"Carving" Out A New Life

So we moved to Portland in the summer of 95'. In fact, for what it's worth (nothing btw although Portland has a couple of hippies here and there so I have heard), the day we arrived was the day Jerry Garcia died. You can wiki it-August 9th 1995. So I like to think I had something, even minor, to do with his demise because for the life of me, AND I HAVE TRIED AND TRIED, by listening to their heinous music, but I do not understand the appeal of the Grateful Dead. I mean, they could NOT write even a slightly catchy song to save their lives. Didn't matter if you were on acid, PCP, weed, coke, alcohol, horse tranquilizers, angel dust, whatever. It just didn't matter. Their songs just blow. Trust me I gave them the ol' college try. Heck, the lovely Throbbing Gristle is 100 times more tuneful and their stated goal was NOT to be tuneful. But I digress...

It didn't take long for me to start digging the artistic motifs of the First Nations Coastal Indians that historically inhabit a range from Northern Cali up to Alaska and beyond. At first, during long weekend road trips to Vancouver BC (lovely city) to see my beloved DETROIT RED WINGS play hockey, the greatest game on earth (screw soccer and those floppin' fairies-well EXCEPT for Pele and some of the artistic Brasilian homens-including Umbabarauma, my URL namesake from the awesome Jorge Ben song of the same name), we would go to the galleries throughout the city (particularly Hill's Native Art) and purchase cool carvings that were in our budget and “mount' them around the living room back home in order to spook any lame Anglos who came over (and that's all there is in PDX as I recall).

After a few years of this, circa 1999 (screw Prince too, he can barely write a song and is a total “twit”-purple is the color of royalty???!!!! My bunda!), I figured out that I, a total white man with a dull Northern European lineage starting in Britain/France and ending in Poland/Russia could be allowed to take local community college courses and learn the art of this noble art style. Which I did. It is not actually that hard once you learn the basics (kinda like sex in that way). In short, here is a sample of the results (not included is my first carving of a whale head in relief-it was putrid like if you actually saw a rotting, putrid whale on the beach on the coast of Oregon-that's how bad it was but my instructor still encouraged me to become the “rank” amateur I still am).

And credit where credit is due: all painted colors are the responsibility of the ex as I can only paint walls successfully and all hair is the responsibility of my Olde English Sheepdog, Windsor, who was not harmed in the creation of this art and still has more than enough hair left even at the ripe old age of almost 14 to drive most adults crazy and all young girls at my local park loco. More on “her/hair” to come later.