Your Toy Portrait
11″x14″ acrylic, 2009. Our nephew Sean is choo-choo CRAZY. (Or should I say “loco?”) So when his little brother, who was born this week, made his presence known, I painted this wooden train as a gift for the boys. I was quite relieved that Sean liked it despite the lack of a certain familiar face at the front of the engine!
8″x10″ acrylic, 2009. Three-year-old Nora and her brother Thomas, two, are my daughter Sonja’s first real playmates. They are the grandchildren of our friends across the street and we all end up hanging out on their porch almost daily. While I was working on this painting there were a few occasions in which the party moved into our living room. Nora’s grandma would point to the easel and say, “Nora, look what Sonja’s Mommy is painting! Who is that?” And Nora would shout, “BUNNYYYYY!” So I’m going to assume that in fact that is its name: Bunny. Oh, and my name is now Sonja’s Mommy. As in, “Um, Sonja’s Mommy, can Sonja come play in Papa’s pickup truck with us?” (No.)
8″x10″ acrylic on canvas, 2009. So this blanket-with-a-head trend is no joke! I would say that a majority of my recent work has been centered around intensely beloved blanket animals. So far the variations on this theme that I’ve encountered have included: Head at one corner, no arms; head in the center, no arms, and head at the center, arms. In this painting we have Ned, a blue blanket with a very cute white bear head (no arms) in its center and a matching blue sleeping cap. He belongs to six year old Henry, whose affection has worn Ned into a state of obvious contentment.
8″x10″ acrylic, 2009. Here is Baybob, a floppy grey dog belonging to eight-year-old Audrey. He was apparently made without a specific mouth, but has developed what Audrey calls his “smile” over the years — a line beneath his nose that was worn into his fur by love, no doubt. I think a nice metaphor is in there somewhere…
8″x10″ acrylic on canvas, 2009. Lily’s very clever mom had back-ups of these two, so she was able to send me the actual stuffed animals to paint from! It was a challenging project for a couple of reasons. First, these are tiny stuffed heads attached to what are essentially fileted flying squirrel.
8″x10″ acrylic on canvas, 2009. This stylish chicken was given to 5-year-old Oona by awesome artist Ralph Steadman! He’s the guy who drew all those famous, wild illustrations of Hunter S. Thompson, among many other things, and he worked with Oona’s mom at a literary agency. Apparently Oona has lately been focusing her affections on a somewhat more “glamorous” toy, but her little sister Daphne, 3, has taken him under her wing.
5″x7″ acrylic on canvas, 2009. What would I do without my mother’s ridiculous garage sale radar? I think that I would have about 25% of my current possessions and my daughter would be naked and really bored.
The toy portraits are on display in Albany until September 18th! The venue is the new Emack and Bolio’s ice cream shop and cafe at 1704 Western Avenue. So far I have tried the Raspberry Sorbet and the Low Fat Malted Cookie Dough Frozen Yogurt. Thumbs up! Everything is all natural and hormone-free, and there is live music too. Come check it out!
29″x40″, oil on canvas 1996. I did lots of self-portraits in college and grad school because I was always available to model! Here’s one from 1996, and obviously even then I could not resist painting my stuffed animals. This picture features Tigger and a lion called Hubert — he was a give-away at a bank where my mom opened an account when I was a baby. Note the sweet mid-century modern furniture, which unfortunately did not belong to me but was fun to paint.
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8×10″, acrylic on canvas, 2009. Our baby-shower gift registry had one general preference listed: NO PINK! Yeah, that did not last past the first “Oh, he’s adorable!” And besides, no-one listened. One shower gift that we recieved that I almost threw in the trash in horror was this pink bee with crinkley wings. It had hard, lumpy, squeeze-activated, whiney music player that made me want to jump out a window. My mother covertly removed the music tumor, re-sewed its belly, and put in the hands of Sonja who of course LOVED it. Oh, well. In this portrait it is paired with my husband’s adorable childhood Peter Rabbit in order to balance good and evil.
This painting arrives wired for hanging and framed simply in pine.
$140 plus $7 shipping
