From Art Fair to Animal Fair

 

Here I am, chillin' in my WTF Studio after a crazy time participating in Spring/Break Art Show. Hoo Boy! Tiring? Yes! I spent one day after visiting Spring/Break simply laying in bed recovering. I must have talked to a million and three artists and curators and gallerists and randos and friends... and everybody is looking for something (to quote The Eurythmics). Artists want shows and sales. Curators want shows and sales. Collectors (the few there are!) want bargains... But it was good clean, exhausting fun! Maybe do it all over again next year?

And here's a few things I saw- and really liked!

And...

And...

Hey! Those look familiar! Yep, that's my addition to the art fair. And they had a fabulous view out the window, up East 58th Street...

And we transition-

Here's me and Bob at the Durham Fair, picture taken by my sister Cathy. We had loads of fun. We ate, we saw odd chickens with fluffy heads, that scary Egyptian pharoah ride, lots of emus and alpacas! I still didn't get my fried dough- probably a good thing as it's not exactly health food! 

That's sister Cathy chowing down on a gyro at the fair. She begged me to take this picture as it was a sloppy (but delicious) mess and she entertained us with her table manners. We had pulled pork, rather sedate as opposed to her saucy sandwich roll!

As promised- and alpaca! Quite the charming personality on this one. Although I fell for a tall brown alpaca who made serious eye contact with me. He wouldn't let me photgraph him but he was quite the looker.

And emus? Did I promise emus:

These ones look two-headed from here! As we were enjoying the emu antics, a gentleman standing next to us remarked that emus are often raised for their meat; red meat in his words. We were happy when he moved off, as I'm sure the emus were. No one wants to be discussed as a potential meal while on display at the fair!

And, of course, a mandatory shot of the midway. (Not sure why it came out so dark as it was a pleasantly sunny day, with a light breeze and puffy clouds.) Also not sure why it doesn't look as packed as it was: REALLY crowded with so many willing victims. Willing to lose money on silly games with cheasy prizes and willing to throw up all that great fair food on terrifying rides that hurl you upside down and backwards. No thank you!

First Blood

 

It was going to happen some day; Robin actually caught- and killed!- an animal. Robin chases everything: squirrels, birds, leaves, shadows... seemingly she is a born hunter. (*1) But despite many heroic attempts at catching anything, it has taken Robin almost six years to achieve the status of Official Hunter.

She had been pursuing the above rodent (a shrew.. similar to mice and moles and voles) for several days. It apparently lived in the patch of lirope beneath the Tiger Eye Sumac. Certainly, it attracted her attention whenever she was in the vicinity. 

She finally nailed it one day last week and proceeded to "play" with it and one last toss in the air dispatched it to the Great Shew Beyond. (*2) However, once it was dead, a look of anguish seemed to cross her face. She sat and stared at it and all I can say is she seemed to experience some sort of existential remorse. Bob noticed this, too. (*3) Robin was no doubt analyzing the impermanence of life and considering what happens "afterwards". It affected her profoundly!

This is how Robin typically hunts. She up ends her toy box- which need frequent replacement as she chews the box apart as sport- and selects one toy to terrorize. (By the way, she totally ignores that pink camouflage alien in the front of the picture. Not sure why) She then shakes it and tosses it and eviscerates it.

Look at that face! You would never know that I had just spent twenty minutes performing surgery on this poor thing. Robin promptly pulled it's nose off, stuffing every where! I don't think she experiences and remorse about "killing" stuffed animals. I'm sure she knows the difference.

Although who knows? Maybe now that our little angel has tasted blood, and contemplated the loss of life, she'll reconsider her approach to hunting artificial game. She does look a bit contrite in the picture above...

(*1) And you would expect this as both her parents were field hunting dogs. You will perhaps recall that her mother, Chloe, was a Long Haired Weimaraner and her father, Gunnar, was a Llewellyn English Setter. 

(*2) I'm really glad she killed it as our previous dog Ricky used catch things but never figured out how to kill them. I followed her around with a shovel, finishing off what she had started. It was not the most fun I've ever had!

(*3) Yes, I know: many will find it anthropomorphizing and "inappropriate" to assign "human" emotions to dogs, but believe me, Robin the Good seemed bummed and confused.

Neigh Sayer

Poor Maggie was so distraught at the cold and continuing unpleasant weather. She seemed most unhappy so I made her morning grain cheerful in attempts to start her day off right. Hey! She has company in feeling that this winter will not end, even if it is "officially" spring. But no one put a smiley face in my breakfast cereal.
I hear there was a movement afoot to decapitate Punxatawny Phil or Pete the Ground Hog. I think his credibility is in the toilet.
On the other hand, I was forced into the bizarre task of shoveling snow into a wheelbarrow (from the still huge pile at the end of our driveway) and wheeling in to the back yard so that the ever enthusiastic Jules had snow ball material. (This was before that most recent awful storm dropped snow and slush last weekend.)

Only for the dog would I do that! Jules stand at the fence and supervises to make sure I get enough snow to keep him busy. Check out the picture below.

Jules is incorrigible! He doesn't care if it's cold, or snowing or wet or miserable, he wants to play ball. I was in my studio attempting to create masterworks and he's begging me to come out and throw his nasty ice-encrusted toys around. But he is cute and pretty hard to ignore. And look at this last picture:

He took off after another ball I had tossed and left a perfect negative print; sort of a canine Andy Goldsworthy. He probably has a career as an environmental artist waiting for him. I hope he remembers who got him started when he gets a show at the Whitney!