"Communion Ruminations"
2009
oil on canvas over panel
43 x 39

Cousin Sybil's playmates at Ruby Baptist had gotten caught in the
supply closet eating the communion wafers and drinking the grape juice.
Forty-five years later she was still aghast as she told Cousin Judy the story.

Unconsecrated host in a supply cabinet is not the body and blood of
Christ. The playmates were guilty of theft and perhaps gluttony but...
no transubstantiation, no sacrilege.

Cousin Judy said, Well, I didn't dare tell her that at Ruby

Presbyterian
we just let the kids have the leftovers when communion's done.

We don't use any special wafers. We just use Bunny Bread. It's the best anyway,
better than Wonder or Sunbeam.

You know, we got this new preacher last year and he wanted something
more, you know, formal looking than cut-up squares of Bunny Bread.
So he went to the Communion Committee and asked if they could come
up with some kind of little loaf for him to bless and break.

So Viola Outen volunteered to make homeade bread and set aside some
dough to make a little loaf. Well, after doing that for a year
she got sick of it. Viola said, I'll tell you what. That is just
too much work for one little loaf of bread. If you need something
just to bless and break, I'll give YOU a Pop-tart.

"Suddenly Last Birthday"
2001
oil on canvas mounted on panel
47 x 26"
Detail of Barbie head
Detail of candles
Text reads as follows:
The night before my birthday,
my Barbie disappeared from my room.
She appeared the next afternoon at the party resplendent
in a dress of pink cake and taffeta frosting.
We were enraptured.
She was a Goddess, a Princess, Developed.
She was the most glamorous thing wed ever seen.
She was everything we wanted to be.
Then we ate the dress off her.

Art historical reference, "Las Meninas"
Classical reference, "Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer and the Rites of Dionysus" by Janice Siegel

"Marcia's Memorial Lesson"
2007
oil on canvas over panel
36 x 18"

Text reads as follows:
"Come and the Lord shall feed our souls
With more substantial meat
With such as Saints in glory love
With such as angels eat."

Marcia Tucker was a wonderful Sacred Harp singer.
At her Memorial, Tim Eriksen led "Parting Friends", one of the four songs she chose.

Learn more about this extraordinary, participatory folk music tradition at fasola.org
and about local NYC sings atLowerEastSideSing.vocis.com.

"A Lot to a Chicken"
2001
oil on canvas mounted on panel
43 x 37"
Detail of chicken heads
Detail of drool
Text reads as follows: They asked Old Man Campbell, "How are you feeling? How's your appetite?
He said, "I'm feeling right poorly. I can't eat nothing. Nothing tastes good." His daughter-in-law took this as a slight
to her nursing abilities and said, "Now Daddy you know that's just not true. You ate two fryers for lunch."
He snapped his head around and said, " Well what's two little chickens to a sick man."

"Scarlet Runner"
2001
oil on canvas mounted on panel
43 x 37"
Detail
Text reads as follows:
My Great-grandfather William Barton 'Bart' Allen got away with murder.
He got a job ganging the line on the railroad tracks in Missouri. Even though he was three-quarters Cherokee
he could often pass for White. The men had just gotten their lunch - one plate of beans, same as always - when
the Railroad Bull, a big drunken Irishman, came down the line. The Bull reached into my Great-grandfather's plate,
grabbed himself a handful of beans, and started eating them out of his fist. Bart Allen said, "If you do it again, I'll kill you."
The Bull went on down the line. On the way back he did it again. Bart pulled out his gun and killed him.
He went home and told his wife Pack up the children. Pick everything in garden. We're leaving." And they ran to Minnesota.
It turns out my mom always knew about this and decided to keep it secret but her cousin, Ovanual, spilled the story.

"Fate Happens"
2001
oil on canvas mounted on panel
43 x 37"
Detail of peach Detail of waning peach
Text reads as follows:
"Aunt Margie, Aunt Peachy and Aunt Juanita
sat in a three seater outhouse and decided who
they'd marry. Margie and Juanita would
marry Peachy's brothers, James and Shorty.
Peachy would marry Margie's brother, Ed.
The girls were fourteen, fifteen and seventeen
when, for better or for worse, they married the
boys they picked."

"Eat Crow"
2002
oil on canvas mounted on panel
36 x 24
Detail of crow and quiche and Detail of crow and recipe
Text reads:
1952 Aunt Faye invited the couple from downstairs to diner. The wife brought a kind of pie Aunt Faye had never tasted before. Aunt Faye politely complimented the wife and politely asked for the recipe.
The wife said it was a private family recipe and that it wasn't given out.

Aunt Faye made pie after pie until she'd duplicated the recipe exactly. Then she invited the wife over again and fed it to her.
The wife ate it and didn't say a word.
Art historical reference for "Eat Crow"

"Milk, Milk, Lemonade"
2001
oil on canvas mounted on panel
13 1/4 x 26 1/2"
detail of turd

"Sugar Pants"
2006
oil on canvas mounted on panel
2 panels, 46 x 27" each

text reads:
"During the Depression, staples came in fabric bags.
Folks cut clothes from them.
My Grandmother was married in a soda sack suit.
Her underpants were sugar.

Papa was 25 but she was 15 when they eloped.
When they told her sister, Nettie, what they'd done
She said, "Well what'd you get her with -- an ice cream cone?"

NOTE: When I did this painting I thought the reference to the body was fairly overt
because everyone had seen Madonna's cone bra by Jean-Paul Gaultier
but it wasn't as obvious as I thought so I did this one....

"Sugar Pants Redux"
2006
oil on canvas mounted on panel
2 panels: image 3 x 2', text 1 x 2'

text reads: "During the Depression, staples came in fabric bags.
Folks cut clothes from them.
My Grandmother was married in a soda sack suit.
Her underpants were sugar.

Papa was 25 but she was 15 when they eloped.
When they told her sister, Nettie, what they'd done
She said, "Well what'd you get her with -- an ice cream cone?"

"Eat Up with Cancer"
2001
oil on canvas mounted on panel
17 x 27"
Text reads: I made a shrimp, basil and lime soup. Although Granny never said it me to me, she mentioned to several of my relatives
that the smell of it nauseated her for weeks afterwards. It was as if she couldn't get the odor out of her nostrils
Even after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer she said it was the soup that made her sick to her stomach.
Detail of shrimp and limes

"Hot Dog (He was a) Redux aka "One Man's Meat"
2009
oil on canvas mounted on panel
52 x 28"

text reads: Cousin Sylvia and the orderly were called in.
The elderly man had pulled out his catheter again.
Sylvia said, " I'm sick of this. The old pervert just
you to play with it and him on public assistance.
Every time he does this it costs us taxpayers $10.
Well, I'm not going to waste another new catheter."
She washed the dirty catheter with alcohol, rinsed
it, powdered it and pushed it back in.
The orderly started laughing and said, "If I hadn't seen
you do it to a white man I wouldn't have believed it.

detail

"Study for Hot Dog (He was a)"
2001
oil on canvas mounted on panel
19 x 26"

ttext reads: Cousin Sylvia and the orderly were called in.
The elderly man had pulled out his catheter again.
Sylvia said, " I'm sick of this. The old pervert just
you to play with it and him on public assistance.
Every time he does this it costs us taxpayers $10.
Well, I'm not going to waste another new catheter."
She washed the dirty catheter with alcohol, rinsed
it, powdered it and pushed it back in.
The orderly started laughing and said, "If I hadn't seen
you do it to a white man I wouldn't have believed it.

"Unititled - History Lesson"
2006
oil on canvas mounted on panel
46 x 26"
detail tomato
text reads:
1944
One Japanese family, the Tamuras,
lived in Okmulgee, Oklahoma during WWII.
They had a truck farm and sold
produce to the local stores in town.
They made a scheduled delivery
to Mrs. Ogg's store on the day
she found out her son had been
killed in the Pacific.

Horrifying stories of Japanese
attrocities were everywhere.
Sick and insane with grief,
Mrs. Ogg caught the Japanese
man off guard and she nearly beat
him to death with a broom handle.

"Fruit of the Womb"
2005
oil on canvas over panel
text reads:
My Grandmother grew up on a farm
slaughtering and butchering animals.
So she often described human flesh as meat.

It surprised me when she refered
to the twins she miscarried as,

Later she forgot herself and called them
"the giblets"

detail giblets
detail pears