Friday, August 19, 2011

Fabulous or Frightening?



I bought this on ebay.

I can explain.

I met a guy recently who impressed me tremendously. He's a naturalist from the state of Delaware who retired in Vermont some 20 years ago. He's 86 years old and he looks like 30 years younger. I mean, strong legs, straight back, clear eyes - hearing that is way better than mine. When we met he told me he and his wife had been out every night for the last six nights, mostly listening to classical music or going to wine tastings and the like.

It came up in our conversation that he had written and illustrated a few books of natural history while he was still working. He explained that he used something called "scratchboard" to illustrate these books. I didn't know anything about scratchboard and he explained. It's pretty much like it sounds - you scratch away the image from a board and the board can than be used to make prints.

So..... Fast forward a few weeks and somehow, while searching for paintings of Terriers I saw this kitten. I am not sure how that happened, but you know how the Internet is.

I don't know if what I have here the actual scratchboard or a print. I don't want to break it out of the frame and it hardly matters to me. I was just lured in by the "scratchboard" part of the description - and the eyes. This item was created by an artist called Helen Anderson and the ebay seller was trying to gin up interest by noting that Ms. Anderson had an auction record of $750. (My price, $9.99 and I was the only bidder.) Can you believe it?

So, here is an addition to the collection who now gazes up at my cracked ceiling with his little open mouth and wee paw fetchingly placed on, what is that? A ball? Whatever.

Frankly, I can't decide whether I like it or should be embarrassed. OK, I like it, but I think that means I should be embarrassed. What do you think?

Shackleton speaks:

At dinner tonight, while he was refusing to eat the broken hamburger that his father was trying to sell as "sloppy Joes" Shack said, "If I were a monster, I would eat all of the human being except the head. Who wants hair with their human?"

Another excellent question.



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your son is a philosopher, to be sure. Although, instead of a sloppy joe, you should have tried that Iowa favorite, the "loose meat" sandwich, i.e. the sloppy joe without the "sloppy."

BTW, love the new banner.

Cheers.

neill said...

Kitty appears to be driving.

Kim Velk said...

Hey R - I think I have heard of "loose meat" but it conjures (for me) an image even worse than Sloppy Joe. I think what we were really presented with that night was Whusband's version of taco meat but since he couldn't find any tortillas we got (stale) hamburger buns and a sales job.

Hi Neill - Maybe you're right. One is in dangerous territory with any art representing kittens...

SanDiegoTim said...

Lisa and I love the picture.

BTW, I agree with R. Sherman on the nice new banner.

Anonymous said...

I trust you've not floated away in the maelstrom of Irene. My thoughts for you and yours.

Cheers.

Kim Velk said...

Hi Tim - Thanks for dropping in. I took that picture a week or two ago when kids and I were down visiting Dad. It's from the path along the bluff at Thacher Park (sp?) in Albany County - a great place to visit if you ever get the chance. It's free, thanks to the NY taxpayer, and it's magic, as you can see. We (Maisy and I) got there around 8:30 AM and did not see another person for an hour.

Hi R - You are too kind. We did get a punishing amount of rain, but the wind was not as bad as feared and already the waters are receding.