Rain, existential crisis and another chicken.

You know how if you have been writing or reading for too long the words stop making sense, and suddenly you look at the word "house" and it looks wrong and you wonder whether its actually spelled Haus or Hows or perhaps the letter "H" is all a crazy invention of your brain? That's how I have been feeling about everything lately. Am I really here in this cold, wet corner of the world where it never snows and the sun withholds favors for half the year? Am I really studying this 'medicine' that has a system--but it can't be explained by the system I know (and was raised to believe in more than religion), when it's sending me up to my ears in debt and I am not really enjoying my academic experience? I know, its winter in Oregon, its my first term, and I still have my painting. So here's Ginevra (Ginny). She's beautiful.

Mae West

I am participating in a show at the Watershed next month, and they requested more chickens. I will also be showing my large pieces of human subjects, many of which I have never shown due to their large size. "Foreground the light" will be on display, a 4foot square painting I did over the course of 6 months in 2002. I will also be finishing Thoth (for really reals this time) and hopefully one more large portrait by the time of the show on Dec 7th. Everyone is welcome to attend, it should be a blast! DJs, fashion show, warehouse party! More information to follow...

Please help me name this beast.

Beauty and the Beast

Signs of impending winter:
1. The Pointy one refuses to linger outside longer than it takes him to empty his bladder.
2. I have made pumpkin soup twice in the past week.
3. We just killed our 9 foot tomato plant.
4. My painting has picked up again.

Here you have a FP and a WIP. I took a little extra time with Lily#11, I think it paid off. As for the new one, I really wanted to paint a person but I am running low on models. I typed 'hot guy' into google and used one of the pictures as a reference. Aficionados may recognize the bust of Mr. Fluffy Pants, our former rooster. There's going to be a sunrise in the top left corner. The feminist critics are going to have a field day with this one.

The head of a big fluffy cock.

When our dear lambchop died (RIP) we sought to add another to our flock. I journeyed to Vancouver, Wa to find another hen. I ended up choosing Ginny, and bringing home one more, a bird with pants (buff silky). We were overjoyed at the bantam addition to the flock, and became alarmed when "she" tried to mount one of our hens. Being the owner of a dominant female dog with gender confusion (no doubt due to the lack of a solid male role model), I wasn't entirely sure how the story would end until the morning. I spent from 4-6 AM tossing sleeplessly, hopefully counting the silent minutes . But at 6AM (to the second) he started crowing. And he kept crowing. And crowing. Every 20 seconds until I put him in a box. Then he was silent for two hours until some light peeked through. Then I had a crowing cardboard box. In the afternoon, the woman who sold him to me finally returned my calls and I drove back to Vancouver and exchanged him for she-who-has-not-been-named. Happy ending (since she is our prettiest chicken anyway). So, long story short I did take a bunch of pictures of the ridiculous little guy, and I plan to make several of them into paintings. I did this one last night with the idea that it would decorate our new Poulet Chalet. Ray went nuts and built us a HUGE coop. Our biddies are soon to be featured on "Lifestyles of the rich and famous chickens".

Lily # 10

My lilies keep selling like hotcakes, and I have a fresh supply of pictures, so there will be many more to come. Please let me know if you get sick of them. On a more personal note, I am in my third week of acupuncture school and am enjoying it. Quiz on the Lung channel tomorrow!

Put your hans together for....DJ PAN!

I painted him almost a month ago while I was in San Francisco. Jeffery needed some more eye candy for his bedroom, so he purchased some supplies for me from a cute little shop on Haight. He insisted on the subject: a panda with a turntable. Twelve episodes of firefly later....
I have a couple more paintings to reveal, stay tuned.