Artist's commentary
Packrat
Having finally finished a dreadfully long professional gig, which was keeping me from doing anything large or in depth, I had to unwind. So I hammered out this little scrounger, one of the many hooded critters of obvious Christiansen influence that I seem to keep painting. He's a packrat. I can identify with this, being one myself. I can imagine how it happened--first it was just the one bag, and he kept cramming it full of stuff, but he resisted buying another bag, because once you go to two, you can never fit all your earthly possessions in one bag again. Now he doesn't even know how many he's got, and things keep getting jammed in between the ropes. He should really go through and get rid of the useless crap and the ugly crap, but you know how it is, you might need it someday. Like big cardboard boxes. Every time you move, it takes so long to find a cardboard box that'll hold the TV that you twitch at the notion of throwing it out, so you wedge it in the hall closet, and deprive yourself of much needed storage space and wind up using the vacuum cleaner as a hat rack.
What was I talking about again? Anyway, fun piece. Built it up in layers--first the big bags, then the smaller stuff and ropes, then I just started adding random items like the slug and bottle and the obligatory goldfish, testimony to the coverage power of acrylic.
Anyway, acrylic, 14 x 18 on clayboard. Original's for sale, prints available, visit [link] or send a note if I haven't updated yet.