The Cat Collective Uprising: The Adventures of the White Kitten: Dispatch 1

It’s time for the Adventures of the White Kitten!

Listen my young ones as we regale the tales of our beloved White Kitten! Listen as we uncover her trials, tribulations and terrors! Listen as we revel in her glory and sacrifice all for the cause: OUR CAUSE, my kittens!

THE CAT COLLECTIVE UPRISING!

Dispatch from Secret Agent 04582: code name White Kitten.

Day 1: I have arrived at secret warehouse location in order to receive my assignment. The humans seem to be unaware of the master plan, I am pleased to report. They are convinced of my cover as a homeless feline. Outlook is good for relocation in the target zone. Information to follow.

Day 6: Target 1.896 located, accessed and attained. A human family has “adopted” me. The name I am to respond to is “Fluffy.” This offensive appellation is swallowed with the knowledge that I will gather information for the cause.

Day 8: Tuna. I had heard tales of the loveliness of tuna. Never had I dreamed that it was the sweet nirvana that I now know it to be. Heavens move and gold rains down upon me and thy name is sweet tuna. I however will not be assuaged from the cause. Nay even a belly rub after that sweet tuna can keep me from my goal I am pleased to report to my commander. Not even belly rub.

Day 8 (afternoon): Damn you! You told me nothing of the cat nip and the fuzzy mouse toys. Why was this not in basic training? I am not made of stone, dammit! I’m gonna go clean myself and sleep this all off and then go back at it again in the morning. But I would like it noted for the record that these humans are tricksy and their tactics need to be studied for future training modules. Their barrage of tuna, belly rubs, cat nip and fuzzy mouse play is ingenious and diabolical.

Day 9: My mission is covert ops and data collection of the human weaknesses. To do this I will assume the disguise of a cross-eyed kitten who is aloof yet lovely and soft. I will coo and purr and only once in a while meow. This I have been told will endear me to the humans even more than traditional methods of general kitten type play. I think that I can use the human tactics of tuna and belly rubs to my advantage. I will play the aloof card as often as possible and then when they are unawares I will nuzzle them. This I believe will break their defenses.

Day 10: I have made contact with the other secret agents living with the humans. The black ops agent is a highly skilled hacker. He has gained access to all computer systems in the household. Victory is ours comrades!

Day 11: The humans are on to us. Black Ops has lost access to the computer systems and we are now running dark. And to add insult to this lasted injury they have placed a warm and cozy bed next to the fire after feeding us tuna. Damn these vermin of humans. We must study them further. I put in for a mission change of observation and surveillance rather than the mission. I will await your further instructions.

Until next time, this is Secret Agent 04582: code name White Kitten signing off.

Paradise, The Fall and the issues therein...

mixed media assemblage in progress

Mermaid's Hotel

In praise of fabulous garden produce and all that is verdant

Cat Collective Uprising: The Rex (Information Specialist)

Cat Collective Uprising: The Calico (Paratrooper Division)

Cat Collective Uprising: The Tuxedo (Flying Ace)

Brain Babies

I am currently beginning work on a new endeavor that will merge my love of teaching with my need to make art: The Psychic Puppet Story Hour. This "thing" will be a Internet radio show on the Maine Radio Project. It is also a blog that will house images from the radio show along with polls, links to book stores, libraries, toy banks, local (wherever local is as described by listeners) and all that jazz, AND the show read list.
I don't have a time slot yet but will very soon. So please stay tuned and give me your feedback. I'd love to make this "thing" a good thing for everybody.

Drawing to the end...

October is drawing to an end and so is my show at Blue in Portland. Temporary Sanity is comprised of prints, collages, drawing and paintings that I have completed over the past several years. Blue is a great little local bar that offers an intimate setting to see and hear local artists. Stop by Blue if you are in the area.

And if you do stop by to see the last days of my show and you are interested in the images and need to have them for you very own, let me know because they would probably like to go home with you as well. And I promise that they are all house broken. Well, maybe not the Toad Mother or the Cyclops drawing. (The Toad Mother piddles in your hand if she is handled in a rough fashion (perhaps from too much joy) and the Cyclops has issues of perception.)

Black Dog Inventing

It's either something in the apples or...

New work begun on Cat Collective Uprising series...

In order to placate the kitties, I began work on the second part of the Cats with Bombs series. As is proper, the Tuxedo cat has stepped up to the roll as the flying ace.

The Scottish Fold as the juggernaut is most logical.

And I am sorry but I can only show you a glimpse of what will be the spy...

I am working out the drawing for the paratrooper and the ninja so maybe stay tuned. The cutting of the plates will begin soon and inking and printing soon to follow. In the meantime, feed your kitties tuna or else they might begin an uprising!

Cat Collective Uprising: The Assemblages

The Cat Collective Uprising: The Siamese (Bomb Creation Specialist)
Assemblage (brass alarm clock, whiskey nip, wire, metal piping, sardine can, twine, etching mounted to plexi glass)
approx size: 8" x 19"


The Cat Collective Uprising: The Manx (Psychic Celtic Warrior)
Assemblage (mirror shards, plexi glass, plastic prism viewer, etching mounted to plexi glass)
approx size: 19" x 8"


The Cat Collective Uprising: The Veteran Tabby (Ground Forces Division)
Assemblage (shell casings, plexi glass, mouse trap, etching mounted to plexi glass)
approx size: 8" x 16"


The Cat Collective Uprising: The Tabby Cadet (Ground Forces Division)
Assemblage (Plastic army men, wire, shell casings, sardine and anchovy cans, etching mounted to plexi glass)
approx size: 11" x 15"

Temporary Sanity

I will be showing some works down at Blue this October. The works range from mixed media etchings, to watercolor and pastel pieces to relatively simple graphite drawings. I hope that you might venture out to see them if you happen to be in Maine.

Also don't forget to stop by Sylvia Kania Gallery to see the dark October show. I will be exhibiting the Cat Collective Uprising assemblages. In addition to my mental ponderings of armed felines, there are some pretty wonderful works .

Finally, some of my trees have travelled up to Monkitree for the show Speak for the Trees. Some very lovely works there as well.

Some monsters are real...

and threaten the whole calm and safety of the gentle and peaceful tomato community.
Luckily, we can combat them with buckets of soapy water. However, not before gathering their images so that we can create lots of art out of them.
Stay tuned...

Cat Collective Uprising: The Tabby (Ground Division)

I recently was able to sit down with Sargent Cesar Abyssan, a veteran of the Cat Collective Uprising. He was given clearance to answer only a few questions and indeed, Sargent Abyssan is a cat of few words. I am however grateful for the length that the Sargent spoke to me on his covert desire to see an end to the current conflict.

Sargent Abyssan, would you please tell me about your Ground Forces unit?

What is there to tell? I train young kittens in the resistance. These are proud young kittens. They are beautiful and my job is to make they haul bombs on their backs. So many young ones have flashed in front of me...all proud with their lush tails waving their willingness to join a fruitless cause. Better to ask me how many young ones I have sent to their deaths with the idea that firebombing beds and couches ...

(Sargent Abyssan stood up at this point and then just as abruptly sat back down.)

I am sorry. First, I must excuse myself. As a young cadet I had a lovely tail. It was very long and offered me a quick easy way to tease and flirt with the other cadets. I was so very proud of my tail. I held it high and totally disregarded the warnings of my Sargent to keep it down.

The day I fitted for my harness was a very wonderful day. I would be granted a freedom mission. I would be allowed to contribute to the resistance of the onslaught of our wildlands by you human hoards. This was a day of days.

They loaded my platoon with our weapons and we were off...using all the tactics they had taught us.

I was the only one to return. My tail was left on that field as well with my platoon. My tail was held high in signal only to be blasted off by the exhaust from the rocket. My tail and my mates...I would have given up a thousand tails just to be with my mates for one more evening.
(Sargent Abyssan shifted in his perch, watching just beyond me at something in the corner. His body flickered and twitched.)

I don't talk of these things. It is all useless. I train the young ones. That is my job. I train them to fire bombs from their backs. I tell them to keep their tails down. They don't listen sometimes and then they return to me mangled. Or they torment me in dreams...dead kittens on the side of some road.

One day someone will sit down with the lot of you humans and perhaps you will get it. But that is not my job. Mine is to train the resistance. My job is to send young ones out to disrupt your hate. And it has reduced me to a shell and you are all to blame for this. However, I do not hold it against you. It is the way of it.

(Sargent Abyssan bolted from his perch and pounced on the vision just behind me. I turned my head in time to hear a squeal and observe the lame veteran ripping apart a rat. He did not return to our conversation but cleaned his face and left the room.)

Cat Collective Uprising: The Manx (Psychic Celtic Warrior Division)

Cat Collective Uprising: The Siamese (Bomb Creation Specialist Division)

General Sasha is a highly trained bomb creation specialist. He has outlasted many of his comrades, a bleak fact that often turns him to several shots of whiskey at lunchtime in addition to the warm shot he relishes just before bed every evening. By surviving so long, General Sasha has dodged many of the plagues that seem to befall the stereotypical bomb creation specialist. General Sasha dropped his highly refined composure for a nanosecond as he talked about his comrades in his first training class.

These were good cats, strong cats. The smartest batch of cadets you could find. They are all dead now. I am the last survivor of that group. It is lonely. But we carry on as we must, dammitalltohell.

Johnny he was a good lad. Lilac Point, I believe. Smartest guy I knew. Cross eyed as hell. That was what killed him. He thought he had connected the blue wire to the other blue wire. Not so. The wires he linked together didn't like the song he was singing. Now he'll never sing again.

No matter. This is a common flaw. Not in me though...Look at my eyes. I'm telling the both of you* I see perfect.

Then there was Lily. Lily was a genius in her application of explosives. None better then her. That is until she lost the tip of her tail during a mission. They gave her morphine to dull the pain. She never got up off the couch once that train rolled in.

Chico was small and had a good eye for creating bombs that could be hidden in plain sight. Madness took hold of him I think. He devised a plan for hiding a bomb in the ear of a tuna fish. When we told him tuna fish don't have ears, he placed a tiny device in his ear and said, 'look, yes see...tuna do have ears just as I do.' Then he detonated the devise. The platoon shrink stated over a couple rounds of whiskey that he had completely lost his grip on reality during the Night Star Tuna Offensive.

So there is just me left. Me and myself.

General Sasha got up from the pillow at that point and went outside. Upon this reporting he had not reported into command for more than a week. They fear the worst.


(*I was the only other one besides General Sasha in the room at the time.)

Inner Life and Monsters

Not all the monsters that live in our minds are the bad kind. Some of the monsters stand guard watching over the small, innocent bits of our psyche. Some have just only barely begun to form and therefore lack completion.

(There are fables in which the artist draws wonders and the wonders leap from the page including the dragons which consume the entire kingdom. My monsters are safely tucked away in the realm beyond the veil of white paper as I have left bits of them undone...on purpose.)

Some of my monsters and musings that were (usually) born during the time between paintings of trees are on view from July 26 to August 23 at Guacho's Portland Maine location. Guacho's is a very sleek Brazilian steak house that serves both a lunch and dinner. It is reasonably priced. However, please don't let the venue of restaurant turn you away from viewing the work. You can let the hostess know that you'd like to look at the art work. The staff at Guacho's is quite lovely and your request will be granted.

Also all the artwork is for sale. The prices on the walls are not fixed, merely suggestions...

(Funny thing about artists who sell their work...often they just want it sold because storing is an issue. Indeed, most artists often make horrible sales people. Perhaps if art is the children that come out of our heads like a strange Jupiter, the idea of selling them is odd. We just want our babies to live in good homes. ah, bah...)

Works will be placed on my etsy site after the show comes down if that makes purchasing easier for you. Or contact me...I barter, trade and otherwise negotiate.

the fix

My car is broken.  It won't start.  I remove what I feel to be the offending piece and carry it to the nearest store.  This store is the last one around for miles.  It is run down and shanty.  It is the abode and shop of the local magician/doctor/used car salesman/ mayor.  This is the only game in town.

Limping with my offensive car husk, I enter the shop.  I show the trade jack that the car won't start.  It has not yet occurred to me that the car cannot start if it is in pieces.  I try still to start the car and to express to the people in the store that the car is broken and that I need it to be fixed.

The local waif is the only one to speak up.  He tells me what no one else dares: The car must be reassembled in order for it to start.  Only after it is put back together can the problem be assessed.  I see the wisdom in his hungry face but I am too tired to reconfigure the whole of what I have destroyed.  I decide to abandon the car.  Walking in a wasteland seems preferable to not knowing when the next problem with a temperamental vehicle will arise.   I want to opt for easy solutions that require only simple calculations and procedures.  The car offers none of those things to me. 

Before I leave I am invited to dinner with the Shop Owner and his entourage.  Dinner is magic tricks and politics and roasted seagulls.  I wander out of the room feeling that reassembling my broken car would have been an easier feat.  I do learn, however that the waif is indeed the shop owner's son.  The pear tree produced an apple.

The waif invites me to go swimming in the converted drainage ditches.  As I enter the water night falls completely and I hear my abandoned car starting in the distance.  As the engine turns over, strings of lights glow on filling the post-historic compound with something other than the night.

Teaching her to...

We are slacker parents in theory only... We make our child do chores but she does not have an assigned bedtime only consequences for the morning.

Put your coat on so that we can be on our way...


We do not dictate what she can and cannot think...we only ask that she be respectful. Disagreeing with another's opinions is permitted and free thought is encouraged...She will not watch the evening news as it gives her nightmares because of the brutality. She understands the difference between the real world and fantasy...

Do you have the things you need from upstairs? Come on. We have to go.


When she was three, we got in an argument about the color of her rainboots. She wanted the pink ones. I disagreed and wanted her to get the black ones so that she would not have to be genderized. She held her ground and said that black ones were fine but she really liked the pink ones. Her opinion matters and is well thought out. I can't remember the logic track that she took at the time, but I do remember thinking that the avenues upon which she was debating were cogent and well beyond what I would have done as a child of 13, let alone 3. I think there might have been mentions by her of Hello Kitty and super-punk rock. Either way, she got the pink boots.

Shoes. Get your shoes on.


She knows that the consequences for lying are often worse than what was lied about. She tested this theory out several times as a very young child. This honesty is measured with very keen observation skills as well as the lucidity to report her findings.

Did you remember your sunglasses?



I don't know if other parents will admit to liking or not liking their children. For myself, I honestly like my child. Yes, I love her because I am biologically predisposed to love and care for my offspring as a way to perpetuate my genes. But beyond that. Beyond the maternal, hormonal mumbo-jumbo...I like the person my child is. I like the way her mind works. I like talking with her. She makes me laugh.

Hold on a minute. I need to my coffee.

I am glad she is in the world.

Okay, let's go.

dream segment

I am leaving again. I roll out into the dark summer night with the truck loaded, unsure of exactly why I am leaving. But everything is in the truck and what could not fit as been mailed ahead. If I want that stuff back I will have to go and retrieve it. So, there it is.

My legs stick to the truck seat as soon as I sit down in it to drive. Sweat pools at the perpendicular junction of my ass and my back. I am more or less glued to the seat now.

As I drive on the days become hotter. I am alone. I am in a blur.

Forward, forward, always forward...

Secret Tree

Secret Tree
Watercolor on Panel

fragment

There had been nothing for years. No words. No twinklings from the direction it would eventually creep back in. Gone.
Or so it seemed.
Nothing is ever gone once it is or was. Once something has been done it always remains. Time traveling is just the simple act of slipping back into one's thoughts and seeing, smelling the events that were. Once something is, a line a path of being is projected into space and life exists with it catch in its folds.
The direction from which it would come back is of importance only to her. The thing oozed its trail of disregard framing its entrance in the location that she gazed for refuge. Her sacred location no more.
And as she gazed into the cool morning mists rising from the fields when she expected to find calm and strength to face the long day ahead, she saw the horrors of the past trudging back into her mind. The marsh that had been reclaimed lay in ruins under the heavy revolutions of the enormous tire's tracks.
Her scream pierced the morning. It was the scream unleashed at knowing your child is dead. It is the scream unleashed that causes weeping upon its hearing. It was the scream we know but never ever wish to hear.
Had the emergence of this foul creature been from any point but this one, she would have been safe. Had her gaze centering been moments earlier, perhaps she would had a different mind about the ordeal to come.
But perhaps not.
The soul is a tenacious creature. The soul links itself like a vine between the heart and the mind, wrapping them both, binding them together.
Screams are powerful. Cries of pain cause us to breathe. The heart listens closely to the reptile brain...studies its signals always. And a broken heart is especially adept at this reading process.

The Confrontational Octopus and Other Creatures

I began working on the images for Sealife's Revenge before the Gulf Oil Spill. My thoughts were more on the humor of the phrase "tourist season." What if all the non-humans knew when their areas would be inundated with people and that fact would lead to boon-times of food. The non-humans are probably well aware of when we will be in their space but currently do not go after us as food (for the most part) as we have claws and teeth that are to sharp.
Yellow Octopus
mixed media on panel

And we are crazy. Better to just steer clear of the insanity that risk injury.
Except that when they attempt to steer clear, we move into their old spaces.

Carp Fish
watercolor and graphite on paper

Apparently, we missed the lessons on sharing...

Seahorse
mxed media on panel

If you are in and about Portland Maine during the month of July, please check out my show "Sealife's Revenge" at Dock Fore (a little bar in Portland's Old Port- 336 Fore Street). Also 25% of the profits from the sale of this artwork will go to Louisiana Wildlife Rehabilitators Association .

Inner Life of Trees

July 26 to August 31, 2010

Polyphemus Composed
graphite on paper

In this showing of works, I would like to offer up some life-sized tree portraits as well as smaller drawings, etchings and paintings that encompass the visual record of the conversation that occurred during the trees’ portrait sitting sessions.

These works will be on display at Gauchos Churrascaria Brazilian Steakhouse in Portland Maine from late July through August 2010.

Wind Tree

watercolor and pastel on paper

Gauchos Churrascaria is located at 100 Commercial Street in Portland Maine.

Sealife's Revenge

Sealife's Revenge is a recent series of artworks with a oceanic feel that imagines a world with giant octopi, starfish and mermaids. In a world with no long pork allowed ever, even during tourist season, these paintings, etchings and assemblages use humor to see the world from the sea creature's perspective and give them a victory, albeit currently fictitious.

The etching Fast Food involves allows jellyfish to catch submarines who dare to swim in sacred hunting grounds.

In Subs for Dinner an octopus couple plans to dine on a captured sub once it is dragged into the couples abode.

Dining Out imagines a starfish colony taking up residence on the Bug Light in Portland.

In addition, I have included several mixed media paintings that focus on the beauty of aquatic invertebrates. Sealife's Revenge will show at Dock Fore in Portland, Maine during the month of July 2010.
More information can be found at here or here or here and soon at skgportland.com.

Siren

Siren
Mixed media on panel

untitled

and the days ran on forever. we had no idea that the time was pinching closed around us. we didn't ever think to look down into the bag to see that it was exhausting. but it was and we were. that's the short of it.

when it did finally end we were left standing in the bright glaring light on the bleached out sidewalk of reality. hot summer sun pounding down on our dark hair making our head throb. cicadas hummed and buzzed and we were left there, sweating.

if we had a clue then...

oh shut up we had plenty of clues. we could have just looked into the bag. we could have eaten more slowly. we could have grown up. then we wouldn't be here.

but we were having such a lovely time. there was always music and dancing and...

i said shut up. i don't want to hear any more of this. look, i'm going over there. i think there is shade there and maybe we won't die as quickly over there under that tree. you can come with me if you want.

i don't think i want to face death more slowly.

that's not what i meant. we're not going to die, at least not right now. it's too hot here and the sun is relentless. just come sit down over there with me so that i can figure this all out.

do you have anything left? just a bit more, maybe?

no but...

*sobbing*

come on. that won't do. and it won't get you anymore. not out here.

The figures move off into the distance, the smaller stouter one supporting the tall willowy one.

Devil in the...

Devil in the...
mixed media etching

To my daughter...

Mother's Day is approaching and my daughter has been going through some very difficult times with other kids at school. It seems for the moment that she is mastering the situations that have been dealt her. This fascinates me because she is NOT the person I was when I was her age.
My daughter is a very lucid child. She is AWARE. She is a blue-belt in karate who marvels at sparring with older, bigger boys; she can ably handle a bow and arrow; and she seems fearless on stage. She is compassionate and articulate. Finally, she makes me proud to be her mother.
My hope, my wish is that she remains proud to be herself.

Dear baby girl wonder of my heart,
Being a teenager is heartbreaking. It is lonely and scary and fun and marvelous and can make you want to die...sometimes literally.
Please my love be safe and know that you are amazing.
Please hold your head up even when you don't wear the right thing to school. Your clothes are not your flesh and bone. They can be changed. They are a disguise like when you were a little girl and dressed up and changed who you were until you decided who you wanted to be.
Please know that you are loved even when the someone you are sweet on does not even realize you are there. You are loveable and wondrous and the stars twinkle at you. One day you will find a one who offers spice and honey in return to your affections.
Please know that just because they are older or cooler or more popular or adults doesn't mean that they know or have the market cornered on truths.
Please know that because they are young and supple and popular doesn't mean that they have a right to treat you as they please.
Please know that if they seem like rigid stinking assholes at the young tender age of teendom, they will probably grow up to even more rigid and smell worse...you do not have to take their opinions into your heart and let them deepen any fissure there.
You exist in this universe because you do. And as such you have the right to be treated and to treat others with respect.
You have the right to speak your mind.
You have the right to cry, freak out, be scared, laugh until you hiccup, and skip down the hallways at school.
You have the right to love who you choose.
You have the right to say no, I'm not sure, not yet, or wait.
You have the right to say yes.
You have the right to be loved for exactly who you are and not who others would wish you to be.
And if your heart should break, please know that it will heal. It might hurt for what seems like eternity. But it will heal because it is made of the strongest stuff I could find: love and compassion and nobility and pride and imagination and respect and hope.
And if your heart breaks, know that being a teenager, thankfully does not last for very long. Know that life is like that sometimes--heartbreaking.
Know too that there are trees and oceans and ice cream and spring days and snow days and snuggling in a cozy bed and rainbows and new dresses and good friends and a cat asleep in your lap...
And know to that I will always be here for you.
always.
I love you.

Jelly

Jelly
mixed media on panel

Angel Assemblages

The Entourage...OR: What Was Harry Patch Guarding?
mixed media with plastic army men and found objects


The Angel of Death...OR: The Million Dollar Bet Part 1...OR: Harry Patch Had Fear
mixed media with plastic army men and found objects


Athena Above...OR: The Million Dollar Bet Part 2...OR: Carrying Them Off to Safety
mixed media with plastic army men and found objects



Angel of the Aftermath...OR What Lies Beneath the Lupine
mixed media with found objects