Icons

Still recovering from the concussion, my mind is working better than verbal skills would indicate, however extreme emotionality isn't helpful either.....at any rate, I'll make an attempt at writing intelligently. :-/

I've always tended, in art, to draw one particular thing over and over and over again. Whatever thing I draw, it isn't the object I'm drawing so much as an idea, or perhaps an ideal. It's more of a symbol than a subject. These drawings tend to be very....boring to the outsider's eye, because they will all look pretty much alike. Usually (but not always, as you will see), the iconic image is of an animal, and usually it is depicted from the side, or in the same pose (although very minor variations do occur), and usually the same color or color pattern as well, always pointing the same direction if in a side/profile pose. The only other work I've seen that is of this nature is done by George Rodrigue, who paints his blue dogs, over and over and over again in pretty much the same pose. I honestly have no idea why I do this. I can't explain it. I can only say that the subject matter/iconic image isn't boring to me, that what I am trying to express is only partly captured by the drawing, and that other subjects are simply much less interesting. Also, the icons tend to get drawn for a long time, months or years, until I move to a different one...and I also am not quite sure why I drop one icon and switch to another, except that the old one has simply ceased to be interesting. It is strange, I'll grant that. Examples, listed as chronologically as memeory allows at this time, follow:

• Chickens, specifically, a hen sitting on her nest of eggs, profile pose. This is the earliest thing I remember drawing. I had recently lost my mother, so perhaps the image of a hen protecting her eggs was soothing or meaningful to me in some way.
• Guinea Pigs. Always the same guinea pig, my own pet Ginny. I managed to incorporate her white, brown spotted profile into almost every art assignment I got, even after my art teacher said she'd scream if she saw another guinea pig!
• Superman. I always drew Superman facing directly at the viewer. I loved Superman and wanted either to marry him or be him when I grew up.
• Cabbage Patch dolls. Yeah, I really have no idea why.
• A dog with a mohawk in wild colors and a pierced ear. Profile. My 80's punk rock phase.
• A punk looking girl/woman, 3/4 view, high cheekbones, short spiked hair, kind of butch looking, with big earrings. I think she was what I wished I looked like at the time...she looked so cool and so hot!
• A cartoon character I called Roy. Roy was a gray bird wearing a blue beret.
• Cats. Cats ad nauseum. There were a couple of different cats in this phase, first an Angora with curly hair, always sitting, and then it was striped tabby cats.
• Horses. Usually the horses were in a profile pose, pale grey or white with dark feet, muzzle, mane and tail.
• Dark figures, usually children, drawn silhouette style with only the clothing colored and detailed.
• Goats. Some variation here, but not a lot...
• Peaches.
• Salmon...Kokanee salmon. Always profile, but I draw both genders, although only once in the same picture.

Exhausted now, going to rest so that I can eat dinner...