shiny and bright!

I hope your 2013 was a good one and that your 2014 is amazing!  Happy New Year!

nightmare in which it is all gone.

I sit on the edge of the room...near the wall, just by the window.   Yesterday there were crickets and cicadas singing here.  Now the noises are strange and I am confused.

My bedroom is a graveyard near a busy road.  Before, the second story room was in a cozy cape...an old farmhouse sheltering generations of other people's ghosts and dreams.  Now the room is elsewhere and cold.  The grounds have been haphazardly maintained.  The lazy sounds of insects and birds calling have been tossed away by the heavy trundle and smell of ill-kept cars whizzing past.  I gag on the burnt oil smell.

My room once had a plush bed pushed up to the window where I could see the stars. Two stories up I was eye to eye with the large willow.  No more.  The room is wall-less.  The border now is a wrought iron fence that lines the road that butts up to the now graveyard once room.  My bed is stone.

The rest of the house is a rundown old trailer that has been dissected and strewn across the graveyard.  The kitchen is near the large mausoleum and the bathroom is in the potters' field.

There is no family here anymore, only ghosts: the shouldas and wouldas and couldas.  If only the were dones.

Rapunzel

Rapunzel
watercolor and ink on paper
19" x 22"

 On a recent trip to visit family in South Jersey, my father's wife asked if I could paint one of the dogs.  Rapunzel (the dog) is one of the sweetest creatures that lives on my father's farm- which is saying something as my father and his wife (G.) adopt a huge crew of castaway creatures that, after attention, care and affection, are some of the loveliest creatures around.  Anyway, Rapunzel is a sweetheart.  The request was interesting as G said, "and please no extra eyes."

 "Yes, G.  I will refrain, for you, from placing extra eyes in the painting."

The under-drawing for the painting was a little tricky as I think my work doesn't emote sweetness as much as savage cute things that will devour your soul.  This is NOT what was asked for.

The photograph which I was working from had a small smile curling up on Rapunzel's mouth.  This nuanced little bit was the fine line between the sweetness asked for and my usual soul eater methodology.

There was also a lovely balance of orange and purply-blue in Rapunzel's coloring.  Although, she does have some traces of black hair, the vast sea of her is filled with blond and white.  The cool places in her were luscious pink browns and blues.

No extra eyes...but Rapunzel's playful mane offered curlicues of fur that dared me to pull them into the blue background.  And the juxtaposition of the blue sky with the orange mane is one of my favorite.  And I believe the smile of the lovely creature betrays quite nicely her sweet nature.

Counting Song

Two is for...
(currently) graphite on paper
52" x 34"

One for Sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told

Eight for a wish

Nine for a kiss

Ten a surprise you should be careful not to miss

Eleven for health

Twelve for wealth

Thirteen beware it's the devil himself.

the sweet man

I work with a traveling circus troop.  My job is to tease hot dogs across a tightrope while singing.

My husband is the strongman and a trapeze artist.  But the stress pushes him to the limit and he splits in half becoming two separate people.  One of these men is ferocious and calculating.  The other is sweet and loves me.  The ferocious man demands my presence sending the sweet man away.

When he was both men together I loved him but now I only feel safe with the sweet man.  I steal away from my bed by the hot dog stand to hug the sweet man.

The sweet man is very thin.  His hip bones jut out and I wrap my arms around him several times.  I whisper to the sweet man that I still love the ferocious man and cannot leave him.  The ferocious man needs me more.  The sweet man weeps.

One day a new circus act comes to the troop.  She is a young girl with dark hair and trained poodles.  She is/was me- I cut her away years ago and now she has grown a whole new body.

She wears a black tunic with lace embroidered out with pink thread.  Her hair is curly and her breasts are round, firm and luscious.

The ferocious man lusts after her.  He tells her secrets.  I hear them at night moaning and grunting.  Everyone does.  The sweet man has long ago left the troop and I am alone in my bed.  It is cold and I am crying.

The ferocious man tells me to leave.  He is going to marry this new girl.  She eyes all my clothes, surveying what will go and what will stay.  Mental calculations tell me most will probably go.  I am old.  Well, not old but I have chosen poorly.

I should have chosen the sweet man.  And now I am alone.

Reality Television

I am playing the game Gloom except instead of collecting pathos I am trying to drown bridezillas in shot glasses.  The deal for the game always shuffles out not quite in my favor. It just leaves the angry brides trying to scratch at my eyes with their long cheap manicures.

Filtering of Ideas
watercolor, ink and acrylic on paper
22" x 30"

The shot glasses are filling up with the rain that bounces from the ground into the pool then out again.  The wedding party is getting restless.  They are hungry for blood, drama or revenge: which ever comes with the happy meal toy and a side of fries.  I have to come up with something quick.  And it better be fancy.

I take the chopsticks from my place setting and hold the brides under in each shot glass.  They sink down into some cheap mall-like hell.  Their absence in the shot glasses leaves a baby otter and a lava lamp.  The otters do tricks and the lava lamp is amusing. I am relieved to be done with them but I know they will come back to haunt me.  Cheap like that is hard to get rid of.