Friday, March 5, 2010

Rabbit Ears and the Story of a New Sink in an Old House

My latest work in progress.  I did not touch the saturation slider–it really is this bright.
I'm having the best time working on this series.  It feels sort of like these critters are painting themselves, and that I'm just a pair of hands along for the ride.  
Each painting feels like a surprise.  This is the first time that the idea of parting with work has given me a heart pang.  It seems contradictory, since the process of making these was  relatively quick and carefree when compared with the monster narrative works on paper that take me months to complete.  But maybe it's because these are portraits and I feel attached to the subjects themselves.  A little piece of me does feel like they're real.  As a child I couldn't bear it (no pun intended!) if one of my stuffed animals was handled carelessly.  Perhaps this is just a continuation of that particular crazy.  

And here's a situation ripe for metaphors, similes, analogies and/or parallels:
Our bathroom faucet was acting funny, so our landlord got us a new sink.  Notice that even though he is lovely, shiny and new, he looks a bit chagrined?  That's because the installation of this one little faucet revealed a whole mess of old-house plumbing shenanigans.  The whole town of Waltham is involved at this point, there are spray paint hieroglyphs and orange cones up and down our whole street, and this is what is happening right now in the front yard:
Anyone want to offer up a nice metaphor?  Or a simile?  Boston's Big Dig is a pretty obvious parallel.

6 comments:

Debby said...

I am completely sympathetic to your particular crazy. Not only does it make for beautiful art, but I suspect stuffed animals can enact revenge for ill treatment.

Kaetlyn Wilcox said...

Debby,
I knew you would understand. Especially since Hannah IS real enough to have her own facebook page AND a very distinctive (and feisty) writing stye. Pinkly and B are a little more laid back, though they have successfully triumphed in their campaign against Charley, for their right to sleep in the bed.

Lovies!
K

ArtSparker said...

I love this painting series, it is the visual definition of lyricism.

I think you elided some stuff for brevity in the plumbing crisis...curious.

Kaetlyn Wilcox said...

Art Sparker,
Oh yes. I suppose that I am guilty of elision (selective sharing?) with regard to my account of the plumbing crisis. I only included the bits that were pertinent to the concept that I found most interesting: the tininess of the symptom compared with the immensity of the problems hidden under the surface. In any case, the crisis appears to be over.....I was finally able to shower, anyway.
Cheers!
Kaetlyn

Galen B. said...

K.,
Donna and I have done enough of old houses to recognize that sinking feeling. g.luck.
G.

Catilustre said...

these boxes are soooo beautiful! I love them!