Disorganized Religion

Travel tip #5 If you're ever in Belize and you see a road on the map that's called "Old... So and So" and it looks like a shortcut. Just ignore it. Maybe the first 15 feet are paved and the rest is mud and giant car eating craters, no gas stations or restauraunts. Trust me on this. Stay on the highway.Here in Belize we have 3 paved highways. That's right folks, 3 highways. Not your super expressways,...

Overheard

I heard a language tonight that I've never heard before in my life. It sounded like Martian to me. Mentally I went throught the list of languages that I could identify: German - no, Arabic - maybe, Spanish - no, French - no, Italian - no, Mayan - no, Russian - maybe, Dutch - no, Swedish - no, Greek - maybe, Danish - no, back to Russian - maybe, I'm listening closer, trying to not look like I'm evesdropping,...

2006 Bloggies

My online buddy Guyana Gyal was nominated for a bloggie. Best Latin American weblog. Click on over and check it out, and of course VOTE for s...

Illustration Friday - January 27 - Glamour

Leila Vernon, Belize's bruk down and calypso legend is a stunning 50 something woman with knee length dreads and performs to a turtle drum beat swaying in her satin bustle with not a bead of sweat to be found. Glamourous in her own way with smooth chocolate skin she sashays around the performance tent extolling the virtues of a Lover's License. To get a lover's license you must first get a learner's...

Photo Friday - January 27 - Vanity

I shot these photos about 3 years ago with an old Sony Mavica 1.6 some of them were shot through a dusty mirror. Interesting real life filters that you can't get in Photosh...

Ta Ta Dahlinks

I'm headed off to my studio for a few days. I''ll be backabush with no phone, no TV, only Love FM to keep me company, and Bigness to scare away the jumbies.So again, to any would-be robbers, the wild kitties are in charge. They think they live here anywa...

Photo Friday - Jan 20 - Pink

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Illustration Friday - Jan 20 - Cats

I didn't think I had anything for "Cats" this week, and had no time to create something because we are in the throes of high season for tourists here in Belize. And then I remembered that I did a series of peices on hand painted silk called World Beat Belize, several years ago. The Cats illustration is a detail from a side panel on this series and is only available as a small print. The center panel...

Lest We Forget...

Bigness put wheel casters on the diningroom table and the kitchen work table. And then he greased them. A commonly heard sound coming from the kitchen now is Sh*t-whoa-thud-jeezuzchri...

Forces of Nature

Something strange happens, every time I go out on a sunset wedding cruise. No matter how sedate, sophisticated, and conservative the evening starts out, the groom and the best man ALWAYS get nekked and jump in the sea. Lower the boom man! Well, for now you can keep it right there, not everyone wants to see your peepee. Forces of nature, add to it a couple of cases of beer and the fact that They is...

Don't Do That Again

That phrase is the first English response that our non-english-speaking Cuban doctors learn when they arrive in Belize to staff the free clinics.Think about it. What is the most valuable advice a doctor could give you?Don't do that again.Don't do that again, was what I told myself this morning when I used a new hair product for taming my wild locks, which didn't work, all it did was make my brush get stuck in my wet tangled hair - for a 1/2 hour....

Illustration Friday - Jan 13 - "E is for..."

E is for 7 Magic E...

Photo Friday Jan 13 - Success

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Oh.My.Gawd. I Would Totally Wear This!

And I may have... in my recent past. Except I would nix the black stockings and pumps in favor of Teva androgenous sandles.Those of you who know me really well... remember the black-and-white polka dot two peice bathing suit from hell? I still have the top, and I swear if you make me mad, I'll wear it... in publ...

Spanning Three Generations

3 year old Baby Girl: Crampa, what's that? (pointing to the brown moles on his chest)61 year old Bigness: Chocolate chip decorations.----------------------------------------------------------------------------Later that day...Bigness reports to the complaint department: She won't color nice. I was trying to color nice and she keeps going outside the lin...

Illustration Friday Dec 30 Flavor

Ring Ring the phone blings and its my friend Eden all in a panic.She: a man is standing here on my verandah and said he hated everything in the art gallery but wants to buy my sign, what should I do?Me: sell it to him and I'll paint you another sign.She: what should I charge him?Me: what's the highest number you can say without laughing?She: I dunno.Me: start at 400 bzd, because when I made that sign...

How I Do It

People have been asking me how I make the hand colored photos. I shoot the pictures digitally with a Canon Digital Rebel EOS in raw format. I make a print on either an acid free linen cover stock or Arches handmade watercolor paper so I can pick up a texture. The printer is an Epson 1280. I color the photos with very soft oil pastels, prismacolor pencils and watercolor pencils. Sometimes I use an...

Ruling #3 by the Fashion Police

Exhibit AThe local anthropologist here on Caye Caulker told me that wooly manmoths in speedos were extinct. He was wrong.See Exhibit A - caption: The wooly manmoth seeks partial shade whilst sucking down a triple dip ice cream cone.This could also be a case of Opposite Anorexia - I've diagnosed myself with this before, I look in the mirror and think I'm thin. Maybe he has that.Middle Child Syndrome...

Tropical Wedding Tip #1

Brides, unless you really love hurricane hair, you better tie it down. I realized too late (about 3 hours later), that the bride's my-hair's-a-little-bit-messy look, when magnified in photoshop took on the realm of I'm-a-scarecrow-bride genre. It was like I was seeing it, but not really seeing it. The more I examined the photos, though, I was able to convince myself that it was a desired look, planned,...