kingtycoon | #19 And they Call Me The Great One

I'll recap the 10-18 journey too, but I was able to get to the circumstance that allowed me to paint this one - #19 - the Robin.

So a thing about me and about the Wasteland - Cleveland I mean, but the midwest too. I think of Cleveland as being totemic of the midwest. detroit and youngstown and so on - that place in PA that people accept as a city - Chicago, St. Louis - they're all good, all places, all different. But the Continental Core and the Great Lakes Region (midwest, isn't really sensible to me, as a description - I feel no kinship with Nebraska) But our industrial-suburban-sprawl-television-wasteland - I think of Cleveland as being the real heart of this identity, it is my totemic center of the Wasteland. And of Cleveland, and probably the whole Wasteland I think of the Robin in the Snow as a a kind of Emblem - the Emblem, the flag, the sign of our place. I saw the Robin in the snow.

So this isn't my first rodeo painting this particular subject. We went to the art museum's sidewalk chalk festival a few years back and I sidewalk chalked a robin in the snow - an idea that came to me from who knows where- inspired. Later, a few years ago still - I took up painting and my first attempt was The Robin in the Snow. Couldn't say what happened to that painting, but I painted it. And now.

This is #19 the Sun - supposed to reflect optimistic view of reality, the good in the world, and the bright side of things. I've gone pretty near to Plato's cave describing some of the other cards here -and I've subverted some ideas about ruin and destruction by using sun-imagery. So I needed a symbol of optimism and of reality, of the good in the world and the constancy. Here in the wasteland we know the Sun is inconstant - there's a veneer of cloud on the sky most days, and when there's not there is industrial spoor to glaze the sky in discoloring haze - but the spring comes, and the spring here is the best springtime in the world, and the Robin is the herald of that, my favorite of the creatures, the good animal of animals, and this year - this is the first year I can remember where I saw the first Robin of the year (very auspicious day, important in the course of a year to tell you how the year will be) I saw the first Robin of the year on the 8th of March, a dozen of them all at once all hopping around the ball-diamond. I celebrated my daughter's birthday with her and then came home and started painting. We had a lot more birthday kicks -

in fact a whole party I threw for all the folk in my family born in March. Big fun- the best of months you know - the Marsian month.

Anyhow! A big breakfast and then our first visit to the Aquarium - I really just wanted to get this down during a lull in the action.

You probably need to hear more Bobby Day anyhow.