Clarabelle's Secret

I love raccoons. Something about their cunning intelligence, their bright eyes shining mischievously through their dark masks. In pictures, they look so cute and cuddly, in reality, they are huge and can be completely evil.

I thought they would make a perfect backdrop for Clarabelle, the perfect guardians of her nasty little secret. Included is the daguerreotype photo that served as inspiration for the painting. Surly, pensive, just a hint of anger... I wonder what this little girl's secret could be?

Cotard's Syndrome

The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality...

...it's just one of those days...

Bummer Cloud

We had an absolutely beautiful weekend up here in Seattle - warm and sunny, flowers blooming and all that, plus I had three whole days off in a row, whoohoo! So I got up this morning feeling slightly bummed that I had to go back to work, but the sun was peeking out and I decided to wear a cute summer dress (as opposed to my usual black on black pants and t-shirt uniform) to make myself feel better. I get about six blocks from home and the sun is suddenly swallowed up by a blanket of gray. Then the wind picks up and it drops about 10 degrees, so I get more bummed.

I get to work and have about a hundred unread emails to deal with, a stack of invoices to create and send, a million things to do that I have little to no energy for, and a cracked out customer calls me pathectic and disgraceful before dropping the "N" bomb on me via the handy Live Chat feature at my job, simply because I cannot magically make a particular medication he wants materialize at his feet right this second - now I am super bummed.

So, I decide the thing to do is eat two bite sized candy bars and drink a can of Mountain Dew (P.S. I have had absolutely no high fructose corn syrup in over a month) which I just discovered delivers and almost instantaneous, sticky-sweet migraine... on the upside, venting has made me feel a little bit better, a weather obsessed co-worker has informed me the sun will be back tomorrow and the work day is close to over.

So, in the ever inspirational words of Little Orphan Annie, "The sun'll come out, tomorrow, so you gotta hang on til tomorrow, come what may..."

The Cabinet of Curiosities

I found an old cabinet in a free pile down the street from my house the other day. It was filthy, covered in plaster and caulk and painted a chipped and disgusting primer grey. It had clearly been being used as a work cupboard in someone's garage. On the upside, it was on wheels for easy transport, has doors that latch to keep the dogs out and is the perfect size and shape to house a stereo and records.

I spent most of yeste

rday and a good chunk of this morning sanding it down, painting it and sealing it with a coat of polyurethane. I decided to go with a carnival/freakshow kind of theme, and the Cabinet of Curiosities was created.

Apparently, Billie thinks it would also make a nice, new dog house. My next domestic project will be to refinish the dinner table and chairs.

I have also had an idea for a new series of paintings rattling around in my head. The images are becoming clearer in my mind every day, and I think soon they will start calling to be put to canvas. 

In the meantime, I am working on finishing up a couple more paintings from the Fear, Phobia & Pharma series. I will post as they are completed. Click the title of this post to go to my gallery and check out the ones that are done.

That's it for now... time to go out and enjoy some sunshine!

No Satan

As promised, the secret room... 

Chris and I noticed a window on the outside of the back wall of our new house. Weird thing was, you couldn't see it from the inside. Then we noticed that the third bedroom ended about three feet short of the outside wall... we looked closer and found a spot where a piece of drywall had been screwed into place and painted over, weirder still. Given the facts, we figured we were dealing with a sealed off secret room!

So of course, my brain goes crazy, what could be back there? Obviously, it could only be two things - a million dollars in hidden treasure or a pile of dead bodies. Our realtor told us an old man had lived here on his own for 50 years before presumably kicking it (hopefully not in the house and definitely not in my bedroom). Clearly, this old man was either a serial killer or living in exclusion to hide his misbegotten fortune.

Given my usual luck and pessimistic outlook, I vote for serial killer, although I secretly hope for the million dollars in treasure... really, who wouldn't, right? So, last Saturday we decided to

open the room. We managed to hunt down two screwdrivers and proceeded to remove the piece of dry wall. We had to get out a chisel to pry the damn thing out of the wall, but we managed. Feeling like the dudes that discovered King Tut's tomb, we pulled back the section of drywall and behind it...

...Oh my god! Not a million dollars, that's for damn sure. Our little, hidden room looks like a set from the Blair Witch Project. It is covered in mold and the creepiest drawings ever produced by a child. Chris, ever chivalrous, tells me to go in first. I swear I felt like the floor was caving under me. I had a moment where I thought I was going to fall straight through the floorboards before adjusting to the room's oppressive vibe. My heart raced, I felt dizzy and nauseous, and I had to get my camera - for posterity, of course.

Below are a few pictures of the drawings that graced the walls in the room. There were also odd mathematical formulas on the west wall, fishing wire run in a web across the ceiling, and the name Eric Ross penciled slightly higher than the pictures. And yes, I am pretty sure this is how a six year old thought satan was spelled...

These are the least evil of the pictures... the rest had fangs and claws and were downright uncomfortable to look at.  I am wondering if, in the last image posted, the things on the front are boobs or arms... any thoughts? Needless to say, we sealed the room back up, shoved the heaviest piece of furniture we own in front of it and vowed to never speak of it again. If anyone has information about a missing child by the name Eric Ross, contact me... seriously.

Oh, life

So, before launching into current events or a rant about yesterday or my feelings about being trapped in an office when it is sunny and beautiful out, I feel obligated to provide a little information about myself, back story, if you will.

I was raised in the metro Phoenix area of Arizona, a vapid suburban wasteland where strip malls and planned communities spread across the desert like the plague and beige is the only color paint ever invented. I moved as soon as I possibly could - up to Seattle, down to Los Angeles, back up to Seattle. I joined a band, spent three years touring this land we call America, the band broke up, started another band, went back out on tour, ended up at an ER in Kansas City after a sweltering show and an all night afterparty, found out I wasn't just hot and drunk, but seriously ill, was told I needed surgery, left Missouri for the east coast with an arsenal of pain killers in my suitcase, got lost in Central Park, finished the tour, had afore mentioned surgery at a county hospital in Phoenix, found out I needed a second surgery, had said second surgery, adopted a starved, neglected, emotionally damaged wolfdog puppy, agreed to marry Christiaan, the love of my life (still working on setting a date), moved back to Seattle.

That is pretty much my twenty-somethings in a nutshell. Currently, I am working on a new band and trying to become more ambitious about getting my art out into the world. I recently started working with oil paints (I was always an acrylics kind of lady, but I seem to be getting more patient with age) and am entirely stoked about the results. I will be posting these paintings as the mood strikes me and/or as the new ones are completed. Roland, my damaged desert puppy, has grown into a 125lb neurotic hairball - we can't take him anywhere, he is afraid of bicycles, backpacks, sliding doors, telephone poles, people; you name it, he fears it - and for his birthday last December we adopted Billie, quite possibly the cutest puppy on this here planet. She is all love and kisses, and is slowly teaching Roland to be more comfortable with himself and the world.

I just moved into a house with my fiance and the two dogs, the first place I've lived with no roommates since I was 18. Finally having some space and privacy is fabulous and I am amped to use all my new-found alone time to paint and write and focus on making a future for myself that I can be happy with, because, I have to face it, I have never been a good drone, the daily 9 to 5 routine makes me crazy, and I am only truly at peace with myself when doing something creative. The new house is full of quirks, including a secret room that was sealed off from the rest of the house, but I will save that for the next post... for now, back to life as a drone... break time is over, there are customers to serve, reports to write and spreadsheets to create... sigh.

Dear Blog, It's Me Margaret...

So, everyone (and by everyone, I mean a few friends and strangely, my mom) keep telling me I need to get on top of this not-so-new-anymore blog craze. My reaction, obviously, is who, besides said select friends and my mother, would want to read about my life, thoughts and/or random daily events? So, true to form, I put off starting this thing for oh, well over a year.

Today was an uneventful day at work, and I ran out of youtube videos to watch and websites to visit. I am broke, so can do no online shopping. Out of pure, bored desperation, I decided that today would be the day I check out this whole "blog" thing. Being technologically challenged, I have no idea how it works or what happens once these words are published to the good old interweb... can words collect dust out there in the technological wastelands? Do those spiders that comb the web ever stop to build their own webs? Will this blog be covered in cobwebs one day, skeletal words propped in a make believe closet? Only time will tell...

And today, time is up... freedom is calling. Time to clock out and go home to feed the wolves. I will leave you ponder whether that is figurative or literal.