Monthly Archives: January 2011

Beasty Boy

Oil on canvas, 5″ x 5″. The dog is imaginary, but I like scruffy looking terrier faced dogs in general- and I think they bear a facial resemblance to some wolf spiders, the teddy bears of the spider world.

 

The tragic shooting in Tucson has been on my mind a great deal. I watched Obama’s speech and wept.  The invocation of “mental illness” and the attitude that this explains it all and we need look no further troubles me. Writing for Slate, Vaughan Bell addresses this issue here.

“…it’s likely that some of the people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than your average person with mental illness.”

-Vaughan Bell, “Crazy Talk,” Slate

Good music, good cause

Delighted to find, today, an album (can I still call it that? It’s a digital download…) that celebrates the song writing of Joanna Newsom and is donating the proceeds from sales to Pakistan flood  relief funds, via Oxfam America.

I  hear less in the news about the tragedy in Pakistan than I do about Haiti, and I don’t know why that is. Proximity? Religion? I don’t think that the need is any less urgent.

Newsom’s songs are quirky, poetic, jangling,and joyously bone-quivering. It’s such good stuff, and interesting to see how other musicians interpret the work of this accomplished young artist.

You can give “Versions of Joanna” a listen here, and buy it with a donation to Oxfam here.

Woodpecker Woman

Oil on canvas, 26″ x 20″.