U... V... W... X... Y... Z

Understandably, U is usually a unicorn.

And verily, venus flytrap verifies V.

Would a walrus willfully while away weekend hours within wildflowers?

X is for x-ray.

Don't yawn.  Y is for yak.

And Z is for a zippy little zebra.

N... O... P... Q... R... S... T...

N is for nine nautiluses and nosy but neighborly narwhals.

Obviously O is for octopus.

P is for particularly ponderous penguins.

Q is quintessentially a quiet quail.

R is for raccoon racing in the rain.

Shy sloth sleeps soundly with silent spider...

T is for two twin turtles.

K... L... M...

K is a kangaroo keeping kittens.

L is for lion who loves to lick lollipops.

Mostly, m is for manatee munching mangoes marvelously!

H...I...J...

H is for hippopotamus harangued by hummingbirds.

I is for ibis in indigo.

Justly, a jackalope juggles jellybeans.

D... E...

Oh, deer! Dawn draws near...

E is for an effervescent elephant.

A... B... C...

 A is for alligator awake in the lunar apogee..

 B is for bright blue with black buttons...

C is for cat curious about circles...

Death and the Maiden

Thumbelina and her Suitor

Death and the Rabbit

Self portrait paper doll

Self-portrait of me in my work as "The Spaceship Lady." The blue hula hoop looking thing is a space ship, or what I use to teach early elementary children about personal space and consent. I have 30 of these things in the trunk of my car and I travel around to schools in Androscoggin County, Maine.

Didn't we already win this argument?

Raging Granny meets Suffragette

Last week or two ago, the Raging Grannies made a lovely little song stating their "love" (read: rage) at Todd Akin.  Every attack on feminist and humanist rights I feel lately is a backslide and quite frankly, I ain't going back.

Phyllis Diller

I think Phyllis Diller was on Scooby-Doo in the 1970s.  I think that is where I remember her from.  She was funny and made everyone laugh not just the men and not just the women and not just Scooby and Shaggy.  Everybody got her.

Yeah, she made fun of people but she made fun of herself making fun of them.  She was flamboyant and over the top.

My Aunt Kitty used to come and watch me sometimes when I was over at my grandmother's (her sister).  Aunt Kitty smoked and drank and cursed.  As a child she scared me.  She lived alone in Philadelphia and she said she liked it.  I used to think that she knew all the people on the television because she would say that she loved so and so in a very familiar fashion...and she was so old just as old as the black and white movies that she made me sit through.  She hated Shirley Temple- called her a brat.

All these things about Aunt Kitty scared me as a little child.  Aunt Kitty and I think had I not first seen Phyllis Diller consciously as a cartoon character, the same could be said.  Both women took life on their own terms and refused to be defined as a woman by a man.  I wish I understood that about Aunt Kitty.  I also wish she didn't smoke so much.  Although because she smoked her gruff laughter is stuck in my head 30 years after her death.  Just like we will always her Ms. Diller laughing at her own stories.

Harry Patch

 "If any man tells you he went into the front line and wasn't scared, he's a liar." 
Harry Patch

Feminist Paper Dolls and Thinking about Harry Patch

Entourage (Or What Was Harry Patch Guarding?)
Mixed Media Collage on acetate

In March 2012, I dedicated a whole month to creating paper dolls of those folks that I though of as feminist role models.  Each person was a personal preference of my own- regardless of whether they self-identified as feminists (which I know, I know is problematic and somewhat dis-empowering...but)

March 2012 was a grueling month.  Making the dolls was a labor of love and I was very raw after doing it.  I didn't feel like it was complete when the month was over but I couldn't go on right then.

Now, I'd like to revisit those personal icons.

A few years ago I did an assemblage suite about war and the angel of death.  It was right around this time when Harry Patch died.  Mr. Patch was the last Tommy-Boy of World War I to die in 2009 (at the age of 111 and 38 days).  He was quiet and refused to speak publicly of his time in war until 1998 when BBC One approached him to do a documentary on WWI.  He revealed himself to be a furious pacifist and railed against the rationale for ANY WAR.  He talked about being afraid and wanting just to go home.  He begged to leaders to work at diplomacy.

"When the war ended, I don't know if I was more relieved that we'd won or that I didn't have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle – thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Herr Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We've had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it's a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn't speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?" (Harry Patch)

This evening I will add a Harry Patch doll to the collection of folks I made in March 2012.  And I hope he would have been pleased.

May 1, 2012

April 1, 2012

March 1, 2012

February 1, 2012

january 1, 2012