"Beach Girl" (Jessi Pearl) Jessi was a swimsuit model for Hawaiian Tropic and a number of other organizations and enterprises, including MTV. She didn't lose many competitions, and the painting makes it pretty easy to see why... "Royal Bliss" rocks but Jessi rules!
"The Perfect Storm" --maybe I should have called it "The Perfect 'Pink' Storm." Watch our for pink storms. They trick you into thinking they're nothing--big mistake as you can see by the skull in the middle of all that pink... Yes, regardless of what you may be inclined to think, never mess with pink!
I call this mousterpiece "Seaside Rodeo." Ride those dolphins, cowgirls (I mean dolphin girls). Actually, dolphins have the same evolutionary ancestors as cows (I think it was cows--may have been hippos) before they decided they liked the ocean better than dry land, returning to the sea from whence they (and all life) originated. I guess it's pretty obvious, looking at the seascapes in this collection, that I like dolphins--a lot..., except for the Miami Dolphins. When it comes to football, I prefer the Denver Broncos, the University of Utah and anybody who is playing BYU. Nothing personal against B-Y-Boo (that's what my brother-in-law, Dave, used to call them--not me), but I am a Utah Man--yes, a Utah man am I...
This is one of my more recent digital paintings. I call it "A Mermaid's Tale." Is that a cool sky or what? It took me a good three hours to re-create what the sun does each night without any effort at all!
As you can see, the mother dolphin is proffering the distraught Mermaid some counsel. You've heard of Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities?" Well, this is more like "A Tale of a Mermaid and a Dolphin" or "A Tale of a Mermaid and a Sailor" or "A Tale of a Mermaid and a Dolphin and a Sailor" or "A Tale of a Mermaid and... (something yet unimagined--something that's begging to get out of your head, something as yet unsaid).
Want to have some fun? Exercise your imagination, which is always fun and often quite liberating. So here's the deal: Fill in the two blanks in this dialogue: "The distraught mermaid said, '.......' The wise Mother dolphin replied, '......'"
Hint: One might expect the dialogue to involve one or more of the elements in the painting (i.e., the ship and/or its crew, the frolicking dolphins, etc.)--No pressure though! You write whatever you want to write. Here, let me warm you up a bit. Pretend that you are a fly on the mermaid's wall (in this case, a minnow in the mermaid's ocean) and you just happened to overhear the conversation between Mother Dolphin and the teary little Mermaid. What did the Mermaid say to the Dolphin? And what was the sage advice of Mother Dolphin? Write your response as a comment to this blog entry.
More ideas: Why is the mermaid upset? What does it have to do with the ship? Is the Mermaid in a relationship with the Dolphin that is "playing" by himself (i.e., dolphins almost always play in "pairs")? If so, is there a "lovers spat" going on? If so, does it have anything to do with the ship? Why are all of the dolphins in pairs except for one?
Here's an interesting fact: According to my I-phone application called "Unusual Facts," to which I've become addicted (i.e., you're supposed to read one unusual fact per day. I read more like twenty a day), the only two mammals that engage in intimacy for recreational purposes, not just procreation are human beings and dolphins. Interesting, huh? I believe it. Think about it. If you've been to "Sea World," you've probably seen dolphins making out with each other: "Eskimo kissing" (rubbing noses), necking. In fact, Eskimo kissing their trainers is part of every show. I'm just saying think about it. That's all. Nothing gross. By the way, if you check out the painting with a magnifying glass or you can enlarge it on your computer, you will notice that the ship is named the "S.S. Dolphin." Coincidence? I think not.
It's also true that dolphins typically mate for life. So, if we have two animals who are practitioners of monogamy (most humans and all dolphins), it seems to me that jealousy could easily be lurking just round the corner, usually in the shadows--or perhaps, the depths of the sea. I've often said that one can't really know love without knowing the other end of the spectrum: hate (i.e., no "yin" without "yang") Contrast creates perspective. That sort of thing. You're probably familiar with the school-yard, "jump-rope" sing-along that goes "First comes love. Then comes marriage. Nine months later comes the baby carriage" (or something like that). Perhaps, a more accurate rendition might be, "First comes love. Then comes marriage. Next comes jealousy to make us disparage!" I doubt that the new version will fly in the schoolyard; however, since "disparage" is a bit beyond the vocabulary of most hopscotchers and jump-ropers.
I never got into hopscotch myself. Marbles was my game. That and yo-yo's were my claims to school-yard fame. Aside: I love language and words and iambic pentameter, timing my rhyming with thoughts that come after, like what makes us sad and what renders laughter, and what we must do to live (happily) ever-after, and what, at the end of the day, really matters.
OK. So I can rhyme. Big deal! Now, back to my story-writing contest. As my son Jared always says, "You can do it!" I'm not asking for a novel, just a little dialogue. Let yourself be creative. You may surprise yourself. And it will be fun to read the responses from everyone. It's amazing what a person's creative interpretation of a visual image can reveal about the person--including whether or not the person is self-conscious about a little thing like stimulating his or her creativity--quite sadly, a mindset entertained by far too many adults who lost their ability to be magical somewhere along their journey to adulthood. One of the things I love most about children is not only their inability to pronounce the term self-consciousness but their refusal to let destructive emotions invented by adults interfere with their exploration of life and their environment, a frontier where, in the beginning, everything was a mystery. How cool would that be?--Unless one is an adult, in which case, the unknown sometimes breeds paranoia, another one of those pesky, non-productive, adult emotions. Did I hit a nerve yet? Good! OK. Don't peek at someone else's response until you've written your own.
Oh, and no! The mermaid in my painting is not the little mermaid in the animated film by Disney! For one thing, that mermaid wore a bikini top! Come on! Who ever heard of a real live mermaid wearing a bikini top! Where would a mermaid get a bikini top? From "Nordstrom's Beneath the Sea"? That's just not right!
Then again, it may not be wrong, because if we focus on what's right and not what's wrong, maybe we'll learn to get along. Second verse, same as the first: If we focus on what's right, not what's wrong, maybe we'll learn to get along. What a wonderful world it would be if we all just got along...Don't you think?
