Laziest Celebrity of All Time . . .

It’s Groundhog day. I know the weather is hard to predict, becoming impossible here in the Pac NW. In January for instance, one day I wore my down coat and all the accompanying garb, and the next day a t-shirt with my coat wrapped around my waist. We’ve had more sun than rain and a snowflake hasn’t been seen. My roses are beginning to send out green shoots, crocuses are poking through and robins are singing in the morning. It’s always a bit of a game of chance and lately that’s a gross minimalization.

I want to be the Groundhog. I want his job. He works one day a year--ONE DAY A YEAR, gets national attention and probably all kinds of book deals, and to top it off, gets a mention on all US calendars! In Pennsylvania I’ll bet dollars to donuts there are stuffed groundhogs, groundhog internet cafes titled something like, The Underground Connection--Come in a Hog a seat! There have to be t-shirts, keychains, shot glasses, hats, lunch boxes, postcards, oven mitts that open up and display the rodents two big front teeth intended to grab your hot casserole from the oven, bumper stickers, sweatshirts, pens and beer mugs . . . all honoring the groundhog--the universally laziest celebrity of all time.

One day a year, come on, what does he do the rest of the year? Sleep, eat, sleep, eat, procreate-maybe, sleep, eat, walk a little-maybe, sleep, eat . . . this has to be his pattern-look how fat he is. Are we so hard up for holidays that we go nuts over a large rodent whose annual feat is to walk outside and, check this out--look for his shadow. Well, that’s hard. I’ve got a newt that could do that with more flair and he isn’t overweight! Enough of Bill Murray . . . now on to Andie MacDowell. . .

It’s cute, right? With all the global trauma of living in 2010 we need cute. Maybe we need a day to honor a groundhog for no apparent reason at all. Maybe we need to spend money on t-shirts and groundhog paraphernalia that will eventually end up in the donor pile and hopefully cloth someone in the world who really needs it. Maybe we need to ponder ridiculous questions like . . . Will there be 6 more weeks of winter? Oh the suspense! You want to know about weather, I’ll tell you about weather . . . Walk outside. Done. Do you really need more than that? Will it really do any good? In the Pac NW these days it’s a weather game show--what’s behind door number 1 today? Could be anything, spin the dial and if you get lucky you might win a toaster.

So I guess the groundhog thing is a bit of a mind frolic and I guess we need to frolic a little, drink some beer and toast the rat! But if we’re looking for weatheranimals I’d like to put in a word for my newt, he’s trim, responsive and is willing to work at least a 4 day week . . . Surely that could net him a bumper sticker . . .

That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .

PS . . . I know it’s a bit odd to post this blog on Feb. 4th. I did write it on Groundhog Day and chickened out when it came to posting it . . . It had NOTHING to do with art, so why post it? This question has been bugging me ever since, and I’ve come to the conclusion that my initial assumption wasn’t true for me--EVERYTHING has SOMETHING to do with art for me. All that I am, and all that I experience eventually shows up on canvas whether it be a streak of red, a field of green, or a brush of glistening black . . . Everything shows up. I live art--My art is my life on canvas, every bit of it. There is no separation, no place to draw a line.

My intention for writing this blog in the first place was to offer up ‘what this artist is thinking about today’ . . . Apparently on Groundhog Day I was the one who needed a little mind frolic that I am confident will, at some future point in time appear as a little wiggle of paint. So, I changed my mind and am posting this, for it truly was what I was thinking about on Feb. 2.