I Asked Myself That Same Question!

What IS that?

It wasn’t pulsating. That was reasurring. There was no eerie glow.  I had no idea. I’d never seen anything like this anywhere. And where WAS this you might wonder ?  It appeared overnight in one of my outdoor flowerpots.

What IS this?

” Is this an egg “, I thought. What kind of animal produces an egg that does THAT ? Sort of builds itself a useless parachute and then puts holes in it. Didn’t make sense.

This induced nonsensical explanations in my head – Dr. Seuss was involved in crossbreeding a wiffle ball and a quail egg.

Another possibliity, not so benign -something already hatched out of that egg , will grow exponentially larger and by next week, we’ll be on the mothership,  abducted by the pod people.

The first call was to my friend Scott in Vieques, a writer and knower of all things horticultural, who knew what this was and gave me the Latin.

Clathraceae

They’re in the mushroom family. The fruiting body is the cage like formation which attracts flies to enter, feed and with their feet, spread the spores. Oh, goody. More of these.

The egg like structure has root formations from which this whole bizarre array of fungii originate. With names like ” Phallus ravenelii, Mutinus caninus, Phallus hadriani, how can you not go look at the link above!

Michael Kuo has great photos and writes well and knowledgeably.

They last a day and then they’re gone.

That cold front that blasted New England worked its’ way down here. I only mention it ( see how squally, windy and overcast it was ?) because it coincided hilariously with our local, early morning weather channel.

It showed our local temperature in Christiansted this morning as -10. Minus ten. Clearly the proofreader was busy doing other things. It wasn’t THAT cold. Even though there’s snow on my blog. Happy Holidays.

Yes, there’s no painting to post. But industry lives, as does creativity. I’m taking a small detour to do another furniture piece for a fund raiser-the same cause I did  Chairman Meow for last year.

AbunDance

-The Water Bearer,”16X20 “, is my latest work. It was a trial of mixing two mediums together: acrylics and oil pastels. The contrast of the two satisfy the desire to use quick drying acrylics for the base, and the pliable, malleable oil pastels for highlights and details. You can smudge them with your finger, push it over a little, mush it around with a stick- it’s YOUR painting, you can do what ever you want! Isn’t free expression wonderful?
I like the outcome and will use the combo again in future work.

— Have you thought about how many plastic bottles of water you’ve bought and tossed away, half finished? Deciding which designer, distilled, vitamin infused, flavored, filtered, imported brand we would spend up to $4 a bottle for?

-We are spoiled and lucky. I was looking to capture the travails of someone who carried water as though it was vintage wine, not spilling any, often being more valuable than food.
A friend said ” She has sad eyes”! Good”, I thought, I guess I captured what I was looking for. She didn’t just come from the vending machine!

-If Dr. Seuss designed prison clothes, I think this is what he’d have done.
This comical creature is the Frangipani Caterpillar, which is actually a worm. Read about its’ symbiotic relationship to the host tree and why the tendency to kill it should be resisted.

-And while you’re digesting all of this, have a look at our amazing Mocko Jumbie stilt walkers, wowing the crowds in a Manhattan parade.
And you thought YOUR feet hurt after a day of work?!