The Artist in Residence

Yo people.  Bodie here.

I am quite a patron of the arts.  Some of the great artists of our time create masterpieces out of blocks of marble, some from lumps of wet clay, and others through oils and watercolors.  I like to consider myself somewhat of a Renaissance man, and think I possess a certain "flair", if you will.  But I prefer a different medium in which to bring my creations to life, to put my thoughts on canvas, to carve my name in the artistic journals of our day:

Drywall.

I find I do my best work when the lady of the house (I'll call her "Mom") leaves me alone in my thoughts.  Usually the venue is in the laundry room, where I have created some of my best works.  One of my earliest pieces I like to call "Bodie and Baseboard."  The inspiration for this piece came when Mom went shopping and left us alone for just a bit longer than I was comfortable with.  Notice how the curve of the corner of the laundry room wall makes a perfect platform to carve all the way down to the metal brace.  And those that look closely enough will notice that the baseboard is whittled away all the way down to an exposed nail, for added effect.  I liked the fact that I could lie down while creating this masterpiece, thus causing little or no effort on my part.  Mom must have liked this work in progress, as when she came home and saw it, she clasped her hand to her forehead in an "Oh my God!" sort of movement which could only mean she treasured it as a Bodie original.  She then sprayed bitter-tasting dog repelling medicine on it so I no longer cared to work on it.  That's okay, it was time to move on to bigger and better canvases anyway.  Let the creative juices flow!

Like many of the great artists before me, Rembrandt and Da Vinci to name just a few, I would sometimes start a work and then leave it to my assistant or pupil to complete.  Here is my lovely sidekick Leila who helped me with this particularly satisfying piece called  "It Wasn't Me."  I started the piece but let her join in the fun in order to take the blame...er, the credit....for such a lovely piece.  It wasn't until Mom came home and found chips of drywall in my hair that she realized who the true artist was.  Again, she voiced her pleasure with shouts of "What the hell did you do to my wall?" and "How am I going to fix that before Dad gets home?" and of course my all-time favorite, "@#!^%$*&!".  I think she truly appreciates my talent.

Then again, maybe not.

Like many a great artist who must suffer for his art, Mom tried to quash my enthusiasm by NOT locking us in the laundry room one time, thinking that having more room to walk around might make us feel less stifled and less bored.  She closed off the staircase so we had room to roam and stretch downstairs.  I saw this as a chance to explore new canvases!  This piece I like to call "Kitchen Nightmare."  This stub wall by the cabinet is just the perfect size for me to get my whole mouth around, which only added to the unique texture.  The teeth-striping on the wall was a nice effect, but I added a bit of baseboard-chew just to finish the look.  Mom paled when she noticed the proximity to the non-replaceable cherry wood kitchen cabinetry, thus ending the have-the-whole-downstairs-open experiment.

So it was back to the laundry room for us, but Mom moved the baby gate fortress down the wall just a little, so we had enough room to stretch out but not enough to get into trouble.  Or so she thought.  Here I am with a particularly nice piece called "Bathroom wall?  Don't Mind If I Do!"  This work of art was quite satisfying for me, as I was able to construct on a different-colored canvas than the laundry room and kitchen, thus requiring Mom to have to buy not one, but two cans of Kelly-Moore touch-up paint at a cost of $22 a can, or so she hollered at me.  Mom has an art degree herself, certainly she can understand the need to branch out beyond a monochrome palette at some point!  I added more to this piece later on when no one was looking, just to add a bit of flourish!!

My latest work is a little mixed-media number I like to call "Open The Back Door Now Or A Puddle On The Floor Is The Least of Your Worries." Notice how the tooth-striping is situated at an impossible angle between the door frame and windowsill.  That took some doing.  I carved out a chunk of the windowsill as well, because Mom had not purchased any high-gloss touch up paint for wood yet and thought I would just remind her.  The look on Mom's face when she saw this one was priceless, I have never seen quite that shade of red before or heard expletives linked together in such a manner.

But alas, vandalism of epic proportions occurred a few days later when Dad got home and opened the industrial-sized pot of spackling paste and filled in all my hard work.  The giant white dots that cover the walls now are just not esthetically pleasing!   Mom still puts us in the laundry room when she goes out, although I noticed her trips are markedly shorter now, as she rushes to get back to us before more creations occur.  I think I overheard her one time mentioning "skidmarks" and "take corners on two wheels."  When she puts us in the laundry room now and I stare at the irregular white splotches on the wall that have yet to be sanded, I see what any great artist of my time would see:

Blank canvas!!