Thomas Kinkade, to the chagrin of the academic elite who even bother to notice, has built a multimedia empire based on a lifestyle brand of Rockwellian simplicity and small town family values. In this article Matt Mays, a CADRE graduate student, explores the Kinkade phenomena, its shaky financial underpinnings and the implications for the growing rift between middle america and everyone else.

Matt Mays is an MFA Student in the Cadre Institute for New Media at San Jose State University.