Fun With Food ...

There are several blogs I read almost every day. One in particular, Cute Overload.com, because of the cute photos of all kinds of animals. But every once in awhile Meg will post something unusual. Today I found the following photos and I was charmed. I laughed out loud. People can be so imaginative and creative. This isn't just fun with food, it's edible art. How could I not love that???

Brought to you courtesy of Cute Overload.com

Here's how our good friends, the Japanese, manage to stay fit and trim so that they can continue to hand our Cheetos-enhanced behinds to us in the cuteness department: Food so adorable you don't want to eat it. Go ahead -- you order a plate of this stuff and see if you aren't still staring at it three hours later.

Bon appétit

Namaste, y'all ...

Because cats can ...

Stare at the sleeping human at 4:30 in the morning until it
wakes up and sees you up close ...


Take a bath in the middle of the dining room floor ...


Nap where you please ...


Play without moving from a good nap spot ...


Flash some paw at the camera ...


Make your mom love on you even when she's got
work to do at the computer ...

Musing.

My art muse is riding my ass lately. I think I've been a disappointment to both her and to myself the past few months. Very little art has been created back there in the twilight zone that has become my studio. I don't blame her for being pissed. I'm certainly not happy about it either. In fact, I'm down right cranky.

I want to paint. I really do. I get a bazillion ideas flying around my head while I'm busy trying to do other things that require my attention. There is so much to do I'm having trouble balancing it all. My house doesn't clean itself, nor will the laundry jump up and take itself to the washing machine. These new kittens, while unlike a puppy that is freakishly needy and has to be attended to like a small child, still need care and attention. The store takes up a huge amount of time and I expected it to be that way for the first few months of being open. Family and friends can't be put on a back-burner either. All of it has taken priority over being able work on creating art.

Something's got to give a little or I'm going to hurt somebody. Art is my outlet, my creative, meditative, introspective, hermitish way of getting along in this life. I may not be a Rembrandt but that isn't the point. Doing the work for the way it feels is the reason I do it. I can't imagine my life if I'm not creating, not painting. I simply can't. There is almost a "Why bother?" feeling at the thought of not being able to mush watercolors around on some paper. If you are an artist, you'll understand that feeling. Same would go for anyone else who has a deep love of doing something meaningful whether it is painting, making music, or whatever. Just try to imagine never doing that thing for the rest of your life. Kinda' scary, isn't it?

So, okay, life has temporarily sidelined my art. It's happened before and I'm sure it will happen again sometime down the road - hopefully way, way, way far down the road! For now, I feel that the sidelining has got to stop and I need to get busy mushing paint. Question is, what to paint? Aarg! It's a dilemma. A conundrum. A thorn in my side frustration that my bazillion ideas got lost somewhere. Damn.

Well, maybe that's not completely true. I have an idea floating around. I'm just really stuck on how to accomplish it. I've been looking at the work of other artists, mulling things around in my head. There are a number of artists I admire. You've got the golden oldies: Michelangelo, Dali, Mucha, Rackham, Rockwell, Wyeth, Klimt, Waterhouse and a host of others. You've got current artists: Helena Nelson Reed, Stephanie Law, Brom, Daniel Merriam, Linda Ravenscroft, Maxine Gadd, A. Andrew Gonzalez, Brian Froud, Kasey H. Moran, Linda Joyce Franks, Johanna Pieterman and a slew of others. Then there are literally hundreds in between. I could create pages upon pages of the names of artists whose work I admire right down to my toes and back again. And I've been cruising the internet checking them out.

It's both intimidating and inspiring. Then again, spending time looking at other artist's work is also keeping me from being in the studio creating my own.

Thing is, I'm still looking for that "personal style" my art is missing. Take any one of the aforementioned artists and you'd be able to readily identify a painting as theirs without even seeing their signature on the image. The frustrating thing for me is I know what I want to do, I just don't know how to do it. Ain't that a lovely thing? One of my big self-imposed problems is that I have a hard time just 'testing the waters' and 'giving it a whirl' when it comes to painting. I always seem to need a plan of action, a layout of what's going to go on that paper or canvas. It's very hard for me to be spontaneous when it comes to creating much of my work. Abstracts are the exception. Everything else gets hours and hours of thinking and planning. I spend so much time getting reference material, figuring the overall scheme, and other stuff before I ever put brush to paint.

My best buddy and compadre artist, Kasey H. Moran, whose work I'm a huge fan of, just kills me sometimes. She can doodle some ideas in a sketchbook, pick one to start from, draw it off on canvas with a stick of charcoal, and then starts slingin' paint. She works very intuitively, letting the work tell her what to do and she just goes with the flow. If it isn't working for whatever reason, she'll just whip out the gesso, cover it up and start again. She doesn't get wound up over whether or not the proportion is exact, whether or not the highlighting or shadowing is exact, or even if she paints a woman blue instead of natural flesh tones. And her work is amazing to me. I have one of her paintings hanging in my living room and I can stare at it, awed, for hours.

Her work is so expressive, so very much her own, and has a wonderful "Kasey" style. Yes, I envy her, but in a good way. Let me show you an example of her work ....

Blanket Girls
Acrylic on canvas, 36"x36"

Key Lady
Acrylic on canvas, don't remember the size - something like 36"x48"

These web photos don't do the originals justice. Not by a long shot. I think they are wonderfully vibrant, interesting, exciting, beautiful pieces of art. I wish I owned them both. Hell, I wish I owned all of her originals. Of course, if I did I wouldn't get anything done for sitting around staring at them.

Speaking of sitting around ... sitting here is also a deterrent to being in the studio. Maybe I should just shut up and go paint ......

Namaste, y'all ...

Mondays ...

My sentiments exactly.

Tuck Tail and Run

It's been a rough week here at the House Of Vermin. The veterinarian appointment on Tuesday went well, all things considered. Tuck was given a clean bill of health and his first round of shots. Tesah, on the other hand, had a nasty case of ear mites, a head cold, and was deemed still too young for her shots. Gotta' be eight weeks of age. She's barely pushing six, seven at best. And even if she was old enough, she was just too sick to get them because they may have made her worse. Poor kid.

She did at least get a treatment for the ear mites. As small as the wee vermin is the vet's assistant still had to take her to the back and get another assistant to help her hold Tesah while she did her ears. My God, that kitten screamed like she was being skinned alive. I sat in the exam room with Tuck and cried like a baby. When the vet and the assistant came back in they were quite surprised to see me sitting in the chair, boo-hooing up a storm. All I could say was, "'scuse me y'all, I'm a bit emotional right now." I briefly told them about Creepy's passing. They both just nodded their heads in sympathy and understanding. Tesah looked about as soggy from the ear mite treatment as I'm sure I did from crying. They also give her medicine, liquid stuff with an eye dropper, for me to force down her throat twice a day. Not fun. Tesah is little, yeah, but she's a squirmer with needle sharp claws.

Since Tesah was sick and obviously felt like a deflated party balloon (spent the first three days here sleeping) and because head colds & ear mites are contagious, I decided to keep her secluded in the master bathroom/bedroom for the rest of the week. Just like when I first brought Tuck home. Bathroom at night, bedroom & bath during the day. I figured the peace and quiet would be good for her. Tuck had been driving her nuts, attacking her, making her holler at the top of her lungs, giving her no rest. He thought she was the best toy in the world. Tuck, naturally didn't like the new arrangement at all. Whenever I went into the bedroom to check on Tesah he would fret, meowing and poking his paws under the door until I came back out.

Of course, every time I opened the bedroom door ... ZING! WIGGLE! DASH! ZOOM! ... Tuck made a greased-lightening fast break past me into the room. I'd have to snatch him and take him back out with me. It got to be a real pain in the ass because I'd go check on her every 30 minutes to an hour. I knew, even if she was just sleeping, I needed to give her attention, let her get used to me, and take her to her food and water bowls or the little box. Until her felt well enough to ramble around on her own she needed extra care. Doing nothing but sleeping for three days had kept her from exploring and discovering the lay-of-the-land.

After a couple more days of rest, lots of food and water, and her medicine twice a day, Tesah started perking up. She began wandering around and playing with some of the toys. I started spending a little more time with her each time I went in the room, trying to judge her health, strength and agility. I knew it wouldn't be long before she would have to be re-introduced to Tuck. He's a lot bigger, stronger, and operating at full tilt kitty boogie. I wanted Tesah as healthy and strong as possible.

While Tesah needed extra care, I still had to pay attention to Tuck. He's a love muffin and very snuggly. He doesn't like being alone. He's okay as long as I'm at least in the same room, even if I'm working on the computer, and he can come over during his breaks between killing all the cat toys and generally flinging himself around the house in a spastic kitten frenzy. I look forward to his naps, believe me. So, between the two, it's like have a couple of toddlers.

There has also been the emotional roller-coaster of dealing with Creepy's passing. For a couple of days during this past week it was all I could do to take care of myself, like taking a shower, much less two needy kittens. Creepy's absence is really starting to sink in. She doesn't greet me when I come home. She's not there, snuggling close to me at night. The little routines we had have been abruptly terminated. My life feels like it's been turned upside down. Everything has changed. I can't tell you how many times I caught myself staring off into space, tears in my eyes, missing my girl. It's probably not something a lot of people understand, but I feel about my "pets" like some people feel about their kids. They get the full dose of any maternal instincts I have because I don't have human children. Losing Creepy, for me, is very much like losing a real child. It hurts like Hell and there is an emptiness, a loneliness and deep sense of loss I feel every minute of the day. It will be this way for a long time to come. But, I have to keep going and doing. I can't sit and nurse my grief no matter how much I want to. I have two new kittens who need me. I have the store. I have artwork to do. I have my husband. I have a life I have to live. That's the way it goes, and it goes on, one day at a time.

So the day finally came that I decided Tesah and Tuck needed to start their time together. The day before yesterday I let them play for awhile, watching closely, making sure it was really play and not Tuck beating the snort out of Tesah. She's so small and delicate compared to him. When they wrestle, he hardly makes a sound. She, on the other hand, wails, growls, and screeches like she's being skinned alive. Honestly, it made me a nervous wreck, afraid she was going to get seriously hurt. After a couple of hours I had all I could stand and put Tesah back in the bedroom. They proceeded to harass each other under the door.

Yesterday, after I got home from work, I let them play again. And again, I kept a close eye on how they behaved. Much to my surprise, and relief, she gave back as good as she got. Tesah chased Tuck, stalked and pounced on him, generally smacked him around a good bit. He loved every minute of it ... until he decided it was nap time and tried to relax on the rug at the front door beside my chair. I think Tesah is a can of worms Tuck's not so sure he's totally happy to have opened .......

Meh! Nothing interesting about this ...

Hey now, this thing moves!

Attack!

I'm sure I saw it go up here ...

Yessssss!

A tasty little nibble ...

And a nice big bite!

Hey wait, I was chewin' on that!

Holy crap! I barely got out alive! I better keep my tail tucked!

Namaste, y'all ....