Labor of Love

I realize it's a bit early for the latest installment of holiday Silly Art, but, as I will be otherwise engaged next week, I had to post it early. As some of you already know, this summer I decided to move Silly Art Corporate World Domination Headquarters to Arizona, as I have recently realized that it is time for me to begin my next incarnation: "Crazy Painter Lady of the Desert". To this end, I packed up all my really important stuff, such as my Godzilla doll collection and my Elvis Pez dispensers, and gathered my crew of minions for a late summer road trip to our new home. We are all very excited about the new adventures that await us, but almost feel that we made a mistake in inviting Ricky Ricardo along for the ride: He insisted on driving the whole way, and that we be black and white for the whole trip! And no matter what I do or say, he won't let me be in the show! Who knew he was such a fracking control freak?

Have a fabulous holiday! Avoid labor!

Celebrate Independent Thinking

Happy 4th of July!

Elvis is taking a break for this holiday, and leaving all the dirty work to his (mostly) brandy new crew of minions.  Which, of course, means that Batboy has gotten a long overdue promotion to foreman, which he certainly deserves after all of his hard work so far this year.  If I sound less coherent than usual, it's from sheer exhaustion--every time I thought I had this project finished, somebody else went and died, and I had to keep adding and adding to it!

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee Art

Ahh, coffee and art - two great tastes that taste great together!  These are part of a project I'm working on for my friends Chris and Nora, who are in Hudson, NY, roasting the BEST coffee in the country at Strongtree Organic Coffee Roasters.  Great coffee deserves great art, so these (and more) will eventually be available to view on their website.  

Bloody Babyhead Decor

So, this is our pet alligator, Wally (har!), who lives just off the end of our dock in the backyard.  

He's not real.  He is, in fact, the chlorine dispenser that used to float in our kiddie pool, when we still had one (it was great--just big enough to hold two women on floats holding tropical drinks!)  When we got rid of the pool, we decided it would be really fun to give the tourists heart attacks as they floated past our homestead in flimsy little kayaks, so we attached a chain and anchor to Wally, and now he stares balefully at anyone who goes boating past.  Too enhance the illusion, we posted these signs on the dock, next to where he floats:

We hear gasping and yelling on a regular basis from this display, which is endlessly amusing, of course.  The other day, Teri went outside to discover the baby head floating in the dinghy - a particularly violent rainstorm had knocked it right off the sign!  It was also completely black with mold, so I decided it needed cleaning, in order to make the bloodiness show properly.  Which led to this:

Now there's something you don't see every day!  We liked it so much that we left it there for about a week.

Here Comes the Summer

And not a moment too soon!  I actually had to wear long pants and sweaters twice this winter!

Green is the New Beige (or, the Merits of Wearing a Dress that Matches Your Skin Tone)

My friend Sue recently moved, and I am sending her a housewarming gift with this card that I made for her:

But here's the really crazy thing about it:  I noticed, while I was making it, the the expressions on the faces of both the Batboy and the fifties housewife are almost the same!  

What's up with that?  Is she being held hostage, and forced to look like she's enjoying her domestic servitude at gunpoint, or has she simply been medicated into Stepford-esque docility? To me, there seems to be an underlying hysteria in that manic grin.  As for the Batboy, he is always both hysterical and delighted at all circumstances in which he finds himself.  And he loves cooking pies, sausagey thingies, and casseroles all at the same time, which is why, at present, he is screaming with delight.

OUCH!

So, a couple of weeks ago, I had a molar that was hurting, on and off, for 6 months,pulled out.  It was a terrible and painful ordeal, made a lot worse by my snotty dentist, who icily assured me, that, since I had opted to skip the root canal (which was twice as expensive), and just pull the bad tooth, that my teeth would most assuredly now all fall out, one by one.  (By the way, why are dentists always so much haughtier than the guys who actually made it through REAL medical school?  None of the doctors I've ever met have been half as snooty as ANY of the dentists.)  To commemorate this occasion, my sister included the following photo in the birthday card that she sent me last week.

She's a very funny woman, my sister.  I almost puked when I saw it. (Incidentally, this pic is titled, "Methmouth," for those of you who still think doing drugs is good fun.  You know who you are.) Then I had a vision of the future, and was immediately compelled to document it.  This is a photo of me now:

And this is me a year from now--according to Dr. Snootypants:

At this point, I will be forced to stay below the Mason-Dixon line forever, as it will be the only place I am able to blend in.  Ouch!

P.S.  I ate candy the entire time I was working on this.