caught this guy last summer.

lookin' at stuff.

I went on a walk the other day. Here's what I saw.

a huge photo dump from the last snow of the season.

1. The black capped chickadee. This is the only bird that has figured out how to use the bird feeder. 2. Bluejay, Red Bellied Woodpecker, Cardinal. The RBW is shooting into the air like some kind of a rocket. Now I finally get why they call them Red Bellied Woodpeckers...I still don't think its a prominant enough feature to name the damn bird after.

3. (left)red winged blackbird and grackles. I've never enjoyed the noises these birds make. Especially the red winged blackbird. One summer I frequented a pond and the same RWBB would follow me, screaming the whole time, and scare all the frogs away.

4. Juncos in flight. Juncos have become my favorite bird. They are the first to the seeds in the morning and the last to leave the seeds at night. Plus, they are hoppers...very cute.

5. A pair of House Finches. This was a first sighting for me. The male was very cute, he hoped around and kept stretching his neck out like he was about to vomit. He has a nice, red face.

6. Cardinal, 2Brownheaded cowbirds, a robin and a hopping junco. The junco is at the top, told you they look cute when they jump.

right place...right time.

if it was a snake it would have bit me.

That's some damn fine camouflage you got on, moth. I applaud you and your evolution. It's just too bad your bug senses didn't tell you to line up your body with the grain of the wood. I think the cat probably ate you after she saw me take your photo. I'm sorry.

Have a happy Friday, folks. Much love.

a fever poem (it was 100)

Let's let
Spring and Fall
Become bouncing verbs
reserved for pogostick stomachs
on asphalt driveway.


Because that pretty robin
you watched fall from the sky,
well, I'm pretty sure
He was ready to die.


So don't sweat it.
Verbs happen.


And now all those
banjo croaking frogs
alive in the pond
can become our new
onomatopoeia


For a season that drops
fawns into the woods
of our backyard
and drops robins onto
a springtime altar


Made of mud and corn.

an old sketchbook.

Here's how I travel. I draw a lot. These are from 2005...long time gone, eh? Nostalgia made me post em'.

arkoo vs. possum. epic battle.

Don't let this possum's scary face frighten you. They're not very bright. They just look kind of scary.

Arkoo doesn't really notice stuff. He doesn't chase most animals. He doesn't care about cats or rabbits. He'll attack a shrew now and again but that's not very impressive. Mostly, he's pretty chill with other animals. He'll even deal with little jane pulling at his toe hair. Simply put, he is a good boy. A very good boy, which is why I was shocked when he took off across the lawn and TACKLED a possum. That thing must have rolled over three times after Arkoo knocked it over, kind of funny if I do say so myself. And a possum playing dead, well, they're not very good at playing dead. I was shocked. I always assumed that the possum stayed "dead" until it's attacker was well on their way to gone. Isn't that what possums are known for, playing dead? They suck at playing dead, they suck very badly at playing dead. As soon as Arkoo turned around the possum would stand up and try to walk off. When Arkoo sniffed at his newly awakened foe it just fell over and played dead...again. This happened six times, I shit you not. What a dummy. Possums are dummies. You can quote me on that.

spring is springing.

Spring came out of nowhere. It was winter, there was snow...now its almost spring and clovers are popping up in clusters and frogs are croaking at the pond. What the fuck? Snow everywhere three days ago. That was a rapid change, am i right? As an ode to the, rather abrupt, changing of the seasons I'm putting up one of my favorite winter bird photos...winner of the asshole contest, the Redheaded Woodpeckers stealing seeds from the other yard birds.

breathe in the weekend air and enjoy it.

Have a happy weekend. Stay outta trouble or get into lots of trouble, your choice. See you Monday.


love,

Jane and Porchcat.

routine and twins.

one twin.

The twins looking wary together.
the other twin.

I've started looking harder at stuff. A running theme throughout EVERYTHING seems to be routine. Everything is pretty predictable once you start taking mental notes about: who, what, where, when, why? Everyday I drive home, thats part of my routine. I always see two little deer about 4 miles from my exit. The twins (as I've come to call them) are in the same basic area everyday. Our routines are in sync and I know where to look for em' and I know the basic:

who : twin whitetail

what : chomping on grass

where : off the four lane on the South side

when : 5:30pm

why : they are hungry and like the grass by the side of the road.

Now, I can take advantage of their predictability. I've been wanting a nice deer photo but its hard to get one unless you know their schedules. Deer tend to eat, sleep, and do things at certain times...and all the photos I've gotten so far have been of white, fluffy, butts tearing ass away from me.

Not the twins though. They are not afraid of cars because they are always near them. I've seen other people stop and look at them. So...I took some pictures of my buddies. It was 5:30 on the dot and they were doing exactly what they've been doing since I started noticing them. Scratching and eating. Deer do that stuff pretty good.

awesome.

i don't know what to say about this rooster...I guess he has a nice outfit.

bald eagle. Dead Dog. a poem.

I never knew nothing bout' neither of you
one trotting
and sniffing
just looking for food.


Then headlights and screeching.
A loud Ka-Pow.
Then you, old black dog,
you became the dog chow.


I don't know too much bout' our proud nation's symbol
that flies through the skies and rests by the river.
I imagined them diving and catching their prey
then flapping
and flapping
before flying away.


I drove many miles before I seen what is real
Nature is cruel and a dog is a meal.


A sharp yellow beak on a big ol' white head
He stood on top of that dog, with his feathers gone red.
Just chomping
and munching
and picking away
I learned something new about eagles that day.


But I haven't gone soft, eagles still have appeal.
Roadkill for some, for others a meal.

my little art buddy.

Cocktails are intelligent little birds. And this is Little Jane. I didn't name her, Seth did.

Me and little Jane share a bunch of similar traits.

1. If we're by ourselves for too long we'll get destructive and loud.

2. We're very curious about what you are doing.

3. We're very loving if we love you.

5. We need a lot of stimuli almost all the damn time. Outgoing would be the word. But randomly shy. We're strange creatures.

With that being said, Little Jane may very well be my spirit animal. Whenever I sit down at my desk to bead a skull, make a drawing, write a letter, or paint she will come find me to see what I'm doing. She'll climb out of her cage, skuttle across the floor (its pretty amusing to watch her clumsily walk), climb up my pant leg, climb up on my back, and make her way to my sholder.

From there she'll watch me make colors. She likes orange...its in her genes to like orange, males have BRIGHT orange cheeks. Soon she'll get bored watching me paint and start playing her favorite game i've titled "drop and look"

DROP AND LOOK! (a history of the game and how the game is played)

It started off with those little puff balls, the craft ones. I had a pile on my desk for some reason, Little Jane saw those little puffy fuckers and fell in love. She cautiously walked up to a green puff, grabbed it with her beak, and chucked in ten feet. She watched intensly as it flew thru the air and landed. After the green puff landed she wanted more and grabbed a yellow puff and hucked that son of a bitch pretty damn far. She watched it soar and land on the ground. This game went on until all the puffs were gone. She made a pretty little puff ball design on the floor, in retrospect, I should have taken a picture of the puffs drops.

Now Little Jane has a game that's way more fun then Drop and Look with puff balls. She now plays drop and look with my paint brushes. It gets a little annoying when I'm looking for my fine tip brush and it isn't there...but its not too bad, the brush is usually on the ground and Little Jane is looking at the thing. She's my little art buddy. I love her. I know she needs the stimuli, its good stimuli for me too.

a male cardinal checking out a female red bellied woodpecker's tail feathers.

Have a happy Friday. Get some sun. Have some fun. See you on Monday.

Q: How metal is this little guy? A: So Metal. Look at that skull he has in his mouth. It reeks of cool. Q: Why is this cat so tired and relaxed? A: Her Catnip and cigarette diet isn't very nutritious.

a different kind of bird feeder.

To all of you who think I'm crazy for dragging that dead deer into my car and onto my property...i have a new birdfeeder for my nerd hobby. This is a female Downy Woodpecker, she is pecking at the bones of my spike deer (a.k.a dirty birdy feeder). Every morning I listen to her "tappa-tappa-tappa. tap tap tap" at the bones, it makes a hollow sound. She's very quick and zips around the bones like its her job. And I guess it is her job seeing as she's a woodpecker.

Its one of those "awwww, ewwwwww" relationships. I watch her tap out her morning ritual. "Awww," because Downy Woodpeckers are tiny balls of adorable. "Ewwwww," because she's pecking at a corpse. Why is she doing this? For the sweet, sweet sewet and for the little bits of nutrients stuck to the bones of deer. Circle of life, bitches. It ain't pretty. But its cool.

an afternoon drive.

1. This young cow is about to stand up. After a cow stands up it will stretch, release a gigantic fart, and then take a mega-dump. Don't stand behind a cow after it stands up after a nap. I had to learn this the hard way a few months back.

2. These are pig houses. I like that they are just triangles that sit on the ground. They look pretty cool.

3. Derrrrrrrr.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the screaming bullfrog.

*right after I took this video I dropped my camera in the lagoon. Bummer.

cool stuff i saw yesterday.

TUFTED TITMOUSE...worst bird name EVER!

1. backyard birdMy nerd book came in the mail yesterday, its a Peterson Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Its a pretty fuckin cool book, I like Peterson's field guides because they're illustrated and show the field marks on each creature well. What's a field mark? Easy, on a robin it would be its red breast...on a bald eagle it would be its white head and tail, not to mention its overall massiveness. Field marks are just little things to notice so you can identify a species with some accuracy. But with certain birds, especially song birds, the field marks are harder to notice.

In my book there are five varieties of titmice (laughing in my head). The field mark they all share is a tiny crest on their tiny little head. And big, dark eyes. However, they're all a wee bit different from one another. Most titmice live out west. In Iowa we have the Tufted Titmouse (still laughing in my head). Whenever I see one of these little guys in my lawn I'm kind of surprised by them, they're funny. This is how they're described in the book.

(this describes the field marks) A small, grey, mouse colored bird with a tufted crest. Forehead and underparts pale, sides rusty. Their song is a whisled "peter peter peter peter (laughing in head) or Here Here Here." Their sound is similar to a chickadee but more nasaly, wheezy and complaing.

Nasaly, wheezy, and complaining? If I was a titmouse I'd be offended. I know I make fun of the word titmouse a lot but when it comes down to it, what a great title for a tiny, discreet, bird. Titmice.

pretty bird.

These birds are common, I see them all the time. But when they lined up on that branch as the snow was lightly falling they became less ordinary. I liked this moment.

going native.

I started off my day by taking a deer from the side of the road. He wasn't alive, obviously, He's been hidden under a lot snow this winter and it was my first chance to aquire him. I placed him into my trunk and drove home. Eventually I'm going to put his skeleton back together, scientist style, but I think some coyotes chewed his ribs off so he only be a partial specimen. I'll buy those dermestid Beatles to clean him up. But, moving on...

I put the spike on top of the shed where it quickly became a disgusting snack for the Porch Cat. Then I burned all the cardboard I had in the house, I added some wood, and had a nice fire.

I swear, I'm not crazy. But it sounds crazy. God, I'm crazy. But this is what I do when left to my own devices. That was my Sunday. oh yeah, and I drew some pictures.

fun with bird seed.

1. I was having some fun with bird seed. My idea was to have the word HI covered in birds. Don't they look confused? "Hi?" Birds don't speak English. And besides, they never saturated the letters with their hungry bird bodies. So, the plan failed. 2. And don't they look confused? After weeks of sitting by the window and on my back porch. After feeding them and taking glamor shots of them...these birds will never trust me. Next week I'm going to write a short sentence. These birds will be trained, pavlov style, by the end of winter

This is an old photo (1 yr aprox). I had just finished hanging my m.f.a show. I was so happy I jumped 20 feet high. Got another show lined up at the White Rabbit in Iowa City this May. I almost jumped this high when I found out. Check out the place at http://www.whiterabbitgallery.com/about.php

Redheaded woodpeckers, the jerk of the woodpecker family.

1. An impressive bird with his hackles up.
2. A dumpy bird looking dumpy.

Like I've said before, every Sunday is my bird watching day. I pour wild bird seed on the lawn and let my nerdish tendencies take over. I get out my field guides, my camera, sit by the window and try to get an inventory of all the species in my backyard. I've noticed that a certain breed of woodpecker is WAY more aggressive then any other bird out there...its even more aggressive then the blue jays. Here's the scoop:

Last Sunday, I had a bouquet of birds pecking about: blue jays, cardinals, house sparrows, titmice (?), juncos, chickadees. It was awesome. Awesome until two black and white birds came flying out of nowhere to dive bomb and peck-attack all the birds who were quietly enjoying their seeds. One of the aggressive birds had a BRIGHT red head, a black body top, and white underparts (his posturing was impressive). The other bird looked dumpy. I've recently found out the dumpy looking bird was a juvenile woodpecker, he'll become more red in time. But yeah, it was a strait up bird attack.

Once the two woodpeckers got their fill of ill-gotten seed they left and the other birds came back. However, this guerrilla style attack happened three more times in four hours. These lil' guys are guerrilla warriors but maybe I'm anthropomorphizing them...hell, I know I am.

wapiti on 34.

These are the elk I see on 34 W. They are not wild elk because wild elk don't exist in Iowa anymore, they are farm elk. I looked at their website and this place they uses the elk's shed antlers to make chandeliers, chairs, lamps, and, hopefully, sweet knife handles. They also sell meat, I'd suggest an elk roast, very tasty but kinda dry if you're a bad cook like i am.

There's a secret in Ottumwa that this farm owns one serious bull elk...an elk with a rack so huge that it has its own special barn and the owners never let anyone see the big ol' wapiti (wapiti being another name for elk). I think they do this for publicity but who the fuck cares? Its nice to hear urban legends about giant elk that may or may not exist.

Yesterday, I finally had the chance to photograph them. Its been so grey and cold that the elk have not been coming to pasture. Yesterday was sunny and bright and all the bulls wanted to get some sun and play. I pulled over to the side of the road and snapped shots for ten minutes. These ones are nice because you can see how even the tiny elk have fabulous antler genetics. So many points on those tiny antlers. Makes me wonder if they have some red deer introduced into their bloodline. Who knows, this farm is known for keeping secrets.

"careful, its rutting season" -coach mcguirk, home movies

A Home for Ann Flowers.

"Dwell Here"
Searching for a home, attempting to find security in an insecure environment. Shrouded faces, anonymity, lovers, ex-lovers, cupcakes, and a sad ghost with a balloon. For all of those who have felt too hard or too much, this art will make sense. It speaks to our ability to obsess. Flower's work is, literally, dripping with ambivalence about the future, dripping with sweetness (the reoccurring cupcake we see below), and is dripping with color. But there's some hope in those houses. Its not all scary in her world.
Because I have known and loved Ann for so long I can say that her work is getting a "wow" out of me. Unconventional shapes, a new push of values, subtle collage, and a(n) (ironically) confidant hand (for someone who works with such awkward subject matter). During my Studio visit with Ann I was able to see the artistic growth that came from her recent personal growth. She is a true reminder that to make "good" art you have to live it, you gotta really understand your subject matter. Because if you don't get what you're doing it'll come off as forced and poorly informed. Ann understands love, hate, confusion, anxiety, humor, and craft...you can see it in her work.

And to honor the place where Ann has earned a lot of street cred, a portrait of the her in front of a graphite drawing of a lady riding DeKalb corn (and I think there's some barbed wire in there, god bless DeKalb). Ann has FLOWERED in a corn field and she better fucking keep me up to date about when her show/party is happening.

Check her out at http://abeautifulparty.blogspot.com/. From there check out her flickr site and etsy site. She's a badass.