20x30  In honor of a trip to the theater with our friends Tony and Elisha, to see Wendy Wasserstein's great play "Third".  Nancy was wearing a pretty blouse, which I wanted to paint as a dividing curtain.  But it turned into a headless giraffe doing the Watusi..

This little critter is standing on its hind legs and saying "A-O-OZZIG".  I don't know what that means.  But the painting is in honor of National Guard troops serving under trying conditions in Iraq, as the military figure is their commanding general.  May they return to the land of squirrels and sweet potatoes soon. The Yam, which is in the painting but does not participate in its action, is a double rendition of the same yam.   24x18

The gate opens to a castle on a hill, speaking to the inner richness of this Yam.

This was my first Yam painting.  The bottom one is actually a boniato and is next to a rib.  The second one looked like a bird.

20x24 Mango and Banana, Yam on the Moon.  The red dot of a planet is Mars. From another sector, the Tomato People have sent out three cherry tomato scouts from the mother ship to check out our solar system.  But unbeknownst to them, Michael Quigli’s grape has joined the party.  No telling what will happen next.

2012 40x30 Cousin Bernie is the potato.  No, there is no Bernie in my family in real life. Laura notes a Hopper-esque quality to this piece, in that the woman seems isolated in the spacious living room and her relationship to the root vegetables is ambiguous.  She has a point, and in fact I don’t know if it is her house or the Yams’ house. Moreover, the central painting in the painting might actually be a wide screen monitor of their bedroom, rather than a still life, the better for us to voyeuristically observe them.  But I can tell you that the little painting in the painting in the painting is a picture of Jim Wodark plein-air painting (see www.jimwodark.com).

​As you know, root vegetables have citrus fruits as pets. Bernie’s lime is on the rug, and the Yams’ lemon is on their bedroom chair.  Their pink rug is very fluffy. Look closely and you will see the Chinese vase is in honor of Ming Chen, a junior high school friend of mine, who went on to do great things in Seattle.  The I and G flowers are responding to the lady’s reach.

A big yam with a flat bottom and pronounced orange mouth.  Shaped very much like a whale.  Sept 2015  11x14

all 2017 to paint  36x36 

Five things (3 people, 2 vegetables) that have very little in common, yet all fit together in a strange way. I bought the Yam and even grew the Zucchini. Unlike Manuel Noriega, who is profoundly influenced by the Pineapple, neither Glenn nor Chuck Close have anything in particular to do with yams, either in appearance or personal mannerisms, as far as is publicly known.  However, it is through the nexus of this Yam that they may be compared and contrasted.  I admire both the artistic accomplishments of Chuck and the film career of Glenn (even if I constantly confuse her with Cloris Leachman, another fine actress). The Panamanian history of the late 20th century not so much, although I always have liked pictures of Manuel.  Here is a small-scale modified reproduction of one of Chuck's largest and most famous works, along with two images from one of Glenn's best movies, the 101 Dalmatians, in which she plays a female Devil.  Noreiga was a prominent male devil as far as President Bush Daddy was concerned.  Chuck has influenced my painting style of squares with little squares inside.  I cannot copy his more complex pixelated mosaic style, although you may try per these instructions: https://www.tes.com/lessons/JrlVF3FrZ2fahg/chuck-close-style-portrait-painting