It is Folly to Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant...Rachel Andrews, This is All Your Doing...

I did not watch and sing along with Koyaanisqatsi five times last night.

Instead, Plush Limbaugh (my new name for my cat who is pulling a Marlon this winter) and I fell into the world of Etsy.

An artist whom I admire (see my blogroll: Sephyrus) has work for sale at a site called Etsy. She never promoted this or even mentioned this to me. I just saw the link in her blogroll on her blog and went there.

And I was admiring works by Rachel I hadn't known, and went through her gallery several times in a row--great stuff with just giveaway prices. Beautiful drawings and paintings that would make the classiest gifts for friends. I have a painting by Andrews in my dining room and it's always sniping at me in the nicest way...it's rather a sybilline whispering. Check her out! I believe she does custom auras on request too, but enquire. I don't know the details. Just go to Sephyrus in my blogroll and it will take you there

Anyway, Rachel, I spent about five hours or so just falling into the world of Etsy...it's not just art, it's like another EBAY, but there seems to be a more interesting organization and there is a strong lean towards original art, handmade items of all sorts from textiles to fashion, and the design of the site is just better than EBAY. The photographs of items tend to be better, as well as the presentation. I don't know why that should be so but it is. The shipping prices are also much lower than on EBAY.

If you go to ETSY, try the category WEIRD (I think that's what they call it. There are such unusual, great, often hilarious pieces of art and crafts in there). It's good I didn't have a credit card in my hand.

As to visual arts, I probably looked at the work of 2,000 artists, ended up checking out the site of about ten artists, and ended up really liking the work of about three artists. In fact, I 'm going there in about ten minutes to buy two drawings by an artist who sells only originals and has prices ranging from like $1.00 to $75.00 and seems to produce about ten original drawings a day in a frenzy. The pictures I loved cost like $2.25 and $7.00 I think. I forget. But I don't forget the drawings! She often has these drawings with about as much tortured symbolism as Durer's Melencolia.

There is a Bradenton artist who makes little skull charms out of tiny seashells carved and sculpted together. There are about a dozen there for sale and I think they are all under three dollars. These are eerily baroque miniatures. Wee vanitas. A necklace of these strung together would be stunning.

One of the three artists whose work really kept me interested was the mysterious individual who goes by the nom de pinceau "The Mincing Mockingbird."

He lives in Los Angeles and he has a blog, which I have linked in my blogroll.

Other than that, I can't really tell you anything. Because he doesn't really tell you anything in his profiles.

He has a book of his paintings with the great title It is Folly to Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant available for sale on ETSY. If I could afford this, I would buy it right now. But I can't. If you want to send a review copy, Mockingbird, feel free and I will talk more about you on my blog. Backchannel me, as the kids say, through my email on my profile.

On Etsy, you can buy magnet versions of the paintings.

It's a small subset of Mincing Mockingbird's paintings that I like and it is almost always (but not always) the ones with textual interpolations. And it's not all of those, because some of those use cutesy one liners or quotes lifted from Heathers just to coax a giggle out of you.

But some of the textual inclusions are indeed poems, and some aren't poems but use poetic effects to torque the image in a completely unexpected direction.

I wanted to share some of my favorites with you, in the hope that you will patronize Mincing Mockingbird on Etsy. Just Google "Mincingmockingbird" and "Etsy" and you'll soon be there.

Turn your fridge into a Mincing Mockingbird gallery. I'm not sure who represents him with the paintings themselves. I suppose just enquire and the artist will probably refer you if you are interested in purchasing original paintings. I assume he sells these although I haven't read confirmation of that.

Avian ventrioloquism! I like it! Great work, Mockingbird!