An army of damp socks.

Innovative Roach Trap:

This is a great way to trap roaches. Then you can just smash them with a finger.

Sold this painting:

That was pretty sweet. And then I dropped the I Heart New York mug and broke it, so the painting has already become a priceless relic.

My credit card number was stolen at a restaurant in Richmond over Thanksgiving. We got everything straightened out- well, mostly. Today I got an invoice in the mail for $2000 worth of Bibles that were shipped to somewhere in Ohio.

Pretty funny.

I took an ordinary sugar cookie recipe- Betty Crocker- and added Skittles. Voila. Instant magic.

Some of the Skittles melted, leading to this unfortunate Lemon Skittle Piss Effect:

I then decorated them in inimitable fashion:

The cookies were absolutely delicious. They were UNBELIEVABLY GOOD. Tropical Skittles would have been even better, but sadly those are not sold in the midwest.

We went on an Art Journey of Oklahoma City yesterday. It culminated in this series of bronze statues of the ‘boomers’ who are the people in the Oklahoma land rush. They just boomed across the border. (Actually I think there was a cannon that boomed, and then they were allowed to go.) The ‘sooners’ – which is the name of the Oklahoma University sports teams- is the name given to the people who snuck across the border early, before the land rush had officially started.

The statue was quite well done and really looked like it was frozen in excited motion. In art terms, I guess it was baroque.

I strongly encouraged my father to participate in the drama of the statue.

1:

2:

3:

It was pretty awesome.

Remember to screw the cap on.

Seems like everyone’s getting the Christmas decoration bug.

Sean:

Kim:

The people of Bedford provide us with many gems such as ladies dancing:

Lords a’ leaping:

The overall Christmas Miracle that is the National Elks Home:

And:

Note the elk:

I quite enjoyed the abstract light arrangement in this tree:

And my personal favorite, these kids being menaced by a charging Christmas Bear:

I did some decorating too:

Though obviously not any Christmas Tidying.

And here’s my parents’ Dog of Christmas Joy which freezes into a Tragic Christmas Statue whenever you put antlers on her:

Even my father’s Art Niche got a Christmas update:

Another rockin’ Christmas CD. I think “Zombies in the Snow” was the title of the movie the Baudelaire orphans went to see with Uncle Monty in The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket. It may have also been from a Calvin and Hobbes comic before that.

It is Saturday afternoon.

The bookstore (Cantos Bookseller in Roanoke, VA– thanks to Julia M for finding all these reviews of the nutty place) is deserted except for me, Mike, and a fiftyish bookseller with three feet of hair in several shades of gray and one of those floppy hippy dresses with a cardigan over it. Although I do not look at her legs, I imagine she is wearing striped stockings like the Wicked Witch of the East.

I pick up a book at random. It turns out to be cowboy pornography. I flip through.

I inform Mike, “This guy is having sex with a meatloaf.” I proceed to read the page incredulously out loud.

Distracted by this high quality* pornography, I don’t notice right away when the bookseller sidles up and hovers expectantly. When I pause to take a breath, she pounces.

“Interesting book, isn’t it?” She asks in a voice that grates and shrieks like sandpaper on a chalkboard in a classroom full of members of a preteen step team.

“Yes, it’s very… unusual**,” I reply.

“You actually have to BUY the books before reading them,” she snaps, snatching the book from my hand and putting it back on the shelf. “Otherwise it becomes A USED BOOK.”

I am dumbfounded and have no response. She flounces away, triumphant.

Discombobulated, I continue to browse. A few minutes later I see a book called How Starbucks Changed My Life. Thinking this looks like a refreshing change from the usual whining about how Starbucks is destroying an American coffeehouse culture it apparently actually invented, I pick it up. I am careful to only read the inside flap– hyper conscious of the bookseller, who stomps past me, glaring at my hands to make sure I am not looking at any actual pages. The book turns out to be a tedious mid-life crisis vehicle about someone who was downsized from a high powered job and learned to be a simple barista. The very thought makes me want to scream. I hate it when privileged people with tons of money decide they can reinvent themselves and join The Proletariat just by getting some crummy job that the rest of us had in high school and pray we will never have again. And then write a bestseller. (Admittedly, it can’t happen that often but I still hate it.) I put the book back as though it has burned my hands.

We leave the store. As we are leaving, the bookseller, who won’t look me in the face anymore, asks, “Are you just looking for a good book to read, or what?”

I mumble a reply to the effect that I was just browsing and escape.

Customer service, folks.

* “high quality” is a code word for “wrong- headed and poorly written.”
** “unusual” is a code word for “it sucks.”

Thesis accepted. Score!

And a dangerous foray into figuration. Or an embarrassing fumble into figuration? Who can say!

Not the world’s best painting, true, but I AM still painting, and painting something new, which puts me in the definite minority for recent MFA grads.

That’s right, baby.

Yesterday I passed my oral exam. Passed my exhibition too, and my thesis just needs to be formatted. I’ve almost got the MFA.

So I am pretty stoked about all of this.

Here is my gorgeous thesis. Hopefully the final draft.

There is another version, prettified in Adobe InDesign, and with the beautiful Caslon typeface, but I haven’t printed it yet. Or finished it, for that matter.

The show opening was awesome. I am totally stoked.

I was totally stoked pretty much all night.

A picture’s worth a thousand words.

And, here’s a new illustration.

“All Algiers lay around his feet like a cape of jewels and shells.”

From Camus, maybe?

This is one of the walls from my show tonight. Louise Wu, the artist I am exhibiting with, sent me this photo she took. The colors are not true to the original paintings- it’s hard to get colors right when photographing under gallery lights.

I hung my MFA thesis show today.

Only one piece did not get a home in the show:

It just wouldn’t fit anywhere. But life goes on.

So once again, here’s the info about the show.

What: Show opening!
Where: Flossie Martin Gallery (Powell Hall Room 200)- at Radford University
When: Friday Nov 7! 5-7 PM
After Party: 7 PM till Whenever! Sharkeys in Radford (1202 East Main) I’ll hand out maps at the opening.

Happy hour, with $1 mixed drinks, continues until 9. At some point, I will inevitably try to get everyone to dance.

Musical selections for this (enchanted?) evening will be the Top Gun soundtrack.

See you there!!

Yesterday I was overtaken by the urge to paint a bowl of roses.

So I am.

I choose roses based on?

Scent. And for some reason the hot pink roses usually smell great, better than the rest.