Chesty LaRue on canvas

Do you see the forest for the breasts?

Time flows quickly, distracted intermittently with ringing telephones, the click of the keyboard keys as my fingers fly across them, and I realize that I’ve written only three posts to-date for October.


I’d like to apologize but I have a feeling that a lot of you understand. Time is fleeting and before you blink, it’s three weeks later and you’ve written all of 10 words and most of that is on the grocery list you’ve tucked into your purse only to forget that too.

I understand. October has been crazy and boring in the very same breath. I can say I’ve been busy with my job but it’s actually boring, monotonous and soul-sucking. I can say my artwork has exploded but I have only one-and-a-half pieces to lay claim. And I can say that I’ve done nothing to rectify the situation but sit on my ass.

One of those art pieces (the only complete one) went to Jesus Christ Margaret to commemorate my parents’ golden wedding anniversary. In hindsight, it went to the wrong person and for the wrong occasion as even as we speak it’s sitting on the floor because Margaret doesn’t quite get it. She finds the colours wrong, the landscape too non-conformist, so unlike her. She doesn’t realize that it’s her daughter giving her a gift – a little piece of herself.

I’ve been rebelling a bit, checking my call display and walking away when I see it’s her. I don’t want to hear her “Dear” me that and “But honey” this. I don’t want her to forget the niceties that come with receiving a gift, that a thank-you is enough of a comment especially when 8 hours of work has been invested. Art is personal and emotional, and I believe a little more couth could have been used in this circumstance.

Regardless of the reaction, I am furiously proud of my painting no matter if or where it hangs. The fact that my tree line looks like a tree line in all its fall glory and that the sky has a beautiful hue to it – I’m proud. I’m even proud of my fire trees, conical trees that look like flames with its vibrant red/orange fall foliage. It’s my best work and the one I felt most free, like I knew it would turn out well.

At least Jesus Christ Margaret did not hint at the fact that the fields on either side of the river looked like lopsided breasts and the fire trees like tassels, as two friends did. I told them they were perverted. They are, so I’m telling the truth. And, the truth is, after looking at it for a few minutes, I saw Chesty LaRue in a striptease, spinning the tassels and taking the eyes out of the patrons in the front row.

At least she didn’t say that.