I just finished this latest painted sketch. This one intimidated me because it’s a shrine, a holy place, a sacred place, but I wanted to try to capture the quiet, the calm, the reverence of the many shrines everywhere we go in the city. On many days there are flowers left, soft drinks, snacks. It is said the spirits are fond of sugary things, and people want to please them. Piles of flowers, garlands, lights – all kinds of things are left to honor the spirits. None of these things are ever touched. I guess someone finally clears things out, but that happens when people don’t see it. This is one style of shrine. The other major one is a “house,” usually meant to thank the spirits for allowing the person to build a house or open a shop on a piece of land, and the house is meant to make up for that. I’ll try to find a good image of that sometime soon.
This is another one I finished today.
“Mr. Natural” is the first in the series of Harvey’s long time favorite cartoon characters that I’m painting and will add to his “Happy Wall” tomorrow when we go visit.
“Mr. Natural (Fred Natural) is a comic book character created and drawn by 1960s counterculture and underground comix artist Robert Crumb. First appearing in Yarrowstalks (1967), the character gained a following during the emergence of underground comix in the 1960s and 1970s, and has been extensively merchandised in various products.”
This is one of the mailbox decorations we made when we lived in Arkansas. Anyway, I’m hoping that Harvey will get a kick out of putting these up on his wall and give him some happy memories.
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Brian came up to my table at the front window at the cafe early today, saying he was ready to go home. When we got home, he steered me to the pick up area where there was some type of ‘goody’ waiting. It turne out to be the to-die-for delicious cream-filled, no-name “thingie” that we love. We snarfed it down handily. Then he tuned my guitar, and we talked about the fact that it seemed a little unusual that this guitar needs to be tuned every day. He then showed me another way to do the “C” chord that might help with my finger-stretching and flesh-on-the-box problem. I’ll try it after dinner.
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