Oldest Trick in the Book (Patreon)

Finally got some useable photos after like 12 hours of shooting.

Here's some stuff about the things.

So in the bottom right, we have a scattering of trash. The trickster is a god of trash. The trickster often hides sacred objects in trash or uses trash to undermine sacred objects.

The wood table that all this stuff sits on was actually based on an old altar.

Sacred garbage.

The trash is food wrappers and napkins. The trickster is a god of perpetual appetite. Often trickster is figuring out how to satisfy his appetite only to get himself into a world of trouble.

On the fry box is a symbol of Hermes. Hermes is one of the Greek Tricksters.

On the cup is a symbol of Loki and the face is based an old depiction of Loki with his mouth sewn shut.

The condom just felt right. No pun intended. There's a bunch of different meanings that relate it to the trickster.

Again, being driven by appetites, following bodily impulses.

But a condom is also a kind of trick on nature.

It outwits the biological forces that drive us to sex in the first place, and thus allows us to follow those appetites without the natural consequences.

Moving along we've got this pile of flesh intertwined with intestines, in these intestines are diamonds and gems.

The intestines and the flesh fall in the trickster's domain. This goes back to appetite. We eat, we're satisfied, we're hungry again. Trickster is often the cause of this situation in creation myths.

In the most nasty part of the painting I thought there should be a little treasure.

In the back there is a coyote's tail hanging out of the mouth of one of the fleshy faces. The coyote is crawling into this pile of primordial flesh and animating it.

The coyote is a trickster figure in many Native American myths. I don't know those stories well enough to feel comfortable just depicting one of them. And, the thing about mythology and that type of thing, is that its the product of cultures. I can't resonate with a Navajo coyote story the same way I resonate to Better Call Saul. Coyote stories for them, were their Better Call Saul.

My point is, I didn't want to use trickster symbols just because they're trickster symbols, except on the food containers, because to read like fast food I wanted some symbols on them, and now that I think about it, that is kind of a commentary on mythological symbols more generally. Fast food and empty symbology.

Anyways, I'm trying to get to this:

My interest in the coyote as trickster figure comes from watching actual coyotes and having interactions with them.

I've lived in and around Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities in America, for 15 years. It's always been fascinating to me that there's these little wolves, living in our backyards. Not only living but thriving.

There's a great book called Coyote America which is about the biology and history of the coyote.

You can see the trickery at play by comparing the coyote to its close relative, the gray wolf.

There was a conscious attempt to eradicate Coyotes and gray wolves in America in the 1800's (I think.) For the wolves, it was basically a success (tragically.) The Gray wolf is an endangered species.

I won't go into the infuriating details about how this happened, but basically it worked because wolves need a rather strict hierarchy to survive. If the top of the hierarchy is gone, the pack can't really manage.

Coyotes on the other hand, have a strange biological trick. They can easily separate off into smaller and smaller groups and spread out. As they do so, they also produce larger litters.

So in trying to eradicate coyotes, essentially what you're doing is producing more coyotes and expanding their territory. How's that for a trick?

So I really feel a connection to coytes and see them as trickster figures. and that's why I wanted to paint one in this.

Finally we come to pancakes.

I love pancakes.

On the plate there is a thieving magpie.

I've always enjoyed the overture to La gazza ladra (the Thieving magpie) by Rossini. It would be the trickster theme song I think.

Rossini's music was based on a play by Louis-Charles Caigniez and Jean-Marie-Théodore Baudouin about a maid who almost get's put to death for stealing silver from her employers, only for everyone to discover that (spoiler alert) a magpie actually stole it all.

Okay. You that's enough explaining.

I'm happy with the piece, I'm happy with the show.

Happy June 3rd

Have Fun

Goodnight Sweeties