Sweet Sweet Potatoes

These sweet potatoes stare wistfully at what will be their future home in the garden. They remind me of something Tove Jansson might have created.

The Incredible Portrait Project

I belong to a multi-talented art group called Art Esprit and based at the artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH. This is the same group I wrote about that did the downtown "Shoe Project" and last year did "If These Rocks Could Talk" for which I did the Betty and Barney Hill saga on 4 sides of a wooden pedestal. Very cool projects. This year, the group came up with a fantastic community art project called "Rochester Creates Portraits". Artists, children, high school kids, citizens from all walks of life enthusiastically joined in and created over 500 portraits on wooden panels!

The President of Art Esprit is Adam Pearson. He's the sculptor who made all the shoes, built the pedestals and was given the daunting task of turning the large and small wood panels into an actual sculpture. He is basically an all-round artistic genius. We couldn't wait to see what he would do. 

My friends, Kyle and Stan and I arrived at 10:00 for the kick-off. Several Art Esprit members attended and we all sorted through the panels and handed them to Adam as he created the sculpture. He figured it might take him 8 hours working alone which was a huge amount of work. Luckily, Stan is good with power tools and he joined in and was a huge help, so it ended up taking just over 6 hours. I have to say, we were all amazed at how incredibly this project came together and the diversity of works placed next to and around each other from professional art to work by tiny kids was absolutely fantastic.

There were so many pieces I would LOVE to own! The sculpture will be up through October and then will be taken apart and turned into a wall of portraits at the local community center. So, cheers to Adam and Stan for all the work yesterday and to Kyle for documenting the whole thing and to Art Esprit  and artstream for bringing art to the community! Below are some samples. Sadly, there are too many to show all of them.     

Adam beginning the layout

Kyle and his self-portrait

My portrait in the mix

One of my favorites

This man painted this picture of his daughter

Progressing

More favorites
 

Partly finished

And the finished work. One of the views:

Stan and Adam

Watering the Garden Monster

Our garden is like a giant pet that needs constant upkeep. From the time the ground thaws you are weeding, hoeing, boosting the compost in the beds, planting, de-bugging in an organic way (VERY time consuming) and watering. It inspired the following:

Team Cul De Sac

One of my very favorite cartoonists ever is Richard Thompson who draws the brilliant "Cul De Sac".  I was very sad to hear that Richard was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a while ago.
His friend, Chris Sparks, came up with the idea to have cartoonists donate original takes on the "Cul De Sac" strip and to put together a book as a fundraiser for Parkinson's research. They have had some amazing contributions including, recently, an original painting by the mysterious and reclusive Bill Watterson of "Calvin and Hobbes".
My donation to the project appeared on the blog not long ago, and here's a link. Hope you enjoy it and check out the rest of the art, too!
My Team Cul De Sac Drawing

Happy Mother's Day and Capt. Jack Sparrow

Today is Mother's Day, so hope you all have or had a happy one. Nico and I had a great phone chat. Now, I am spending the day in the garden killing wasps and digging up old strawberries with my lethal new garden implement:

And on this special day,here is one of my favorite Chix Mother's Day cartoons:

Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day in Rochester and all over. I spent the day at artstream Gallery (small "a", remember?) and meeting people coming in including a very famous and cool pirate:

That's artstream co-owner Mary-Jo Monusky on the left, me, Capt. Jack, and Amber Lavalley.
And here's a display of some of my books, jewelry and t-shirts.

 My artwork and cartoons will be on display for the next few weeks if you are in the area, stop by! Here are some kids reading some of my cartoons, followed by some of my framed cartoons and some of my prints on display:

Free Comic Book Day plus Cartoon Exhibit

Tomorrow is the day that I'm sure many of you wait all year for: Free Comic Book Day! I'll be posted at artstream Gallery (small a in artstream)where they will be featuring my originals and prints as well as that of some other artists.
Here's a link to an article on the event: Seacoast NH , and here are samples of some of  some of my favorite cartoons that will be available there. These are all prints. If you'd like one, check out artstream or contact me!

Two Movies You Should See in the Movies

My friend Kyle and I recently saw two fantastic movies in the theater. I have been waiting for the movie "Hanna" since I first saw the previews and it is every bit as good as those previews predicted unlike many movies where the trailers are better than the movie. Saoirse Ronan is perfect as a girl raised by her father in the woods and trained to be an assassin. I won't spoil the story for anyone planning to see it, so let me just say that Hanna" is a stunningly beautiful film,and the score by the Chemical Brothers is an ideal match to the action. I hate intrusive over-orchestrated, heavy-handed scores that dominate a lot of movies so it's refreshing when the soundtrack actually compliments a film. Here's the trailer to entice you, because you really want to see this on a big screen:

The other movie we really enjoyed on the big screen was "Source Code" starring Jake Gyllenhaal. This is a gripping futuristic thriller where Jake is a helicopter pilot who suddenly finds himself inhabiting the body of Sean, a commuter on a train that in 8 minutes will be blown to smithereens. He then wakes up in a sort of space capsule where he is part of a scientific experiment that allows him to keep going back to the train for the last 8 minutes of Sean's life to try to find the terrorist. If you can, see this one in the theater, too. This is a gorgeous, classy film and if you love a good exploding train scene you won't be disappointed! Here's the trailer: