"Aunt Dorothy #2"

Mixed Media on Wood

Text Reads

 Coming down the carpet stairs you would hum “Here comes the bride” feeling like the equivalent of a harmonica among more aesthetic instruments.

$95

10 X 13 X 1

My Aunt Dorothy
Another character that will forever show up in my art is my late Aunt Dorothy. Her recent death inspired me to tell her story in a series of paintings that will take many years to finish. At an early age, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and she lived with my family on and off throughout my childhood and early teens. Looking back now, I believe she also suffered from As Berger’s Syndrome, which could have been in conjunction with her illness. She stayed on medication all her life to help treat symptoms and this is more than likely why I remember her as a happy and spunky eccentric who liked to sing and dance. Although her situation was a dark mystery and caused a bit of confusion in my young mind, she still remains a positive figure in my life that brought a lot of joy and entertainment.

This one tells the classic Aunt Dorothy Christmas story. Me, my sister, and our cousins were eating dinner in the living room with Aunt Dorothy when a risqué mood strikes her and she started feeling.... sexy? Right there in her sweat suit and knit cap with a pom-pom, she broke out into a provocative dance, which included her thrusting her pelvis in the air. She was singing what sounded like a soulful and old school stripping song and for accents she would pull her shirt up and flash us her braless boobs. The more us kids howled with laughter, the more she ignored the adults politely asking her to refrain. It was a blasted hoot!