Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. And the best way back is to keep your head straight.

The Gold Rush: 1925

Watercolor on 9” x 12” watercolor paper

#24 in the 40 movies I haven’t seen from the AFI 100!

While I overall preferred Modern Times, unto itself this is a fabulous movie. Chaplin’s Tramp character is trying to find gold in Alaska, only finding both friendship and double-crossing instead, as well as discovering whether or not a boiled shoe can be eaten. He’s struck by amnesia after striking gold and returns to the mining town while his memory returns. He falls for a dance girl, who enjoys his company but doesn’t see a future with this penniless, hopeless man. She doesn’t know how much that reality will change as the Tramp’s memory returns.

This film is a technical marvel as well and a feat of physical comedy and practical effects. Like, there’s no CGI for this and little to no precedent for how to do this cabin scene. Not only did they pull it off, but they CREATED how to pull it off. I feel like it’s also a massive inspiration for every cliffhanger scene that followed.

For the painting I wanted to speak to The Tramp’s loneliness, on his own in the snow outside of the warm and joyous dance hall where the town and his love are carrying on. Chaplin’s comedic genius isn’t just about his perfect physicality and timing, but also in how it’s all grounded in how deeply human The Tramp is. He gives both of those drama masks, making the laughs all the more poignant by speaking to the emotional spectrum we all carry in us.

Next week: The noir legend Double Indemnity!

Happy Pride Month! The most beautiful thing we can do is be who we truly are.

Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Thekla painting. It’s a wild one.

Card subject to change.

Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
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Rob’s gallery site Schamberger Art
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Bluesky
Cara
YouTube
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Katy’s book Oldest Kansas City

I found out a few days ago that one of my paintings was accepted to the 2026 Associate Members Online Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society. This was my first time submitting so it feels good to get in. There’s some tremendously talented artists in this and I’m honored to be among them. I’ll share the link with you once it’s live.

I took in two Fellini movies, Il Bidone (1955) and Nights of Cabiria (1957). Il Bidone is about a group of conmen trying to make it in a life of crime and survive the tolls it takes on their personal lives. It’s an interesting look into Fellini doing noir, and I think that’s also what takes a notch off of this one. Limiting himself to genre flies in the face of what makes his work so powerful, but at the same time this would be a career-best movie for any other director. It’s a really good movie by a great director, couched between two of his great movies.

And that next great movie by Fellini is Nights of Cabiria, a story of a sex worker who’s successful but wants to love and to be loved. Its star Giulietta Masina is an empathic cipher, allowing you to feel everything that Cabiria is experiencing. And gosh, those two last scenes are going to stay with me the rest of my life. What she does with just her eyes in that final shot is art at its finest.

Something else I’ve noticed with these 1950’s Fellini films is that they’re all about post-fascist life in Italy and that’s really resonating with me for, y’know, waves hand broadly at reasons. There’s all of these bombed-out areas that still haven’t been rebuilt post-WWII, and the people carry that bombed-out nature within themselves but they’re still try to find their ways in life and love. And the people MAKING these films also lived through that and here they are speaking to emotional reality in wonderfully artistic ways.

That’s on my mind. For reasons.

I also took in two John Cassavetes movies, Faces (1968) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974). And boy, what an emotional journey they are. Faces is about a disintegrating marriage, where the camera doesn’t look away so we’re forced to watch. The moments go on five or ten minutes longer than popular entertainment normally does, making it all resonate in uncomfortable yet authentic ways.

And then there’s A Woman Under the Influence, one of the single most effective pieces of art I’ve ever seen and because of that I hope to never see it again. Gena Rowlands delivers one of the very best performances in movie history as a mentally ill woman married to a sociopath (played by Peter Falk!). But it’s way too close to too much from my younger years. Hoo boy.

I also watched the haunting Targets (1968) by Peter Bogdanovich and Polly Platt and starring Boris Karloff. It’s an unfortunately timeless story about a mass shooter at a drive-in theater, which contrasts against the other story of Karloff playing an analogue of himself as an aged horror movie star. It’s both the fictional monsters of the silver screen and the real-life monsters we all have to live with, as well as an overlap with this being Karloff’s final film and Bogdanovich and Platt’s first.

The story of the making of the movie is as fascinating as the film itself, too. Bogdanovich and Platt were working for famous shlock-meister Roger Corman. Corman had an unfinished Karloff horror movie and a few days contracted with the star to finish it up and assigned it to the duo. They instead rewrote it all and created these stories of the shooter and the aged star around the screening of the horror movie. Human ingenuity, man.

Yesterday I finished listening to the audiobook for The Last Voice You Hear by Mick Herron. It’s the second in the Zoe Boehm novels following Down Cemetery Road, which sees PI Zoe investigating one case while working to quiet her conscience about the loose end of another. It’s a solid mystery book that keeps ignoring the reader’s expectations. Plus, there’s ostriches.

On the lighter side, I read Transformers volume 5 by Robert Kirkman, Dan Mora and friends. Listen, it’s ultimately about these giant robots punching each other but there’s some interesting character bits with changing alliances and no status quos being safe. I can’t imagine how difficult this book is to draw and it’s really something to see an artist like Dan Mora make this sucker sing.

Finally I read The Juniper Lodge by Dustin Weaver and friends, a collection of gorgeously-drawn surrealist short stories. Weaver’s one of those artist who makes me want to throw a brick through my drawing table because he does everything so well and still stylistically. What he does is REALLY hard to do and it’s cool to see that work collected here.

Stepping In

Acrylic on 16” x 20” board

Last Thursday I shared the process for making this piece and now here’s the finished piece. This worked out how I hoped it would and I’m happy to share it with you now. I’ve enjoyed doing these recent acrylic paintings as I prepare for a workshop I’m attending in Tuscany in a few months. There’s still a lot I want to carve away from the processes I’ve become accustomed to, to better facilitate translating emotions directly to paintings but I’m getting there.

Love you more,
Rob

PS: Trans rights are human rights. Abolish and prosecute ICE.