. The painting depicts a golfer in a tree playing a shot from a ball nestled between a tree trunk and a limb. Naturally, two green-coated tourney officials are taking in the whole scene from terra firma. A collection of birds has a much better view of it. The point to me is obvious: Golf is absurd, and still we proceed.

Along those same lines, the painter and master caricaturist Edward Sorel provided the cover art for the Sports Illustrated Masters preview issue dated April 4, 1966. In this piece, Sorel (who turned 97 last month) depicts Jack Nicklaus (looking like a cherubic-cheeked killer), Arnold Palmer (looking a little overserved) and Gary Player (looking teeny-tiny and ready for liftoff) in a single green jacket. Sixty years later, his unspoken message (as I see it) could not be timelier: No need to take any of this too seriously. The winking newsroom term for a paper’s sports section used to be “the toy department.”

Which brings me to a painting, a new and playful one, that our daughter, Alina, recently stumbled upon while hiking a green corner of the worldwide web, looking to ease the pain of Tax Day for her golf-nut father. It’s a watercolor called Chipping Season by a young artist named Liesel Anne Callahan. It depicts golfing chipmunks somewhere in Amen Corner. One of the things that makes the Masters tournament work is that it has a lot of rules, for players and fans and everyone else, and people are willing to follow them, in the name of decorum and orderliness. One of the things that makes this painting such a delight is that the artist doesn’t need any rules at all. The golfing chipmunks have their carry bags right on the green. Another group of golfing chipmunks are in a cart, with yellow-and-white surrey top, parked dangerously close to the green. The painting itself is a study in green in all its many shades.

I called Ms. Callahan. “I don’t golf, but I am surrounded by people who do,” starting with her husband, she said. She joins him in watching the Masters each year in their home in Lawrence, Kans. Liesel is a fourth-generation Jayhawk.

In real life, do golfing chipmunks wear green knickers or a pink-and-white striped skirt? No, but in Chipping Season they do. Do you see golf carts going the wrong way over the Hogan Bridge on 12? You do not, at least not during the CBS telecast of the Masters. It is a background moment in Chipping Season.

“I know Augusta has a lot of rules but as an artist I like to take what I see and make my own rules,” Callahan said.

During the telecast, she saw Amen Corner — the 11th green, the par-3 12th, the tee shot on 13 — and made it her own.

The artist’s father is a physician. Her mother is a musician, on organist. Her husband is a runner. They are newish parents. They live in a house with a view of a city park. When the Masters is on, Lawrence, some years, is still coming out of winter. Her brother-in-law came up with the name, Chipping Season.

“When I think of an animal that golfs, I think of chipmunks,” the artist said. “I don’t know why.” 

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com