Which Came First?

 

"Vintage Chickens and Fresh Eggs" 6 x 6 oil Available Tipping Paint Gallery

Galleries are full of chicken paintings.  They are beautiful and interesting.  But I’m from Detroit. I don’t “do” chickens.   So I said.  Then Tipping Paint Gallery came up with a unique exhibit to kick-off the annual Raleigh Tour d’ Coop about raising chickens, urban farming and a fund-raiser supporting Urban Ministries, which, among other things, provides a community food pantry.  Thus was born “Eggistentialism”.  So if I were to enter the exhibit, I was bound to paint a chicken or an egg, whichever came first.
 

Living in Cary, which recently authorized backyard chicken coops, I could possibly find a coop and do a painting outdoors.  But chickens are notoriously active.  That didn’t seem practical.  I wondered what I was to do.

It looked like the egg was coming first.  So would it be a cracked egg? A whole egg? Scrambled eggs? Brown eggs? Easter eggs?  Really, how many ways to arrange those ovals!? I was starting to think like Dr. Seuss and Sam of Green Eggs and Ham,

I would not, could not, paint them in a box.
I could not, would not, with a fox.
I will not paint them with a mouse
I will not paint them in a house.
I will not paint them here or there.
I will not paint them anywhere.

I was discouraged.  Then I looked up over the stove to my recipe book shelf, and there were grandma’s vintage chicken egg cups.  I had my chickens and my eggs!  I remember grandma displayed her glass collection in her dining room bay window where they would catch the light.  So I placed the two ceramic nesting chickens on a mahogany dining table by my dining room window, arranged three white eggs, and set about painting.

Detroit gals DO “do” chickens!

I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions.

Tipping Paint Gallery “ Eggistentialism “311 West Martin Street Raleigh, NC 27601  April 1-26

My paintings are available at Cary Gallery of Artists 200 S. Academy St. in downtown Cary Ashworth Village. 919-462-2035 Mon-Sat 11 am - 5:30 pm.

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