Stamps in January

Snarky? Moi? Never.

Top Ten Reasons to Commission this

 

Appalachian Artist  

                                                                                                                                          

10. Hire me and that’s one less whitetail deer I have to paint on a vinyl tire-cover.

9. Your clip art disc impresses no one. No one at all.

8. You will never have to listen to me say “My art is a kinetic mockery of bourgeois values, a swirling compilation of dimorphic enigma and dynamic realism.” 

7. Are you really going to let your cousin’s brother-in-law mess with it? Remember last time?

6. Tired of getting blindsided with sanctimonious political tirades when dealing with “creatives”? My artistic philosophy is “Red and Blue make Green.”

5. Willing to travel...Lord, yes.

4. There’s only so many times I can airbrush “Maw-Maw” onto a decorative license plate at the flea-market.

3. After we’ve done business, I won’t refer to our exchange in a snarky way and imply that trade is somehow beneath me. I touch filthy lucre all the time and I am not ashamed.

2. Doing caricatures next to the funnel cake tent just isn’t cutting it anymore.

1. When you do business with me, a percentage of your fee is put toward my “Tools of the Trade” competition for high school students who wish to seriously pursue a career as a visual artist. Not one dime of my pay is ever given to “Save the Northern Pacific Tree Octopus” or any of it’s many appendage charities.

The preceding post is mostly parody. I have not actually dealt in airbrushed accessories, vinyl tire covers or “Bubby & Sissy at the Fair” cartoons in over two decades. I admit to experimenting with wizard murals on creeper vans in the 80’s, but I did not inhale. I am serious about numbers 1, 3 and 6, however, so you Cephalopod-Huggers can just stop ringing my doorbell.

Those of you who would like to learn more about the suffering of the endangered can learn more at this site. Cut and past, boys and girls!

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

                                                                                                                                                                                             

©Kathy Ferrell and “Big Cup O'Blog” (blog about Cup O Swank Studio), 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kathy Ferrell and Big Cup O'Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Brand New for National Poetry Month...

Artists, Artisans,

and

Orwellian Descent

I saw a word in print last week,

impressive it did sound.

I only guessed its meaning

and began throwing it around.

I turned my back on Mr. Webster,

that stuffy, boring fool.

Words mean what you want them to,

and I thought I sounded cool.

My friends were just as dull as I,

and looked to me to lead.

If I spoke it with authority

They saw no need to read.

Orwell’s Newspeak simplified

our dinner conversation.

To check a fact or cite a source

ruins verbal masturbation.

All was well until this morning,

I passed a painter on his way.

He saw me and he cried out,

“I have some things to say!

“An artist and an artisan

are not one and the same.

The words aren’t interchangeable,

my profession’s not a game.

“As a surgeon’s not a butcher,

as a gelding’s not a mare,

but a dilettante’s a detriment

to Culture everywhere.”

So now I know the difference,

and I’m welcome in more places. 

I’ve left the squawking  parrots

in exchange for smarter faces.

                                             

                                                 

                                                       Kathy Ferrell

                                                       April 27, 2011                                                            

©Kathy Ferrell and “Big Cup O'Blog” (blog about Cup O Swank Studio), 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kathy Ferrell and Big Cup O'Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.