Presence of Absence

I have a question for my dear Bloggees, "Without looking it up, what does the word 'avatar' mean to you?" I hope you will post a comment because I am really curious the different words and references that may pop into your mind at first. Don't worry, this isn't a test. You won't be demoted to sub-par-bloggee status, or anything! Haha. Just wanting to throw some words and ideas onto the table from different perspectives.

All summer I have been working on semi-disappearing Mr Black, as you are probably aware. He hides, or he slips almost totally off the page, barely leaving the edge of his huge black bottom or tail to remind you he is present. Maybe there is a dark shadow and it is possible that is just a shadow from a leaf, or maybe it is Mr. B. Sometimes there is only evidence that he or Doodle were just there. You can tell by the spilt salt shaker, or the scattered peas.

This summer when Harry was here for three whole months, you could definitely say he was present. But now that he is gone the power of his presence remains. In this way Harry is very much like Mr. Black to me. Whether he is here or not, his presence is always alongside whatever I am doing.

Whenever I give Harry a pile of old cotton tshirts and nightgowns he acts the way I would if he gave me flowers, or chocolate. Usually he uses them for painting rags, which he just devours. Seems the raggier they are the happier he is. So right before he left I gave him the oldest raggiest nightgown I could find. We were both really sad our summer together was over and I couldn't think of a good farewell present. I felt so sad that I had to make some sort of joke so I decided a nice raggy rag would be funny, but I should not have been surprised when he got REALLY excited and said, "I can't wait to get back to GA!"

"What?!" I was not expecting that. Then he added, "...so I can glue this to the canvas. It will be perfect for this idea I am working on."

So OK I feel all special. I guess the wives of artists have to get used to this kind of thing. Haha.

This summer Harry and Annette and I talked several times about gestalt and about stopping short of spelling everything out for the viewer. I wish I could remember Harry's definition of "iconoclastic" - you look it up if you want. Apparently the religious guys were opposed to some artists guys painting images of Christ and Mother Mary, so the artist guys gave in and just painted a figure covered in cloth, but it backfired on the religious guys cause the cloth just gave the figures more power of presence than ever. [OK so I never claimed to have a degree in teaching]

So are you seeing yet how all this relates?

And have you also noticed the absence of my paintings here? Haha don't worry, they are shrouded for the moment, to be revealed in full glory soon.....

Go buy some artsy Cards for Keeps and save some trees.....
xo