My sense of humor is a bit twisted, which is why I am grateful for the Internet. On the Internet you can always find people who sort of think the way you do. You can find people who laugh at the same things you laugh at. When you find them, you should latch onto them like a long-lost relative and never let them go. I mean, that’s what I do anyway. You need at least a couple of people to stand next to you as you laugh at morbid things, death, and the overall insanity of life.
Abe and his Pancreas
A few years ago my dog and soul mate, Abe, got sick with pancreatitis. Then he lost a tooth. He was getting old. I was sad that he was getting old. To cheer myself up and to mark the occasion I painted a portrait of him with his pancreas and his tooth. The Three Sisters mountain range is in the background (a theme that shows up in several of my paintings from that time period because it was a symbol of strength for me at the time). Abe died a few months later. I have this painting to remind me of the time we spent together and it makes me laugh which, in turn, reminds me of all of the fun we had together too (like the time he jumped out of my car at a stop sign on the way to get an ice cream cone from McDonalds).
I recently made a collage of my friend Molly from Grass Oil and it is pretty silly. She’s juggling a microwave while her poem about making a last-minute dinner dances below her feet. I had so much fun doing this that when another friend started talking about her kids being goats I got another idea. I decided to turn her kids into goats in a painting. I also liked the play on words: Kids are goats. I was a little worried her kids might be offended, but she assured me, her kids were as twisted as we were. So, this happened.
My Kids Are Goats
You can go check out Kelly’s post My Friends Are Crazy, My Children Are Goats and This Happened on her blog DeBie Hive if you want to get her side of the story. I’m the crazy friend and I wear that badge with pride. She made me laugh with this post and that painting makes me laugh every time I see it too. I saved her post on my “Kindness I Want To Remember” Pinterest board because whenever I feel a little down in the dumps I plan on rereading it. Those goat kids make me laugh and her family is so awesome. You will fall in love with them all immediately.
Then my friend Alex, from Late Enough, announced she was going to have gallbladder surgery. So, you can guess what happened next. I painted her with her gallbladder. I think it’s hilarious and sentimental. I mean, how else do you pay tribute to an organ or say goodbye to it? It’s laugh or cry. Whenever possible, I always choose laugh. The truth is, I was worried about her. Surgery scares me a little. So, I just poured all of that angst into a painting. After I told her about it, she sent me to a website that actually sells stuffed organs. She already had a stuffed gallbladder to replace the one she was losing. This was when I knew for sure her sense of humor was as twisted as mine. If you want to see the painting go check out her blog post and leave her a get well note too while you are at it. People heal faster when goodwill is sent their way. Her blog post is: Update: Gallbladder Surgery Day.
I went away for a few days for Tiny-Small’s birthday and all of this excitement and humor happened. My friend over at Words For Worms re-imagined my art as book covers. Her post is pretty funny and I found some of the collages she used, done by Bulamamani, made really terrific book covers. I never thought about collage in book cover form, but Words For Worms experiment really got me thinking about that. I think the best art always tells a story of some kind. Go check out Word For Worms post if you want to imagine my paintings as book covers too: Let’s Judge Books By Their Covers!
Laughing makes you healthy, so I say laugh as much as possible, especially when it seems like the worst time to do it (or maybe just the hardest time to). Without humor we’d just be crying all the time and that’s no fun. So, if your sense of humor is a bit twisted too, you are not alone! There are a bunch of us nutty types out there just waiting to be found, obviously.
