Spruce up your whole home for the holidays!

Add romance to your bedroom with this fire-breathing chicken painting.

Add a touch of class to your dining room soiree with this fire-breathing chicken painting. 

Come home to relax in the living room with this fire-breathing chicken painting. 

Add splendor and intrigue to your breezeway with this fire-breathing chicken painting.

"September Morn" Reboot

One last painting! "September Morn" Reboot (You might recognize the creature from the "Dinosaur on the Moon" painting and the "Dinosaur In San Francisco" painting. He took his hat off to go swimming. My theory is that he is also Nessie of Loch Ness, but of course I can't prove anything.)

I'm in a little art and soap show in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin tonight (Friday Dec. 4), 4-8 PM at the Old #1 School House. You're all invited! 

While you were out...

The internet was down at my house for a few days. I don't get cell phone reception at my house, either, so it was a true black out! And then the regular phone just stopped working, in the middle of a conversation! So I said to the kiddo,

"Put on your pants! We're going to town!"

"Going to town?" she asked. "why ever for, dear mother?" (I'm paraphrasing.)

"We must tell the telephone people that the telephone is out of service!"

So off to town we went!

They sent over the same man who set up the modem five years ago. He walked into the house, and went straight up the stairs,

"I remember where it is!" he said.

He rewired some things, and now we're right as rain. Except, of course, that I made a blog post mid week that was completely lost in the aether. Although, really- isn't that where all of this will end up, someday? Lost in the abyss of all time? Who is reading this? You are, of course. But not for long! No, not for long. The ephemeral essence of the internet will take over, alas, and all will be lost.

Tomorrow is the big day! Am I ready? No, no. Not at all. Never ready until the moment of.

Frank will be there. 

Are you ready?

Art Show Setup!

It's not until next Saturday, but we decided to set up early. It was crazy with the farmer's market downtown, and the 120 degree skywalk, but we got her done.

This is strange. Perhaps only you who follow me would understand. I think I'm being influenced by Wanda Gag. 

She was always writing about the folds in fabric. Capturing that. I was never interested in doing that, until I read her diary.

I drew this this morning. I never do pencil drawings, but this is a pencil drawing. I never do these lovely folds of fabric, but there it is. And I never do these distortions- at least not on purpose- but this time I did it in purpose. I wasn't thinking about it or anything, because that would be wrong, but I did it. On purpose. 

It became all round and lovely and weird. 

I call it "Wanda."

Bad Assed Husband calls it, "legs." 

Keeping it real! 

I don't care if anyone likes it. I'll keep it on my wall forever. 

Sculptures by Deb Eide

I dropped by the home of fellow Tenderfoot Collective artist Deb Eide today. She lives way out in the country, surrounded by the physical manifestations of her amazing talent. I took some pictures.

Spring Showers.

Dead doll. 

Lots of circles within circles. These things only last about three winters, and she re-creates them. 

Weather vain. 

Detail of weather vain. 

More detail. 

It's difficult to give you the big picture. You could see the art better if I put a white sheet behind it, but part of what makes it appealing is that it blends so well with its environment, and makes the outdoor space magical.

She also takes care of the local wildlife so well that there were about a thousand tiny toads hopping about our feet. My daughter, age seven and eleven twelfths, found that if she turned the tiny toads upside down in her hand, they would not hop off.

That is a little tiny toad leg sticking up. 

Deb is so cool. She's also a fantastic painter. 

About Barbie and Frankenstein and Giant Chickens

I'm sorry. I have not been keeping up with the blogging. Life has been getting in the way.

 I just listed a couple of paintings on eBay today. I had fun with the description of the Frankenstein paining,

"This is a reimagined thrift store painting. This was originally just a landscape painting, just a hill, which I purchased at a local thrift store. I added Frankenstein. I remember, when I read Frankenstein, how most of the book was really just Frank wandering the hills, feeling lonely. Poor guy.

"The picture with frame is 8.5" wide and 6.5" tall. Discounting the frame, the actual painting is 6.5" wide by 4.5" tall. It's a nice painting for a small space. An RV. A dorm room. A desk in a crowded office. A studio apartment. Or you could put it in the middle of a giant wall, just this one little painting, and thus accentuate his amazing loneliness. You could put it in a cage, to accentuate his tortured soul, trapped in this artificial body. You could put it in your Barbie Dream House, and show that Barbie really did have taste and depth; we just never knew before. You could mount it in your car, and have a nice conversation starter for you and the hitchhikers you pick up on your next road trip to Durango. The possibilities are there. They really are."


I wonder if it's a thing now to get really into your descriptions on eBay? Does anyone else have fun doing this? Is there a club somewhere? Or am I all alone, like usual?

The actual ebay listing is right here. I've also listed a giant chicken painting. 

This makes me so happy.

Murder

No more news about "Avoiding Sex with Frenchmen" today.

I remembered, though, that I forgot to show you this lovely needlepoint I did for my imaginary friend Zgjenyue:

I actually didn't do the needlepoint- the tree and the grass, I mean. I found it at a thrift store, and I added the quote from Werner Herzog, "I believe that the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder."

I imagine she really liked it. (You know that part in the book about the demon leaving her finally? I may have exaggerated that part a bit.)

This Episode Brought to You by: The Mean Angry Shark Who Invaded the Summer Cottage That One Time

This is a print of a cottage that I found at a thrift store. I liked the ovular shape of it. And then I immediately thought something wanted to jump out of the water. Something hungry.

Happy New Year

Big Z thinks this looks like me and my husband. It does. Well, almost. I gave it to her for Christmas. She thinks it's hil-arious! It's two inches tall, thus the lack of detail. This blog is biggering it. 

Portrait of a Friend

My daughter just slipped me this note:

She's taken to writing notes lately. This must be my favorite a million times over.

Process of a Painting

I wanted to do a night scene, so I painted the wood black. 

Then I decided to paint a firefly, because I love fireflies. They make me happy in a quiet sort of way.
So I spray painted the middle. And then I thought about how they always light up as they make their way up
from the ground, so my eyes always see this sort of trail of light underneath them. Which is why I also spray painted
a line going down--- and at this point, I worried that people would think I was painting a nuclear bomb
explosion. 

I printed an actual photo of a firefly to draw from, and attached it to the corner of the wood.
I do this a lot, sometimes to copy exactly, and sometimes just for a guideline. 

I was thinking of the tall grass and how it looks at night. I added some color because this is
my painting and I can add things that aren't really there. Also, at this point, you can see that my
scale is completely off. If a firefly this large appeared in my life, I would assume someone
dropped an LSD tab in my coffee today. Again, though, it's my painting and I don't care. 

Then it needed a cat. I had no intention at all of including a cat, but
the muses insisted. It makes me think of Teresa, our boy cat named after
the comic genius Teresa Burritt (who is female). Teresa prowls the night.
May the Frog Blog rest in peace. Long live the Frog Blog. 

This painting, which looks better (more in focus!) in person will be going to a local show on December 5th. If you happen to be in Wisconsin (or Northern Illinois, like Wheatbread Johnson) on the 5th of December, it's at 4 PM- 8PM at the Old District #1 School House in Mount Horeb.  And you are all invited to come and witness my nimrodic powers (my powers , as they may be... perhaps not as great as Wanda Gág's) in person.

So Very Wrong

Fun thing to do in your spare time: paint the Starship Enterprise and a red shirt onto a thrift store landscape print.

Fun! This stuff is done better by David Irvine. Still, I enjoy it. Close- ups:

He's Doomed

NCC-1701

The print (without Star Trek) was $6. Cheap thrills, I guess. :)

I Have Lice

Schoolwork comes home every Friday. Today a poster of Little Z's came home, one of those all about me I'm so special pieces that only work if you're fewer than nine years. Here I show you the top of the Z:

"What does that say?" I asked.

"It says, 'I have lice,' and look at the cute little lice I drew!"

"But you don't have lice!"

"No, I don't have lice, the Z has lice. The Z is a snake, and the snake has lice in his hair, see?"

"_______!"

"They're so cute, the little licies... What is a lice, anyway?"

Got My Panties in a Knot Over This Painting

You see the problem, don't you? The lettering, in the cell phone ad. Too big. Too thick. I must redo that part again for the.., uh.., fifth time. I think the fifth. If I leave it the way it is, these kind people who commissioned this will look and see a cell phone ad. What they should see is a rendition of a moment, a moment in Chicago, with the advertisement as more of a subtle backdrop, part of the white noise, the visual hum of the city. 

I will keep trying.

I love commissions. It's so challenging. I always learn so much. This is the first time I've done a city landscape as a commission. It's fun. Frustrating and fun. How is that possible? It is. 

The worst thing I've ever done...

Little Z said,

"That is so low."

Yep.

I know what you're thinking. You want it. But it isn't for sale! This magnificent magic marker drawing on wood is going to hang in our bathroom! 

Everybody poops. Be prepared.

I have no idea what that means, either. 

That's an umbrella in the lower right corner, by the way. (In case my amazing drawing talents were leaving you wondering.)


Artist Statement
My work explores the relationship between new class identities and daytime TV.
With influences as diverse as Kierkegaard and Miles Davis, new insights are synthesised from both simple and complex discourse.
Ever since I was a pre-adolescent I have been fascinated by the essential unreality of the zeitgeist. What starts out as triumph soon becomes manipulated into a manifesto of greed, leaving only a sense of chaos and the prospect of a new beginning.
As wavering phenomena become distorted through diligent and diverse practice, the viewer is left with a clue to the edges of our future.

Art Show Highlight #1: Little Z is Better Than Me

I told Little Z that she could have one spot on my wall at the art show. The art show was three days.

The first day, she sold a mounted print of her collage, "Bunnies In Trouble (there's a wolf in the bushes)".


I explained to the people interested in it that the painting Little Z started with was painted by my grandmother, Ruth Porter. And then Little Z changed it in a computer program, adding bunnies swimming across a lake to get away from a wolf. (You have to look very closely to find the wolf, because he is a predator and he is hiding.) The man said he loved it.

"May I meet the artist?" he asked.

"Oh- no, I'm sorry! Her dad just took her home. It's her bedtime. She's six."

We ran into the parking lot to make sure they were really gone, but they were really gone. I wrapped it up for him. He payed me ten dollars for it. Then he went around and told everyone he met,

"I bought a piece from a six year old artist- and I love it!"

The next morning, Little Z didn't seem at all surprised to have sold a piece. It was like she expected it, almost.

So, then we had to find another piece to fill the spot for Saturday. Saturday, we put up this original drawing by Little Z:



I put it in a thrift store frame and marked it $10. Yet again, just after she left, a woman (another artist in the art show) purchased it. She said,

"I really like what she does with color."

One of the other art show kids was still there, and he tried to talk her out of buying it.

"The tummy's too big on that bird!" he said.

"Maybe she's pregnant," she said.

"Birds don't get pregnant! The lay eggs!" he was indignant. She bought it anyway!

I gave Little Z her ten dollars the next morning, and she said,

"I am a professional artist now."

I couldn't argue.

She found yet another piece to put up, a collage.

"This one was more difficult," she said. "I want you to charge $12 for this one."

Yet again, when she wasn't around, someone wanted to buy it... and then changed her mind. Thank goodness! Had she sold three pieces at the art show, she would have been insufferable. As it stands, she just feels lucky. Well, lucky, and like a "professional artist."

She bought a My Little Pony doll with her money.

Fail

I made this display for my magnets, and then BAH said,

"You know that stuff isn't magnetic, right?" And then he demonstrated. With a magnet. That fell off.

So... I guess that was kind of an important aspect of the whole magnet display for the art show. To be magnetic. But, um... At least we can still cut our hands on this, if we touch it. 

Cat and Bird