Sunday, May 14, 2006

Doing the Rain Dance

In another great big burst of creative energy I've released 5 new paintings. Four are here in this blog entry and one is in the Prayers for Rain post.

With Bigness busy killing leafcutter ants and talking to his baby mango tree, and United Nations Baby with MCS and not asking me to make koolaide ice cubes every 5 minutes, its amazing how much I can accomplish when - people freakin leave me alone. The electricity is on and off, sometimes for hours and hours. No radio noise blasting from the livingroom and banging around in the back of my mind. No fan, which is o.k. since I have to have a very controoled environment because the silk bounces around when you paint on it. All I can hear is the wind moving through the orange trees. Every once in a while off in the distance I'll hear the rumble and whomp whomp whomp of a low flying helicopter slowly searching the bush for "something."

These paintings are on silk. I'm working almost exclusively on silk these days and my palette is changing as I'm running out of dye colors. My resupply will be here in late June.

The painting on the top left is called Ixtabai and is based on a garifuna legend of a beautiful rainforest goddess who would lure drunken men into the bush late at night. Deeper and deeper into the jungle she would call them. By the time they realized they were lost, it would be too late. The male version of Ixtabai is called Tata Duende a male spirit and mischief maker of the bush.


The theme of crocodile and fish has African origins. The Crocodile symbolizes the Oba energy of the king. The fish represents the prosperity of the people. The king holds the prosperity of the people in his mouth. The almond shapes on the borders represent pips for the Abbia game carved from poisonous seeds from a tree. The designs are inconsequential to the playing of the game, but are collected for their uniqueness. The rectangle shapes are inspired by Kuba cloth fabric patterns woven and dyed. The square painting is a design for another tile that will be available at my Cafepress site.

O.K. here's the torture part of the blog entry: (I know you've all been waiting for this and had to wade through the blah blah blah about african theme art. Bwahahaha (evil laugh) Bigness got a double whammy today, I forced him to watch 2 episodes of AbFab on BBC and Sex in the City on TBS. On our first date we were making light chitchat talking about our likes and dislikes. I asked him if he liked Sex in the City and he said it was his favorite and I actually thought he was talking about the TV series, and not Belize City. It was months and months later that I discovered my misperterbulation. Oh the bliss of young love, even in old people. The things we're willing to tolerate because our beloved wants it. Like how I still pretend that I like to watch boxing and classic car auctions (gag).

8 comments:

Rainypete said...

We all suffer with the TV when we are in love. Jsu tlike mos tother parts of a relationship it's give and take. My wife subjects me to all manner of sitcoms and such that turn my brain to putty. She converesely suffers through my sci-fi and strange comedies.

Caribbean Colors Belize said...

Hey it rained last night!!!!

Romeo Morningwood said...

You are living the dream BRAVO.
I abso love all four.
I can't get my head around your little island paradiso.I touched down in Belize on the way to Cozumel once and I remember that I couldn't stop staring at all of the gorgeous colours in the water.

really cooool...hard to believe that you even watch TV but I know that you can't live on scenery..and yet..sigh...

Unknown said...

ooohaahhahhahah sex in the city...aahhaha he probably took it as an invitation!!!!

DCveR said...

The one good thing when GH is away: I don't even turn the damned TV on.

Anonymous said...

nice paintings its Amirra i awlays read ur blog send me pics of jess u and halima soon my email is ethiogurl4sure20072yahoo.com i love ur crestive paintings is it hot in beliz e and i looked at a belize map i couldnt find caye caulker anywhere where is it lol or mybe im just blind luv ya guys Amirra

hobbes said...

Fantastic paintings - what talent!

Cream said...

Beautiful paintings, Lee! Great theme and colours!
Baby mango tree, well at least Bigness is out of your hair when you're busy creating!