Mixing Metaphors

Some years ago I came up with this idea for a story about Japan's reaction to American competition. There has always been a kabuki element to business competition, wherever it is. The toy drummer functioned well as the American competitor. The illustration generated concerns about stereotyping and we went with a different concept, but it's this one I remember. Stereotypes are easier to remember, which is why we use them. The painted faces of kabuki and geisha tradition are stereotypes themselves. They aren't my tradition though. Do I have any business using them? They should be handled carefully in any case. Even though the American is the clown, and the geisha was drawn directly from an old Japanese print, I wonder if this painting was disrespectful of both nationalities.

Real Toys

I'm tired of PlayStation 3s and BMWs being called toys. This is a toy. We need to get back to the tradition of buying and giving toys for Christmas. Enough of my soapbox, I need to address some Christmas cards.

A Tin-Toy Santa

I've said that I like to paint toys, tin-toys especially. Usually the toys are completely invented, but I think this one might be real. Maybe a hybrid of more than one toy item. It's hard to make Santa interesting. It helps if you can transform him in some way, changing the color of his suit, or putting him in a different mode of transportation, a goat for instance. I sent this one out as a Christmas card one year.

Toys Toys Toys

When I can't think what to ask for for Christmas I ask for toys. Tintoys, Dinky Cars, cast metal toy soldiers. Somewhere, in a drawer probably, I have a set of elastolin zoo animals I found at an estate sale years ago; I should find them and put them out. It's a toy time of year. I did this motorcyclist for a designer friend who likes motorcycles. I should maybe offer my services as a toy portraitist. Is there such a thing?

Tintoy Metaphors

I found this in one of the boxes I keep art in. I collect old toys, and toys have often provided a medium for metaphor. This toy doesn't exist, but I constructed it out of bits and pieces of tintoys with their brightly printed surfaces and screws and flanges and seams.

What does it mean? The original drawing popped into my head at the time when aggressive CEOs were getting the legal go-ahead to seize worker pension funds. Sometimes the metaphor works better when it is suggestive rather than explicit. Although the fallout I'm suggesting is pretty explicit. And it's all come true.