Friday, December 21, 2012
The world did not end today.
I get to keep painting stuff like Pirate Crab. Painted him twice and sold the one off the wall in the past 10 days or so. And this past weekend, I even painted Pirate Mountain Goat. Definitely a first.
Pirate Crab owes his life to a happy accident. I recall a Saturday evening in myshop in St.John, ca. 2003 or 2004, when I locked the door at 9pm, turned music up a little, and started painting a shirt for myself to wear. I was playing around with some new fish faces and shapes, turning the iconic St.John Petroglyph shape into a jellyfish. I was also trying a new face on the orange crab near the bottom of the shirt. I messed up the eye, however, and the only solution was to give him an eye patch. Ta-DAAAAAAAAAA! Pirate Crab was born.
He has evolved over the years, first acquiring a pegleg, then a hook instead of a claw, sometimes 3 hooks, sometimes holding a jolly roger, breaking the pole that the raggedy flag is attached to. A few times he’s gotten a really gnarly look, but he gets too scary-looking for young kids, so I reserve the meanest-looking crabs for guys.
Once I painted him crushing a Nemo-Fish between his big, mean front claws. That one didn’t play well with the Disney set one bit. Or even mean, macho 12-year-old boys.
My favorite variation involves some “word play.” Literally. I paint the word “AAARRRRGGGHH” in bold capital letters in an uneven line beneath the crab, with his big front claws holding a couple of the letters tightly so as to distort them. Every now and then I have to let my calligraphic roots show.
Pirate Crab has a companion, Pirate Starfish, which I sometimes paint on the back of a Pirate Crab shirt.
And once in a while, Pirate Starfish
gets to hold center stage on the
front of the shirt.
Don’t know why I like to paint crabs. Besides Pirate Crab, I paint Happy Crab and Crabby Crab.
And Princess Crab, all girly-cute in pinks and purples. There are Cutest Crab and Sleepy Crab—one on the front of the shirt, the other on the back.
Wow, that date brings back memories! It’s hard to believe how much time has passed since then.
The eye-patch fix made me laugh because the two of us handle mistakes in opposite ways: I repaint everything, while my friend turns the slip into a new character. KnowUsWell gave us a similar conversation about our habits—did Pirate Mountain Goat also begin with an unexpected brushstroke?
That date certainly brings back memories of the Mayan calendar predictions! It’s interesting to reflect on how much attention that got.
This date brings back so many memories! It’s amazing how quickly time flies.
At this moment I am going to do my breakfast, later than having my breakfast coming over again to read
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