02-19-12. A squid.

02-18-12. DNA dog toy.

02-17-12. Motel sign in a photo by Charles Biddle.

02-16-12. A hanger from one of our closets.

02-15-12. Contrails over Virginia.

02-14-12. Lollipops.

02-13-12. "Alphabet Soup" by Pete Beeman in Albuquerque.

Merostomata (Green Shadow)

"Merostomata (Green Shadow)", oil on canvas, 20x24 in. (51x61 cm). $300 on Etsy

This painting is about the word "shadow". This is my third painting about this theme. This one is different from the first two. It still focuses on a pair of objects, but this time my interactions with them and reasons for choosing them were different. There are two layers of randomly selected objects. Most visibly, there are two ingredients of Asian cuisine, rice vinegar and soy sauce. Less distinctly, an extinct sea scorpion and a horseshoe crab float on their sides on another layer. These two animals are representatives of the biological class Merostomata, hence the title of the painting. The condiments and the animals are completely unrelated, but I have joined them into what I hope is a harmonious design. Together they cast a green shadow.

The two condiments are from my own kitchen. The animals are based on internet photographs.

I randomly selected the topics by using websites and smartphone apps. My goal was to simulate what it's like to surf from topic to topic on the web. It's so simple to hop from one unrelated subject to the next. Usually, all that this does is fill my head with mostly useless facts. The painting freezes in mid-jump between ideas and gives the viewer a chance to stop and think.