Alphabet Sou...

...nom nom nom

Now where were we… before I needed to take a break last Friday? Thanks for understanding and for all of your kind comments and support - I appreciate you!!

Keeping calm and carrying on despite medical stuff (more about that in a bit): here's the last painting in my current exhibit at Burnt Bridge Cellars which is being aided, abetted and advocated by the Caplan Art Designs gallery. The painting I'll describe today relates somewhat to my painting “Feed Every Bunny” which I'd written about here.

This one is titled:

Alphabet Sou
By Clancy
4 feet tall, 13 inches wide
Acrylic on flat canvas

After working on “Feed Every Bunny” I read about the history of the ladle as a way to get inspiration for a food themed painting. To paraphrase some of my reading: the ladle, with some of its first uses recorded in the 17th century, was used all over the world and often represented/symbolized community feasts. Sometimes a ladle was hung on a post or door as a “sign” for where the feast was being held. (The 17th century equivalent of today's baloons tied to a mailbox signifying a party location? 🤔)

The idea of community feasting got me to wondering about early iconic kinds of soup - that turned out to be alphabet soup. The first mention of Alphabet soup was recorded in 1867… with recipe variations throughout history since then.

Now I had the inspirations of a communal feed-everyone object and an everyone-would-recognize-soup I needed a character. Instantly I thought of the rabbit as a metaphor for abundance, for communal and individual resilience. I decided to make my paintings’ rabbit character a white rabbit (yes, as in Alice in Wonderland!) to reflect the idea of magical delight. The rabbit in my painting is still cutting out the soup letter “P” because… well, it just seemed a fun thing at the time. And now you know what inspired my painting “Alphabet Sou”.

You can read more about my current exhibit here and see all of my artworks in the exhibit here.

Here's one of my favorite homemade alphabet soup recipes - link here - in case you want to try it. It's easy to assemble when I don't feel well. And lordy I've not felt well (I may not be very chatty in the comments today either). BTW, when I don't have tomato paste or alphabet shaped noodles I substitute a can of tomato sauce or small elbow noodles in the recipe.

Here's a drawing from this week. Rabbit isn't having alphabet soup but a different, more rabbit-y favorite. (I, however, prefer the alphabet soup…)

My friend jm_rives ( they/ them ) sent me a book! “Ode To The Half-Broken” by Suzanne Palmer. It's a delightful story I've been enjoying both at home and when I go to the medical center. It feels especially appropriate to read outside the doctor's office … Thank you again JM!!!! 💙💚

Seems like almost every day of the last 2 weeks was spent either in my doctors office or at the lab getting bloodwork done. My arms look like pin cushions and when I go to get lab-work they challenge the friendly vampires to find a vein that hasn't already been poked twice. But so far so good! And I think we're finding a way forward now in dealing with the covid aftermath. I've thought that before tho…

Currently some of my various tests are coming back Abby Normal… so I've still some recovering to do whatever direction we're heading toward.

Anyway, drink less coffee says the good doctor. We'll, okay then… here's a tea cup (link here)

I did manage to do one of my illustrated story-poems this week. Soup is often accompanied by bread… and that inspired this story-poem. I'm feeling enough better at least to write and illustrate this story-poem (and write this post! Yay!)

Hope you like it.

Please take care of yourselves - I love you all and appreciate your kindness and support as I recover from the covid aftermath with my sense of humor intact.