Hello baby….

So, in a brief diversion from my usual painting agony. I spent the weekend with my folks down in Sacramento.

I often forget how important it is to occasionally stop painting. My obsessive nature sometimes overwhelms me so much that I forget how to put on the brakes. I exhaust myself. One of the side effects of this is the inability to come up with new ideas, which leaves me recycling or reworking old ones, then I just start drawing overlapping lines repeatedly. If you were to look through my sketchbooks you'll find, interspersed between quick sketches and compositional notes, pages of nothing but horizontal and vertical overlapping lines. If those lines were a signpost they would say, "Here is where he lost his mind".

However one of the greatest cures for this, and anything else, is babies:

The only thing more dangerous than a baby is a bunny.

Yes, while on my trip I had the pleasure of spending some time with a very active 18 month old. Babies are so refreshing in their simplicity. And I think it's mostly because they do not follow nor understand politics. Immediately upon returning to PDX and checking Facebook I found a friend of mine was raving about some thing or another about what some Republican did and another was raving that Obama was a muslim terrorist alien or something and I could help but feel as serene as a 18 month old baby who had newly discovered that the channel changer can almost fit in his mouth.

I frankly don't understand the rage that people exhibit toward people they don't know, and the rage toward anyone who disagrees with them. My Republican friend once told me that if she happened to meet Obama in the street she would punch him in the mouth. I told her that I didn't think the secret service let crazy people within mouth punching distance of the president. She told me she would sneak up on him. I told her that smell of crazy would probably tip him off. She said she'd stand down wind and I told her that it wouldn't help.

My fiercely democratic friends are no better. While one was involved in a full blown temper tantrum on how Republicans refuse to fund legitimate charitable causes and instead deliver tax breaks to the super wealthy, I delivered a sincere compliment on her commitment to supporting Movember prostate awareness by growing her mustache out.

Am I the only one who doesn't care? No there are millions and millions of people out there who care nothing for Limbaugh, Maddow, O'Reilly or Olberman and most of them are under 3 feet tall (no not midgets). They are adorable, adorable babies. Next time you think about washington and you feel your political rage boil, meditate on this:

Hello baby….

Then see if you can fit the channel changer in your mouth.

Genius out.

-F