Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives
40 x 30
2007 / #1
The women on that popular TV show look nothing like the housewives I ever knew! Then again, it is not listed as reality television. I decided to make my version of the real thing. Once it was finished, looking back over my original sketch, I realized I had left out one representation of desperation and substituted another, testimony to the length of time it took to get from the sketchbook to the canvas. The character picking up the baby was to have been suffering from her water having just broken in an advanced state of pregnancy. My delinquency at getting to the final image has the poor woman already dealing with breast-feeding and a squirmy baby. Sometimes these ladies seem to have lives of their own without me! Situations of desperation include, something burning in the oven, displaced laundry, being out of coffee, the forgotten school lunch, a Frisbee on the roof top, smudges on the window glass, dirty dishes to do, leaky baby, and her equally leaky mother. The cards across the top left represent how the housewife is the one to organize and plan for holidays and that time passes in increments measured by these events, year after year. If you are familiar with my earlier work, the pumpkin is a direct homage to my painting “Zappy Walladaze” where the pumpkin on top of the microwave is smoking a cigarette. The figure hiding outside to smoke is in reference to Ohio’s new non-smoking laws that prohibit smoking just about every place so she is a bit desperate to have a hit. Notice that the birthday card has some issues of its own. I really could have added many more real life situations, but there is always another painting waiting to come to life, so go ahead and toss in your own ideas. Put them in my guestbook and maybe more characters will find themselves in desperate straits
40 x 30
2007 / #1
The women on that popular TV show look nothing like the housewives I ever knew! Then again, it is not listed as reality television. I decided to make my version of the real thing. Once it was finished, looking back over my original sketch, I realized I had left out one representation of desperation and substituted another, testimony to the length of time it took to get from the sketchbook to the canvas. The character picking up the baby was to have been suffering from her water having just broken in an advanced state of pregnancy. My delinquency at getting to the final image has the poor woman already dealing with breast-feeding and a squirmy baby. Sometimes these ladies seem to have lives of their own without me! Situations of desperation include, something burning in the oven, displaced laundry, being out of coffee, the forgotten school lunch, a Frisbee on the roof top, smudges on the window glass, dirty dishes to do, leaky baby, and her equally leaky mother. The cards across the top left represent how the housewife is the one to organize and plan for holidays and that time passes in increments measured by these events, year after year. If you are familiar with my earlier work, the pumpkin is a direct homage to my painting “Zappy Walladaze” where the pumpkin on top of the microwave is smoking a cigarette. The figure hiding outside to smoke is in reference to Ohio’s new non-smoking laws that prohibit smoking just about every place so she is a bit desperate to have a hit. Notice that the birthday card has some issues of its own. I really could have added many more real life situations, but there is always another painting waiting to come to life, so go ahead and toss in your own ideas. Put them in my guestbook and maybe more characters will find themselves in desperate straits