SPC: Pop Art: week 4
Watching soccer on five plasma screen tvs at the same time. Drinking beer and eating fries with mayo (indeed) under the misting fans. There’s the modern dining experience. More SPC.
{ Monthly Archives }
June 2006
Portrait of Christy and Peter
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I haven’t had time yet to whip up some code for a gallery. All those sequestered wee hours are for indulgent painting and online furniture oggling. There was a time, about six years ago, when I’d have been golden just to poke around with a tangle of hypertext markup language all afternoon, sipping a gin and tonic on the balcony in the quiet, self-indulgent pause of life just before children. But those children, they showed themselves up and, well, here I am pilfering those last scraggly minutes of my day, trying to spin gold from little piles of straw. …By the way, that’s one of Ford’s favorite Grimm’s, which is funny because it was one of my favorites, too, growing up. Rumplestilksin is so greasy-good! |
| So, in lieu of a proper gallery, where I can tack up all my late-night progress notes, here’s a painting. It’s the wedding portrait that Tonya asked me to paint of her friends, Peter and Christy. It’s okay, I’ve been allowed to divulge it! But I still feel al little awkward in doing so. Anyway, Tonya’s springboard for me was the famous American Gothic. With that in mind, she sent me a few snapshots and some bio (the props in the picture hint at their interests). And do you know? It was FUN. And I hear they loved it. My work here is done. I couldn’t ask for a better way to put myself to good use. Well, except for the mothering part. That’s pretty fun, too. |
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| The encaustic class blinked by last week again. But so that I could start working with the wax at home, I thrifted a vintage electric skillet (to keep the wax in liquid while I work) and invested in a heat gun (which fuses the layers–a tutorial to follow soon). So, I’m sorry to all the spiders and cockroaches and trolls and whatever else crawls the garage floors at night: I’m moving into your space. |
| I almost finished a piece last week that I want to share, but instead I’m offering a quiet picture (above) of five minutes before class ended, a leaf, and some leftover wax. It reminds me of the ladies bathhouse atDeep Eddy: |
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| Back to painting. I’m back in the game! My second commission of the summer (and a curtsey to Tonya!). |
Illustration Friday: Dance + Rain
Scanner issues, again. I save my patience for my children.
Saunter
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| Rain lilies. We’ve had rain lately, but the deer are still eating the zinnias and runner beans. |
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The guitar carves our saunter in the woods, with a nod at our footfall by the man picking base. Fiddle follows the sweat sliding down warm arms, smooth slippery sounds of summer. A lively banjo details the levity of the rippling brook we walk along, the darting cardinal family, the scampering squirrels and the sunlit leaves. Johnny Cash fuses the layers of sound in a baritone honeycomb. I smile down at Chas, who always shouts for me to play “Ring of Fire” in the car. And over at Ford, who has recently discovered the geological significance behind that song’s name; engrossed as he is, now, in volcanology. |
| Mama Says Om |
SPC: Pop Art: week 3
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I’m supposed to write something about this photograph, according to the Self Portrait Challenge rules. Well, screw that. I don’t have a thing to say about this photograph. I just like it. So there. |
We Love You, Daddy
Having you back felt like a tranquilizer, smoothing out kinks and rolling out my soul to bask in the sun. I loved how you took the boys to watch the cup at Doc’s while I got my hair cut, and having ritas afterwards under the misting fans, Chas mingling with the clientele and Ford schmoozing the waitstaff for Galaga quarters.
I loved listening to kids, whistles and cicadas under that gimongous blue sky on Saturday evening. The one that began to eclipse Deep Eddy in shadow, upstaging all the splashing and bubbling in a quiet, classy grace. And eating hatchburgers and beer and blackberry cobbler, catching up while the kids watched Lady and the Tramp overhead at the Shady Grove. And I loved the part when they fell asleep in the car, on the way home, and stayed asleep for another half hour so we could, um, hang out in the front yard.
Sweeeeeeeet
Comfort
It’s been a long week at home alone with the children.
Each day is a greater test of patience, a chance for me to grow deaf ears and tougher skin to the temper tantrums. But my plan isn’t working, and instead of becoming more proficient, certain buttons have actualy shorted out. Chas, for example, is standing in the sun, with too-long hair and wet clothes, cradling a dried-up, dead earthworm. He is pretending it is his baby. And I could care less about that than the way it makes me feel, which is not disgust but a mixture of wonder and pride. How can he be charmed by a dead, dried-up earthworm? My son will surely have no difficulty accepting any child in his life. The world needs men like this.
Meanwhile, I am meditating on my second sweaty bottle of beer. It is still chilled, fifteen minutes from the corner store, and it tastes like college and irresponsibillity and forgiveness. Normally I would wait until 5pm for aperitif, but Damon will pull into the driveway within the next two hours and, with the mericful afternoon, dappled in sunshine (it is only 90 degrees outside right now) and the shaded, inflatable pool, I see no other option but to begin the evening right now. This is as far down in the lawn chair I can sit without falling flat off. And now, the boys are digging in the muddy grass, looking for more worms.
God willing, they will find live ones to care for.
Red
   
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locked + rusted + picks + tobiko jewels
welcome sign + taillight + wagon + stew pot
hoop + rake + glitterpaint + caboose
chair + xylophone + amp + chickie knobs
paint + koolaid + firetruck + Zach the betta
ChasStrokes
Blue
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glory + pool + wave + falling pennies
birdbath + jellypad + Ford’s windchimes + love
slip-n-slide + porch + table + noon
gesso + globe + rug + bluerock
w i n d m i l l
colorweek.