5″x7″ acrylic, 2010. This bunny, who belongs to four-year-old Ella, is one of four identical bunnies: One sits pristinely on a shelf, while the other three enjoy equal rotation and affection. Ella can tell them apart with one little squeeze. The most beloved of them has a spot of brown paint on its back, left foot and is known adoringly as “Paint-Bunny.”
Sometimes the source material I’m given to paint from is inspiring to me for ridiculous reasons. In the photos sent by Ella’s mother Kristen, the bunny’s wide gestures and forward posture and the dramatic back-lighting evoked a Nineties-era Hype Williams hip-hop video for me. This kept me amused throughout the painting process, even while I kept in mind Kristen’s wish that the portrait be “very serene” and “a little vintage looking.” Is there such thing as late-nineties vintage?
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8″x10″ acrylic, 2009. Certain people tend to anthropomorphize stuffed animals more than others, and those people are sometimes adults — adults who might happen to be married to me. And other people with the same tendencies might happen to be employed by my husband. And so a bizarro transaction took place involving this lion. Said employee had two identical lions. One was at home, and the other she kept at work because if they were together they “might fight.” Greg was concerned that some harm would come to the “work lion” if left there, and so he convinced the lion’s owner that he would give it a good life in the care of our Sonja. So far the poor lion has been working long hours modeling in my studio, but I think now I will set it free in the wilds of the nursery. 