The Miss Piggy puppet

Many years ago, when my partner (now my husband) and I were living in Minneapolis, for his birthday I wanted to surprise him with a vintage 1980's Miss Piggy puppet.

He had one as a child and it was his favorite cherished toy. Unfortunately it was thrown out I believe by his mother after he had gone to college. So, I wanted to reunite him with a "new" old one.

It was easy to find on ebay and I purchased one in the middle price range. It didn't matter if it was in the box or not and this one looked like it was in good shape.

He was at work the day it arrived and as I brought the box into the apartment, our three cats ran over and were suddenly very interested. I knew why the moment I opened the box as the most pungent smell of Cat piss began to film the room and I shut the box quickly in disgust and immediately took it to our detached garage.

When Jason came home, I told him what had happened and we both went to the garage and sadly gazed at what could have been an amazing birthday present.

It remained in a corner in our garage for several months. We were now moving to Chicago and Jason was heading out with the cats and I was going to stay and tie up loose ends and catch up with him.

All the boxes had been loaded into the moving truck and off they went. The condo was empty and so I thought I would give the garage one last look to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything.

I immediately saw the Miss Piggy box in the corner and I picked it up and placed it in the exact center of the garage floor so I could sweep around it. I wanted the new owner to be greeted with a nicely swept and clean garage.

I was in a hurry to leave and I was well on my way when I realized, I had left the Miss Piggy puppet in the garage. In the exact center of the garage. It seemed intentional. I was too far on my way to Chicago to turn around. I wondered, what on earth the new owner was going to think of this.

I imagined him opening the door to his new and very nice duplex condo. There were two floors! He would look around with excitement and then see the garage remote on the kitchen counter. "Oh that's right!" he would say to himself, "I have a garage!!" and he would grab the remote and head out back to survey his new garage space.

He would stand before the door, raise the remote and click it and watch the garage door ceremoniously open. The very first thing he would see is the box placed in the exact center of the floor. This would strike him as odd but he would be intrigued as he stepped towards the box, picked it up and opened it.

WHAT on earth did he think?

I never heard from him.

I never heard from the realtor.

All I knew was that as a housewarming gift, I had lovingly left him a Cat piss soaked Miss Piggy puppet.

The Artistry of Illustrator Grant Campbell

Growing up I was surrounded by imagery and artwork that inspired me to become the artist and illustrator I am today. One of those artists was someone who's name I didn't know at the time. His work was featured in several of the Big Golden Books I enjoyed as a child, most notably, Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

I literally laid my head to rest each night on to his artwork. My Mom had gifted me a pillow case with a Campbell Grant illustration.

His depiction of Snow White was stylized and simplified and the illustrations in the book were definitely Disney and definitely his. I poured over these images and loved them and learned to draw from them. Check out a sampling of his work from that book. I hope it inspires you as well.

Born in Berkeley, CA on Nov. 7, 1909.  Campbell Grant graduated from Oakland High School and then entered the CCAC.  In 1930 he received a scholarship to the Santa Barbara School of the Arts and moved to that city.  In 1934 he moved to Hollywood and began a 12-year period as an animator and story director for Disney Studios.  He then settled in Carpinteria, CA where he remained.  In the 1960s Grant began teaching at the Cate School in Carpinteria, and became interested in prehistoric Indian cave paintings which led to six books and several articles on the subject.   He died on March 24, 1992.  He was the nephew of artists Gordon H. Grant and Douglas M. Grant, and the brother of artist Gordon K. Grant. 

Reboot

Yesterday was an up and down day. My mood just bottomed out. Alot of it has to do with how I allow myself to react to outside stimulis. I really should breathe in those moments. Take the moment to take deep breaths. I don't. The only breathing are heavy sighs of exasperation. My body freezes like an app no longer able to function properly and when you try to do anything, it just doesn't. When this happens, instinctively, I have learned and know to close the app and reopen it to reset it. So I have to also learn how to reset myself.

Perhaps humans are beginning to evolve to behave like this. When we are overwhelmed, we cease to function and the only way to resolve this is to reset ourselves like an app gone wonky.

So, we have focus our knowledge and what we have learned with computers on ourselves. Apps were created to function like human beings but faster and immediate. We have become addicted to this immediacy and are frustrated when we ourselves, cannot perform this way.

We have to now turn around and teach to ourselves what we painstakingly taught the computer. Now, the computer is set on course to teach itself. We keep getting blocked.

We have to train ourselves to reboot.

Its how we must now function.

It may be the only way we can survive.