Bunnies, Bunnies Everywhere...

Bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, bunnies everywhere,
There's bunnies on the table and there's bunnies on the chair.
Bunnies on the sofa and there's bunnies on the floor,
And there's some new ones coming for the door ... MORE!


This was part of an old Spike Jones/Joanie Bartels song lamenting the ever-increasing numbers of bunnies that she was desperately trying to sell (or give away) before being totally overrun with bunnies.

Thankfully, it isn't that bad around here -- yet -- but The Wiffee and I were surprised to see a very young bunny scurrying around with the adult bunnies. The photo above shows the baby with one of the adults -- I'm glad I caught both in one shot: it makes it obvious the one on the left IS a baby. I fully expect I'll paint them that way, too.

Unfortunately, I wasn't ready with the camera when a potentially better picture presented itself: the two were leaning toward each other, sniffing and almost touching noses. ARRGGHH -- I MISSED IT!!

Oh, well. Maybe another day -- soon, before the baby grows up.

Painting with Words

Years ago, I took a class, Writing for the Arts, that was required for my art major. The instructor taught all of the usual stuff about grammar, clutter and all those things writers need to be aware of. No problem -- I've done writing before, and English was always an easy subject for me.

But the teacher emphasized another tool: writing about things in a way that creates pictures in one's head.

That was a new idea for me, and the concept certainly helped when writing about the museum art exhibits we had to visit and describe. I've used that concept many times since in what I'd call my "serious" writing (as on my Website's artist's statement, which reads like a "What the Desert Means to Me").

But by far, the best example of this writing style occurs in a poem by Sylvia Tryon who wrote about an exhibit of paintings by Maxfield Parrish (if the name doesn't ring a bell, you can see some of his works here). Sylvia showed not only a descriptive form of discussing the paintings, she also used an incredible richness of vocabulary that writers drool over.

I'm normally not into poetry at all, but this one is both fun and instructive to me. The piece appears in the book, The Make Believe World of Maxfield Parrish and Sue Lewin, Alma Gilbert, Pomegranate Artborks, 1990, pg. 74. (Note: Sue Lewin was Parrish's model for many of his paintings).


To Maxfield Parrish

How falls it, painter, that your brushes dye
In blaze of sapphire our pale northern sky,
Kindling on sunsmit peaks a lucent forge,
Robing in azure mists each gulf and gorge?
In long forgotten ages, did your soul
Make gorgeous Italy its homeward goal?
Or in some former earth-time did your mind
On Athens' violet hills its temple find?
Or where frozen, silent arctic nights
In flaming aureole stream the elfin lights?
On granite rocks your colors play like morn,
As on Ionian marble rosed with dawn,
In our drab lives should such hues tinge the day,
We scare could deem ourselves of common clay.


I expect in time, I'll cut back on painting somewhat and increase my time on writing. I wonder if I could write a short story -- or even an entire novel -- using nothing but this type of descriptive language? Could I paint with words as I now paint with paint?

Still Not Over

I guess the recession still isn't over.

I e-mailed an artist friend to find out how he did at an outdoor western art show he did Memorial Day weekend. This is normally one of his better shows, and I've never heard him say it didn't go so well.

Until this week. It sounded like not only did he NOT do well, the other artists didn't either. Apparently he's also considering not doing the show again, at least for a while. Translated: until the da*ned economy picks up.

I guess the recession still isn't over.