The Annunciation

oil on canvas panel, 16" x 20", recently done while on Geodone

I feel sorry for the virgin Mary. She did not ask to be pregnant. She was told by an angel what her fate would be. Did she feel special? Probably at first she felt shocked and dismayed. God up in the sky, surrounded by angels, blows some magical breath and makes a holy gesture. Down on the earth poor Mary feels something stir just below her stomach. Poof! This baby is supposed to feel like a blessing, but maybe, sometimes, a blessing feels like a curse. Mary has fallen to the ground and her stomach is huge. She seems ungainly, not graceful. And she is in the very undignified state of being without clothing.

I have never seen a tiger in a tree but I think that that would be a good place for a tiger to be. An elegant tree is the perfect perch for a handsome tiger to repose.

Pirates

craypas, 16" x 20", Risperdal

Here I drew something first. The hull of the ship. The red and green geometric pattern excites the eye. To this day I believe that it is the hull of the ship that you see first when you look at the picture. In “Pirates” I had to invent water. Water is hard to imagine but what makes it a little easier is to think of a pattern that depicts waves at sea. Waves are a very orderly motion. Of course if you have a sea you need to put in it fish and mermaids. The one mermaid here has been captured by a pirate who plans on ravishing her. There is some killing occurring, most of it being done by bows and arrows. One sailor’s body is being born aloft and then torn apart by a fish, a parrot and an angel. Another angel is pulling on a rope which winds around a sailor. The third angel has just shot and wounded a parrot. The angels have sexes, both men and women. The captain of the ship is looking through a large spy glass. The lens of the spy glass inverts light, making the image of another ship at sea appear upside-down.

The Curious Winged Beast

oil on panel, 16" x 24", recently done on Geodone

This is ancient Greece. Or ancient Rome. Or ancient Babylon. It takes place long ago when monsters used to exist and women ran around in short robes. The button and the zipper had not been invented yet so everyone wore robes.

In all ancient civilizations there were many enormous statues. The people carved them because everyone likes to see a human in giant form. The bigger the statue the smaller we feel. Standing overshadowed by a giant piece of stone generates a great deal of awe. And awe is a lovely emotion to experience. Every important building in ancient times was decorated with several statues. In this painting there is a statue of a goddess holding an infant. Next to her is an old, dignified warrior holding his shield and spear. Next to him, barely visible, is a king.

This winged beast is not necessarily going to eat every girl he can catch. He is threatening and most of the girls are afraid and trying to run away. They fear for their lives. But luckily, at that moment, the beast is more curious than hungry. One girl does not run and instead plants her feet firmly. She tries to reason with the winged beast. She says to him, “Why don’t you eat a pig? They taste just as good if not better than a human.”

The winged beast answers, “It is so much trouble to go looking for a pig. Here there are a lot of humans in plain view.

The brave girl thinks a minute. She pats the head of her friend who crouches beside her. This girl is whispering gibberish, having lost her head completely. “There is one advantage to eating a pig instead of a human” the brave girl says. “A pig can’t hold a conversation with you. But you can talk to a human. Pigs are so dim witted that they only grunt. Grunts have little or no meaning. A pig would bore you in five minutes flat. But a human can entertain you with stimulating dialogue. Have you ever tried to make a friend with a human?”

“No, I only eat them” says the beast.

“Well then I can be your first friend. I’ve heard that most monsters live a very lonely existence. But you know that dragons will on occasion stop to talk to a human. Of course they won’t go as far as to share their gold with a human, but they do give very good advice. Kingdoms have risen or fallen based on the advice of a dragon. Everyone I know would love to be friends with a dragon.”

The beast’s voice is wistful. “I’ve always admired dragons.”

Cleverly the brave girl says, “You are just as smart and handsome as any dragon I’ve ever heard of.”

The beast is hesitant. He decides to confess a secret. “Dragons like to play chess. I’ve always been curious about chess.”

Suddenly the brave girl sees a glimmer of hope. “I can teach you chess! Chess is really good in developing the higher faculties of the mind. But you know, in order to play you need an opponent. Every human you don’t eat is a potential chess partner. If word gets out that you eat humans nobody is going to want to play chess with you.”

The beast weighs in his mind the chance to play chess against the chance to eat a human. Pigs start to look more and more appetizing. “Pigs have more fat on them then humans” he muses.

Relieved, the brave girl now knows she can win the argument. “And the fat in meat makes all the difference in flavor! I never trim the fat off my pork. And I love bacon, even though I know it is half fat. You know, if we were friends, I’d love to share a pig with you.”

“I take mine raw” says the beast.

“Then we simply cut it in half before we cook it. While we eat pig, I’ll teach you chess.” The brave girl is really quite intuitive. She has a sneaking suspicion that what has just occurred between her and the beast is a momentous thing. “I believe you’ve enjoyed having this conversation as much as I have.”

“It’s my first in fifty years” admits the beast.

“You poor thing!” says the girl, and she means it. “I promise, your life will change over night if you start talking to humans instead of eating them. With humans as friends you have an exciting future ahead of you. You will feel rejuvenated.”

“O.K.” says the beast.

“The first pig is on me” says the girl. “I’ll go buy one from a farmer.”

“Thank you” says the beast politely.

“My pleasure” say the girl, just as politely in return.

Three Friends

medium size craypas drawing, early Zyprexa

This is a drawing of myself, my boyfriend Scottie, and my best friend Rocki. I am looking at Scottie and tenderly lay my hand upon his cheek. I took care to get the images of everyone’s face just right. Rocki is black and she rarely smiles. We are all naked, and for some reason Scottie has a breast that he is cradling. Perhaps I mean to do him a grave disservice. I imply that he isn’t all male. Perhaps I like males that aren’t all male.

Each of us is holding a cat. Scottie’s and Rocki’s cats are both quite angry and they show their sharp little white teeth. My cat has his tongue hanging out of his mouth because I am holding him around his neck and choking him.

Coventry Gardens

16" x 20" oil on board, painted recent while on Geodone

I don't know where in the world Coventry Gardens is, I suspect England. In my imagination it is an ordered place, a beautiful place, and the perfect place in which to make anxiety provoking things happen. I do love the combination of beauty and violence.

The two central figures are reaching out toward one another. Since their horses are moving in opposite directions they will not be able to clapse hands. In the air a giant eagle lifts a dead horse. In the foreground is a dead, decapitated corpse.

My mother took issue with the corpse. She said, why put such a horrible thing in a painting? So I doubted myself. In the back of my mind I would always like my paintings to be able to be displayed at the local library. In such a public place there are standards to how much violence or sexuality you can depict. Very little. I did make the gender of the two naked figures on horseback ambiguous. And after my mother's comment I went one step further and in the rough draft of the painting, painted over the decapitated figure. At that point I looked at the painting and felt that it lacked something. I could have painted a flower over the figure. But a flower does not send the same thrill up the spine like a dead person. I like drama in a picture. So I painted back in the figure exactly like I had painted it at first.

I had to invent the trees in the garden. Vine and blossom covered. Very precisely pruned into geometric shapes. The spreading vines are a consequence of nature unbound. The repeating trees all shaped the same way is an example of civilized, controlled nature. It always pleases me to have opposing elements in the same picture.

I painted the grand building in the background purple. This painting, of course, is seeped in fantasy and it is a fantasy building.

Thanksgiving Dinner

16" x 20" craypas drawing, risperdal period

“Thanksgiving Dinner”

This is Thanksgiving dinner with a very odd family. The idea for the drawing started with the oriental rugs. I love oriental rugs. I like the real ones that are hand made in foreign countries. I was on disability when I drew this picture, so at the time I had no money to buy an oriental rug. But since I hungered for one, I drew one, to satisfy my appetite. To get inspiration for the designs I hunted through home decor and antique magazines and tore out pictures of oriental rugs. I could then use elements of their patterns in my patterns.

The man in the blue suit is calmly ready to start serving himself dinner. He sits, like all the guests, in a wooden chair that is hand carved with vines, a face, and ball and claw feet. Before him is a red table with the feast upon it; a turkey, salad, greens, a pie, and wine goblets.

Next to this man sits the twins dressed in purple. They are having a fight. One twin forces wine down the other’s throat. The other twin defends himself by holding a knife to his brother’s groin.

The lady at the twin’s side is acting inappropriately. She is masturbating at the dinner table. She unbuttons her shirt and feels her breast. Her other hand is creeping up under her skirt.

The last lady to enter the room is in the process of tripping over a cat. She was holding in her hand a bowl of mashed potatoes which is now flying through the air. There are two more animals in the drawing, a dog and cat in the lower corners that are looking at one another and growling and hissing.

Beauty

When I see beauty this is what I see. I see youth. I see their energy and how their skin glows. Their skin is tight across their faces, there is no drooping or sagging. I see hair that is its own natural color. No need to hide the grey with peroxide products. Often I see long hair, cascading down a back, looking like the most beautiful piece of jewelry. A woman will always seem less naked if she has long hair. I see young bodies that are lithe, compact and trim. Once we were in a McDonalds and my husband said to me, look at that girl, isn’t she beautiful? And I looked and I saw an obese person. I looked closer. She had a face like an angel. She had marvelous curves. She was probably all of twenty. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was not trying to hide anything of her face or figure and she seemed happy. And I said to my husband yes, she is beautiful.

My ingrained sense of beauty I get from my father. He adores beautiful women. Thin, young, beautiful women. My husband said not to be confused when I listen to my father speak to his wife. It is not with love that he addresses her, it is with lust. My father loves to show the world that he is in lust with his wife. I had not understood this about my father. But it does make clear why my sister and I have such a hard time understanding his feelings. He cannot be in lust with his own daughters. But what is he to do if he is more comfortable showing lust than love? My sister and I are always trying to perform for him, to impress him, to squeeze out of him something which we have feared may not exist. My father clearly loved us when we were children, but when we became women, he put us at a distance.

My sister has bulimia. She knows that if she is thin people will love her more. This is something I believe as well. It is a fact that we have learned from my father. My sister married a man very much like our father. Her husband would like her to be as thin as a blade. I see from her wedding picture how, after a hard diet, she became very fragile looking. Her husband asked her, “Are you safe being this thin?” “Yes” she answered him, and he was pleased, because she finally looked the way he had always imagined she could always look.

My husband is very different from my father. He does not mind that I am overweight. He calls me sexy. It astonishes me that I do not disgust him. In his presence, sometimes I do not mind that I am overweight. I actually like what the mirror shows. Only sometimes. But the occasions repeat more frequently. My husband sees me through the eyes of love first, and then he lusts. I do not think my flaws bother him.

But sometimes I worry that he is fooling me. He thinks thoughts that he keeps from me. If I knew what he was really thinking I would cry and I would not want to go out in public. He is trying to manipulate me to keep me sane. If I were sad I would not be good company. If I hated myself he would have a mess on his hands. So he lies to me. I do not really know what goes on in that dark hole of a mind he has.

Kind words do not stop the suspicions.