12-31-15. A bird feeder on the window of a freshman dorm room.

12-30-15. Young man with the remaining stick of his simit bread in the Grand Bazaar.

12-29-15. Man wears a Polo Ralph Lauren Canyon workshirt in Grand Central Terminal at rush hour.

12-28-15. A water skier in the tunnel of love.

12-27-15. Young woman wearing a penguin shirt observes the St. Lawrence Seaway flowing into the Atlantic.

12-26-15. A dungeon scene from "Cipollino" at the Bolshoi Ballet on opening night.

12-25-15. The orb of a radome looms over a trailer park at dusk.

12-24-15. A haunted mansion on the Canada-United States border.

12-23-15.

12-22-15. A man uses a Google Trekker gadget to gather meteorite crater imagery.

12-21-15. A spectator sneaks a can of Heinz Beanz into a London Olympic gymnasium.

12-20-15. Taipei, 1991. A young man goes fishing for fun in the polluted Tamsui River.

12-19-15. The cook beats eggs at a Jewish deli.

12-18-15. I can't get too excited about Colonial Williamsburg® because it dredges up some painful thoughts.

12-17-15. Man in a necktie takes a stance in a batting cage.

12-16-15. In a city of the future, a woman uses tweezers on a houseplant.

12-15-15. Happy 1st Birthday, Benjamin!

12-14-15. A young woman in a fur hat rests in a hammock on a beach in Key West.

12-13-15. A Bosch Power Tools truck parked at a truck stop.

12-12-15. A tourist makes Egyptian licorice tea in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt.

12-11-15. Log cabin scoreboard and the pitcher's mound at Centennial Field, home of the Vermont Lake Monsters.

Fascination (311)

"Fascination (311)", oil on canvas, 24x24". Sale status to be determined.

These are my young boys, Benjamin and Maxwell, playing with their toy cars. They are thoroughly absorbed in their activity, fascinated with their assortment of wheeled vehicles. In turn, my husband and I are fascinated by our sons, watching them play, grow and develop. We've heard jokes about how toy cars can take over a house with kids, and now it's starting to happen to us. It's cute and funny, but it also strikes me as a bit sinister when I think about it (and I'm always over-thinking things). Toys shape young minds. Many of us know that we need to reduce and rethink the use of so many internal combustion engines and so much oil. Our children see a culture that mostly continues to unquestioningly celebrate the overuse of gasoline and diesel powered cars and other vehicles. I included a "Mickey McQueen" (a Mickey-shaped version of Lightning McQueen from the Disney/Pixar movie "Cars") with his mouse ears sharpened into a devil's horns as an emblem of this sinister aspect of innocent little toy cars everywhere. (My Colorscape color for this painting was #311, a shade of red simply called "Devil's". It doesn't say devil's what. It's not a typo because it appears more than once in the book. Perhaps a poor translation from Japanese? My DK Family Encyclopedia topic was History of Transport.)

12-10-15. A bat flits past Old Faithful erupting at night.

12-09-15. In 1958, a boy holds a broken toy tractor in Qumran cave 4, where Dead Sea scrolls were found.

12-08-15. The belly of a dead fin whale in a fjord in Spitsbergen, Norway.

12-07-15. Maxwell playing with his reusable vehicle stickers.

12-06-15. A sunburned tourist visits Thomas Edison's preserved laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey.

12-05-15. A cello in "If I Stay" at the Van Buren Drive-In Theatre in Riverside, CA.

12-04-15. Morrissey singing "Life is a Pigsty" in 2007 at the Hollywood Bowl in the Hollywood Hills.

12-03-15. A player in deep left wears a 1969 Seattle Pilots baseball uniform with military "scrambled eggs" on the cap visor.

12-02-15. A Pseudomys mouse mother with 3 blind babies at Uluru in Australia.

12-01-15. A young woman plays her cello in an office break room late at night.

11-30-15. A fortune teller above the medieval dungeon in the Dungeon Petz: Dark Alleys board game.

11-29-15. A beachside Star Wars convention.

11-28-15. A glass from Asheville's Thirsty Monk pub while hiking the Great Smoky Mountains.

11-27-15. A small igloo beside a snowy cranberry bog.

11-26-15. Socialite & architect Richard Neutra training masons at Wright's Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.

11-25-15. Van Gogh with his ear intact at the Kentucky Derby.

11-24-15. A woman eats barbecue pulled pork from Wendy's in Hardin, Montana near Little Bighorn.

11-23-15.

11-22-15. A pipe for Libya's Great Man-Made River near Sahara dunes.

11-21-15. A model in the Queen Coral dress by Seattle fashion designer Luly Yang near the Space Needle.

11-20-15. A couple eating pea soup near the Bavarian Neuschwanstein Castle.

11-19-15. Imagining a tropics-tolerant Anna apple tree growing beside Angkor Wat.

11-18-15. A tree house at a coastal California writers' retreat.

11-17-15. A face full of character in a dodgy pool room.

11-16-15. A tour guide gets a round of applause in a gravel pit.

11-15-15. Benjamin is 11 months old today.

11-14-15. A young couple playing cat's cradle on a sandbar.

11-13-15.