Category Archives: Inspiration

Titan arum

The Corpse Flower is freakishly large and smells bad, by all accounts. I haven’t seen or smelled one in real life. It is on my mind today, though, as it is extraordinarily phallic  in appearance.

I came to a point today where the most logical next move was to add a penis to a particular painting. This is, after all, a show inspired by animus. For it to be entirely dickless would be strange. But the last time I showed a painting that included a penis- an ambiguous shape that MAY have been a penis, really- I annoyed a bunch of people at a church. The painting was hidden in a closet. So I hesitate.

In a compromise that some might call a pussy move – okay, now I’ve offended everyone I might know so thank gourd nobody reads this blog- I am thinking about letting phallic flowers stand in for penises. But it may too coy and smarmy and clever. I don’t know.

In the meantime, nothing large is finished but slow progress continues.

 

 

The Devil Made Me Do It.

Monotype, 7. 5″ x  5.5″.

Plus some gratuitous Etta James, just because I love it.

Bold Like A Horse

Monotype with colored pencil,  7″x 5″.

I misunderstand song lyrics frequently.

My original idea of what I heard wears a groove into my memory so that even once I know what it’s supposed to say, it doesn’t really matter.

The Dollmaker

Oil on canvas, 30″ x 30″

For most of my remembered life, I’ve been prone to sleep disturbances.

Nightmares, night terrors, and perhaps four years of sleepwalking as a child.

One night when I was eight I opened my eyes in a deserted, brightly lit Amtrak dining car speeding through the darkness.

It was as though I’d teleported there, I had no context.

A kind porter led me back to the train car where my sleeping mother slumped sideways in her seat.

My terrifying nightmares have returned, but I’m trying to look on the bright side.

The psych meds must be completely out of my system now and I am back to my old self, back to normal functioning.

I am certain the frightening dreams have a purpose, they must be beneficial in the long run.

“Scorned Lovers”

I am happy to have several paintings hanging in the Scorned Lovers Show at The Art Salon, which runs until the end of March.

It is raining tonight in Denver. Dashed hopes and vain fancies swirl through the gutters and wash down into storm drains.

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.

I hate goodbyes

Nonetheless, this is beautiful.

Crooked Beauty

Some things last a long time

Thank you, Mike Lownie, for reminding me that Daniel Johnston exists in this world. You brightened my whole day (as grey and dreary as it looks from the outside here in Denver on the unusually late date of our first snowfall of the season.)

I will have tiny and affordable paintings for sale at the Foothills Center Holiday Market, which opens this Friday November 13, with a reception from 6 to 8 pm.

This show will last a (relatively) long time. It hangs from November 13 till December 30.

Mermaids Singing (What the Water Wants)

With apologies to and in appreciation of T.S. Eliot and Sufjan Stevens.

And countless others. Always.

Oil on wood, 6″ x 36″.

I’ve finished this oddly sized painting for a group show titled Syzygy (we’re all working on this same long, narrow panel) that will open at Sync Gallery on November 19th and hang until December 11th.

Many thanks to the good people at Sync for inviting me.