A Post For All My Artist Friends! (Public Service Announcement)

 

A new piece in progress! One of several. As promised, I am moving away from documenting the many verbal (and otherwise) atrocities committed by The Orange Menace- at last! Good riddance! I am returning to a subject near and dear to my existence: income disparity and the hard scrabble life of the artist. Plenty of raw material there.

So the above is being offered as a semi-sarcastic, but heart felt plea. That phrase, "Just Fucking Buy It", popped from my mouth as Bob and I discussed an all-too-common problem of viewers of art work. Supposing to be supportive, or encouraging, or maybe to make themselves feel like big-time art collectors, people frequently lead artists on with comments like, "Oh! I LOVE your work! I should collect it!" or, "Let me know when you make another one! I'd love to buy a piece!" (*1) And all too often, they never do.

I cannot begin to count all the times that this has happened to me, to Bob, to every artist friend we have. And the sad part is that some small, eternally hopeful part of us artists swells and grows large and vulnerable; we actually expect the speaker of these words to follow through and exchange money for the artwork and take it home with them. I don't even know how we still fall for this cruel ruse. But we do.

There was even a scam going around a few years ago; apparently it's been dusted off and renewed. Artists (myself included) receive an email stating how much this particular person admires our work. They often have some story about how they'd love to purchase a piece as and anniversary gift for their wife or husband. They lead you on for several emails... until the ugly truth dawns: they were never a perspective client. How does this make them happy or excited or aroused? Leading on poor, unsuspecting artists is cruel! Call a stock broker and pretend you want to purchase shares or something! Just leave artists alone! (*2)

 So I retort with "Just Fucking Buy It". Tell me you like my work; relay how wonderful it makes you feel. Or how you like the colors, the subject matter.... whatever. But please don't then feel somehow special for adding that you'd like to buy it. Unless you have a check book, or credit card or (even better!) cash in hand. I- and no other artist I know- needs the hollow flattery. Shit or get off the can.

(*1) And I cannot for the life of me figure why they're sometimes interested in whether I make another or- or one in red, or blue instead. If you're not going to buy this one, what earthly good is another one?!?!?!?

(*2) I recently had a gentleman (and his wife and child) love my original WTF at an open studio event. They came back several times, admired all my work... and then walked away. The next year, they re-visited my open studio, ask about the same piece- was it still available?... and walk away. And then- six months later- I got an email from the same guy, asking measurements etc etc... and then he dropped off the face of the earth. What gives?!?!?

Things To Take Our Minds Off The Next Several Days: Horse Reincarnation

There's me and Neko after successfully jumping that giant cross rail! All 12 inches of it! My riding instructor (hi Maiya!) tricked me into it. Neko was like, "Uh... no big deal" but to me it was a remarkable feat of daring-do! But it does prove that Neko and I are working well together. Goodness knows, something better work well in the next few days, as we prepare to transition from constant insanity into (hopefully) relative calm...

In any event, I have sneaking suspicions that Neko may be the reincarnation (*1) of my childhood horse Dolly. Poor Dolly was rescued- thanks to Daddy- from a starvation situation. Dolly regained her health, if not a gorgeous shape, as she always retained a distended belly due to near starvation. But she was a saint! She and I and Woofie the Dog spent so many wonderful hours riding the blue trails in our nearby woods and cantering gleefully across Grandma's field. Truly a heart-horse that I could trust to never put a foot wrong.

So when I met Neko, there was something that just clicked in me. She and Dolly were about the same size and the same color and have the same funny "blonding" down to her hooves- instead of socks:

And nice hard feet! (Poor Maggie never had good feet. (*2) Neko also has the same coloration on her muzzle: (And such a nice big, dark, deep eyes!)

But most curiously, Neko has a split in her right ear... as did Dolly!

And there's just something about Neko- although younger and more full of beans- that reminds me of Dolly; maybe her relative level-headedness? Neko rarely spooks but carefully looks at things. Neko makes me think of Dolly, had Dolly never been starved and abused. And while you're here, take a look at Neko's tail which is a brilliant mixture of all sorts of shades of blonde through deep brown:

Neko is proving to be quite a good girl. Sometimes, she plays "Miss Crabby Pants" and her ears snap back when I ask her to move out faster, but I think she does this for show. She settles right down and then puts on the Happy Face and her ears go forward and she seems pleased. We have a ways to go before we iron out all our differences, but I for one am enjoying myself thoroughly. Riding takes my mind off politics... that in itself is a healthy thing!!

 (*1) My sister Cathy mentioned the same thing about Neko reminding her of Dolly when she saw a photo on Facebook, so I'm not entirely imaging this.

 (*2) Here's Maggie (officially still Horse #1) to say "Hi", begging the age old question, "Why the long face??!!"

 

10th Year Anniversary Railing!

 

This was supposed to be a jubilant post, my first of the New Year, touting all the good things happening. Soon (not soon enough) a new president, vaccinations coming, celebrating 10 years of life at The Bauhaus Chicken Coop and most importantly- a new railing up our stairs to go with that amazing balustrade that Bob constructed... (what did we do before the railing?!?!?)

But instead, I find myself (and almost everyone else I know) reeling from the crazy-town, rethuglican, trump-inspired mayhem that happened on Wednesday. This is me RAILING against the mob. Has anyone out there ever seen anything like that storming of The Capitol? I mean, many of us are old enough to have witnessed the Viet Nam War on TV or Nixon resigning... but this truly was like a page out of the Shit Hole Country playbook. Scary, disheartening, appalling, disgusting; how many more words can we conjure to describe what we saw. Stupid, ravenous, ill-informed followers of The Orange Menace being egged on by the (non) president himself and many of his fist-pumping evil henchmen, seeking to overturn an election because they didn't like the results. 

But here's another shot of the railing, before I go off the rails:

Look at the way it seamlessly ties into the balustrade! Bob meticulously painted the uprights the same color as my closet shoji screens and the railing is the same ethereal pale blue of the balustrade. I am going out of my way to find reasons to go up and down the stairs, so that I can enjoy using the railing!

Thank goodness that I have a railing to hang onto as Wednesday and the insurrection at Capital made me weak in the knees and sick to my stomach. If I hear one more rethuglican try to imply that "antifa" was present, I'll puke. I needed that railing on Wednesday night after hours-straight watching this awful violent mob smash glass, smear feces, put feet up, stumble around- pointlessly!- like a bunch of drunk teenagers with nothing better to do... I'm sure we all saw some of the (low life) "highlights": no, I'm not even going to re-introduce them. May they all go to prison and rot. (*1)

(Looking back down). I'm exhausted and full of wine and cookies, antidotes to the toxicity and poison that we've all witnessed. But I really need to end on a good note so lets take a minute and toast Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff! Thank you Georgia for delivering the Senate! Thank you Stacey Abrams for tirelessly working to get the vote out! Democracy is alive and (somewhat) well.

(*1) At the very least, we can expect many of these epsilon sub-morons to get sick with COVID as this was a super-spreader event par-excellence! No masks, no social distancing and lots of open-mouthed, spittle-flinging screaming and chanting going on.