Castle in the Air Show Opening Night

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to come to the opening reception at Castle in the Air. And thank you for all the support from people who wanted to but couldn't make it. It was a lovely evening of animal headed good times. John, one of Castles teachers and a fabulous artist, put together the lovely bird headed lady in her crepe dress, demurely yet confidently passing out the catalog and card for the show. I wish I could say I shared that same confidence but she did inspire me to try harder to discuss my paintings with complete strangers and pretend I am not a rather shy person. My Elephant headed self-portrait, Will Work For Peanuts, was fabulously shown on a boxed Easel, its large paint drawer full of peanuts. And I was happy to see people walking about actually circling titles in their catalouges of paintings they wanted to buy from the walls, willing to wait until May 15th to actually get their treasures home. Almost half the 24 paintings sold (or will soon be) so far! I did not bring my children to this show. I would have had to put bird masks on them, dressed them in little velvet suits and hung them up on the wall, which, while entertaining to myself may not have been appreciated by them. Thanks again and please stop by to say hello to all my painted friends up on the walls if you happen to be passing through Berkeley.

On Animeoples in General and the Reception in Particular

Well Deer Reader, my sister, a Jungian trained psychologist, gave me a possible answer to the question that has flited at the back of my brain like a small moth headed person. That is- WHY am I seeing so many Animeoples in art lately? I, occasionally, when time permits, and so not often, go web surfing through the incomprehensibly huge world of art blogs and sites. And more often than not I find artists who are painting animal headed people. Some pieces are fantastic, some are less than. Most are in clothes worn hundreds of years ago. And I wonder- where is this all coming from? Are we dragging these images up from the depths of our collective unconscious?
My sister suggests that people are wanting to go back- pre-industrialization, to find our animalistic natures and return to nature. Is that it? To be less refined? To take a step back to the simplified, straightforward and slower paced days? So we stick a deer head on a woman in Victorian hoops, whose hands and garb are human and indicative of a past century or two, but whose outlook is toward the hills.
I like this answer.
So while perhaps I am searching consciously for some totemic chimera my unconscious strives to live on berries in a unmolested wild wood.
I hope you can all make it to Castle in the Air next Thursday at 6 for the opening!