In another great big burst of creative energy I've released 5 new paintings. Four are here in this blog entry and one is in the Prayers for Rain post. 
With Bigness busy killing leafcutter ants and talking to his baby mango tree, and United Nations Baby with MCS and not asking me to make koolaide ice cubes every 5 minutes, its amazing how much I can accomplish when - people freakin leave me alone. The electricity is on and off, sometimes for hours and hours. No radio noise blasting from the livingroom and banging around in the back of my mind. No fan, which is o.k. since I have to have a very controoled environment because the silk bounces around when you paint on it. All I can hear is the wind moving through the orange trees. Every once in a while off in the distance I'll hear the rumble and whomp whomp whomp of a low flying helicopter slowly searching the bush for "something."
These paintings are on silk. I'm working almost exclusively on silk these days and my palette is changing as I'm running out of dye colors. My resupply will be here in late June.
The painting on the top left is called Ixtabai and is based on a garifuna legend of a beautiful rainforest goddess who would lure drunken men into the bush late at night. Deeper and deeper into the jungle she would call them. By the time they realized they were lost, it would be too late. The male version of Ixtabai is called Tata Duende a male spirit and mischief maker of the bush.
The theme of crocodile and fish has African origins. The Crocodile symbolizes the Oba energy of the king. The fish represents the prosperity of the people. The king holds the prosperity of the people in his mouth. The almond shapes on the borders represent pips for the Abbia game carved from poisonous seeds from a tree. The designs are inconsequential to the playing of the game, but are collected for their uniqueness. The rectangle shapes are inspired by Kuba cloth fabric patterns woven and dyed. The square painting is a design for another tile that will be available at my Cafepress site.
O.K. here's the torture part of the blog entry: (I know you've all been waiting for this and had to wade through the blah blah blah about african theme art. Bwahahaha (evil laugh) Bigness got a double whammy today, I forced him to watch 2 episodes of AbFab on BBC and Sex in the City on TBS. On our first date we were making light chitchat talking about our likes and dislikes. I asked him if he liked Sex in the City and he said it was his favorite and I actually thought he was talking about the TV series, and not Belize City. It was months and months later that I discovered my misperterbulation. Oh the bliss of young love, even in old people. The things we're willing to tolerate because our beloved wants it. Like how I still pretend that I like to watch boxing and classic car auctions (gag).
