the Foxy Muppet

To celebrate my 30th birthday, the beginning of a new decade, and my successful return to Saturn, I have decided to share the history of the Foxy Muppet. I like the reactions I get from people when they hear the name "Foxy Muppet." Since it's my email address, I repeat it a fair amount for loyalty rewards. I get a lot of positive remarks, a few restrained giggles, and sometimes awkward silence from an un-amused audience. I like getting smiles out of people, and the ones that don't smile have to become the joke, for my own protection. My last blog incarnation was under "Cupcake Jay." For a time, I needed Cupcake Jay. I used to go by Jay as my way of running from my past and taking on a new identity, aligned with when I came out to my parents. I was a Cupcake because I just wanted to make everybody happy. I became the author of "the Bittersweet Tales of Cupcake Jay." I can tell more of this story later, but naturally the blog was very angsty. I bec...

I've been busy busy busy! I've been making new art, improving how I've been framing my original art, and re-branding my jewelry. I was hoping to make a post about gratitude in recognition of Turkey Day, but it got away from me. I have been working on another post I intend to release on my birthday, so keep your eyes out! What I'm here for today is to share the next art show that Dallas and I will be participating in! The group show "Bring Out the Dead" at the Goodfoot is about to come down and another group show, "I Am, There for I Think" will be taking its place. I've entered three new pieces into the show, and one of them is from the "Fame" collection. Dallas is pulling several pieces from his "Celebrity Skin" collection. Among the other artists in the show will be Tabitha Rickard, who we showed with for the "Dangerously Enchanted" show. I had previously said she would be the Delta Cafe show with us, but li...

Hey kids! Wanna buy a unique gift for someone fabulous in your life and also treat yourself? Well starting this weekend you can! The Delta Cafe and Chris Haberman Presents will be featuring art by Dallas and I through the end of the year, so you can go out for delicious food and drinks and get buzzed while shopping for handmade presents. Dallas will have a wide range of his art, mostly focused on his Lonely Girls, Celebrity Skin, and the Rest is Drag collections. He hand selected some stunning pieces, and all are under $40. Below are a couple samples of what he will be selling. My art for this show is very heavily focused on Dinoganza. There will be a copy of every Dinoganza I've made prints of so far, so there's quite the selection. This venue will be closer to the heart of Portland, so I'm excited to see how Dinoganza is received. There will be other artists at this show, including Tabitha Rickard who was in Dangerously Enchanted with us. The show wil...

Because of how I was raised, there are two types of music that make me recoil: country music and gospel music. As a kid I was able to find the things within the genre that I loved, but my story changed so drastically when I came out that I left all those things behind so I could explore all the things I naturally gravitated towards. Creating this art piece of Johnny Cash involved me having some conversations with myself about where I was musically before coming out and who Johnny Cash is. I've been rewatching Stranger Things lately and I was reminded of the relationship the Byers brothers had in the first season, where Jonathan was like a guardian for Will, even in giving Will a song to sing while trapped in the Upside Down. Their relationship and Jonathan's musical tastes remind me of my oldest brother when we were growing up. He gave me the gift of music and even wanted me to join a band with him. I was learning the guitar and was starting to learn to play Folsom Prison. I...

I first learned of Lady Gaga during my coming out process. It started when I heard "Just Dance" on the radio and watched the music video repeatedly. It became an anthem to let go of my fear as I headed towards an important, imminent, and dangerous junction of my life. When I did come out, I then moved out. I didn't have much music at the time as "secular" music was highly monitored and restricted  when I lived at home, to the point that I lacked cultural knowledge held by the majority of my peers. "the Fame" was one of the first albums I bought. I remember defiantly listening to "Boys Boys Boys" while walking through Seaside with my red-dyed hair, fresh piercing, and long desired sense of freedom. This was a complicated time of my life in which I made mistakes and lived boldly. I lost friends in my pursuit of love and tried to wear my heart on my sleeve, even though I didn't understand how broken my heart already was. The world is more ...

Two parties in one night. One to celebrate a beginning and one to celebrate an end. Seems fitting for Hallows Eve and Dia De Los Muertos. The party to celebrate the end is the end of our group show at Limelight Restaurant and Lounge, "Dangerously Enchanted." There is still time to see it, but the show will conclude shortly after Halloween. If you've been wanting to see this show and don't have plans for Halloween (or need a night cap), then their traditional Halloween party would be a fitting opportunity. We've already had some wonderful pieces sold from each artist, but our ambitious artists packed the walls. Did I mention the show opened with over 90 art pieces? As for the party to celebrate a beginning? I'm proud to announce my participation in "Bring out the Dead", at the Goodfoot Pub and Lounge! Dallas and I will both be participating in this show. I'm especially excited for Dallas because of all his lovely Day of the Dead girls. He cr...

I am proud to announce:  Chris Haberman Presents gave permission to Dallas and I to organize an art show at a local venue that shows art for Chris in October, aligning with a massive Halloween party they throw annually. Dallas selected the artists and I helped with the... execution. This art show is going to have a strong and dark feminine presence, thus the name "Dangerously Enchanting." I asked our talented artists to pay tribute to our Halloween theme and maybe create some brand new art. I haven't seen all of the art submitted yet, but what I have seen has left an impression. I am as excited as anybody else for this show. Allow me to introduce you to our artists: Zabrina Fine Art is a Portland based painter. I really love her blending techniques and accents. Her work is as raw as a goddess of nature. The owl in the bottom left corner of the flyer above is Zabrina's, as well as the reclined woman below. From her Facebook profile: "I paint owls, ele...

We weren't always allowed to celebrate Halloween when I was a kid. We usually celebrated "harvest parties" and carved crosses into our pumpkins. We only went trick or treating a few years, always in family themed costumes. We weren't allowed to watch Nightmare Before Christmas even though it played on the TV at the after-school facility my mother worked at. I have my Grandma Maggie to thank for having Hocus Pocus in my life. She introduced us to it as kids and I was enthralled! We all know the main characters in Hocus Pocus are a group of kids, but the real heros are the Sanderson Sisters. They spend most of the movie trying to save Max from his narcissistic, manipulative, spoiled villain of a sister, a child so vile she publicly talks about Allison's "yabo's" just to humiliate Max. Only at the end of the movie do the valiant sisters realize that Max is bewitched beyond their assistance and that they must destroy him in order to save him... or ...

New look and new features! I recently shared some of the updates I did with Dallas' new  website , and now I've taken those lessons to my own site! As I share more of my art, the format will continue to evolve, but I'm going for a different feel than Dallas. With his experience in fashion and appreciation in editorial imagery, we made his site more crisp and clean. I wanted my new site to be more expressive of what I'm creating in my life. Category is 70's hippie goth, dark velvet and lava lamp realness. In other news, I've been preparing for an art show in October at the Limelight Restaurant & Lounge  in Portland. Dallas and I will be showing with several artists. I'll give more news on this soon and reveal the names of the artists, but first I need to focus on making more art (ironically, last I checked there was "vandalism" in the men's restroom at Limelight saying in large letters "Make More Art" and I feel motivated every...

1 John 4:7-21 English Standard Version (ESV) 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for...

I would like to share some of what I've been doing the last two weeks. This week I've been doing research for an art show in October. I've also been helping develop Dallas' online resources. We setup a Blogger for him that we are using as a central hub for his fans, friends and followers. You can check it out  here . There will be more work done on his page in the future, but I'm proud of the start we have. I picked up a few things in the process of setting up his page and I will be using some of those features on my blog soon. Naturally I wanted to share the developments of this week. However, my original intent in this post was to share something from last week. First I need to give some back story... You see, I used to read this online comic called "Namesake". I had a routine of checking the webcomic on my break at work. In the middle of an interesting story development, the artist showed one of the character's butt. As you should know by my l...

Salutations! This is why my blog is 18+. The following images are NSFW, unless your work has something to do with a nude body.  This art is hand drawn by me and based on photography for Freshmen magazine's February 1993 edition. The model is Paul Marsden and the photographer is "Bel Ami" (George Duroy). I've taken figure drawing classes in college, and I myself have been a nude model. This training helped me to start drawing from eye and develop beyond the illustrative style I had at the time. In the past, I only used graphite and charcoal. I used theses two pieces to experiment with powdered pigment to add color.  "Paul 1" was a stronger play with color. I allowed my graphite work to be darker and used bolder colors, exaggerating the blonde hair and using a more saturated blue in the shadows on his skin. The green background was used to create a dark negative space. I found that the color combination made this piece feel colder, like a...

Some people reading this may already be aware, but my partner and I are now officially engaged! We made our first public announcement on July 5th, the 6 year anniversary of our official meeting. (We had a chance encounter once before, but that's a story for another day.) We've actually been engaged since I was in the hospital in 2015, but we've kept it under our hat and only told select people. Initially, it was about our commitment to each other and a way to encourage me to recover so we could live a long life together. Our engagement was also partly for protection. There have been many horror stories of gay couples dealing with hospitalization and estranged family members using blood relationship to legally divide the couple, and my parents have been trying to divide us since day one. We've just decided to finally take that commitment to the next step, so announcing the nature of the commitment has to be done before actually tying the knot. Gay marriage was lega...

I've planned different blog posts for a while, and sharing music has been a part of that vision. Here in Oregon, we recently finished a legislative session in which the Republican minority senators fled the state and law enforcement in order keep environmental protection legislation from passing. (Side note, I don't know of a job that wouldn't fire me for nine days of "no-call no-shows", but I digress.) The West Coast of the United States has experienced some frightening fires lately, and I am growing concerned about what will happen if steps aren't taken to put our planet before our greed. It's at times like this that Anohni's "4 Degrees" gets stuck in my head. It is a reference to a study of climate change and the expected impact it would have on our planet and the species that share this space with us. I decided today to give my heartstrings a tug and play the album that "4 Degrees" came from, and now I want to recommend it...

I'm not very good with this social media thing, let alone the whole social thing. Dallas, my partner, keeps encouraging me to tend to my social media. I keep putting it off. I think one thing that I don't like about social media is that eventually your content gets buried. I take time and give thought when making a post, and often I like to write or share something. Myspace was great for that, but somehow didn't last and was replaced by the super generic Facebook. Part of my intention with blogging was to create a space where I have more control over my content. Anyway, that's my super lame "I'm returning to this blog" story. MOVING ON! Happy 50th Anniversary of Stonewall! Well, happy is a strong word to use considering the circumstances. Rather I should say "Happy 50th Anniversary of a Community Standing Up and Saying 'We Won't Take the Bullshit Anymore'"! I get as excited for this time of year as my mother gets excited for Chr...