The Ally Painting to those who know the inside story. What can I say about this? I think one of the better images I have done. A mixture of Alice in Wonderland, mutant creatures, a Disney tree (good or evil? Who can tell). It could be dismissed as just a superficial work, and maybe true. In Grad school this was sort of called out as superficial by one professor. Or because I didn't make work that fit into the assumed idea of figurative work, too much like the past and/or too much like illustration. It has the problem that Tom Wolf talked about in his book 'The Painted Word", without a theory how can anyone see this? This gets into the problem with academia, and the idea of art making in general. The idea that you must continue in the accepted idea of linear progress of art from the impressionist to the conceptual art of every kind, or rather, you must make art that is 'radical', breaking from something in the past. Fair enough, only that I think in terms of visual impact not something that can only embraced because it illustrates a concept. I may be letting my experience in grad school get to me about this work. There is symbolic inferences and motifs in this work that I see after I completed it. The tree, like nature can be benevolent or malevolent, or both. The woman can be the animus of the male, the feminine aspect of the male sex, that guides the strange rabbit creature, the jackaraffe. The giraffe is a very strange creature, otherworldly, it is no wonder Dali was intrigued by them. The rabbit heads (rather jack rabbit heads) are symbolic of the sexual aspect of the male. The saying of a rabbit, breading like rabbits, since they have lots of reproductive sex, can also be analogous to the male sex drive, but in its more adolescent or immature form. The woman is guiding the creature, as it is heading down the lower path she holds it at bay effortlessly it seems. Directing it to the upper path. At the same time she can enjoy a corn dog. Yes, it is obviously a penis! But also that the feminine is about both control and emotive expression. The Jungian aspect of the feminine is one of guiding, the divine feminine leading the more aggressive aspect of the male nature to greater understanding. The plants about the tree and path are also sexual in nature. Let us be honest, flowers, fruit, etc. are organs of reproduction. Fruit is used to lure animals to eat it and then spread the seeds. The flower is the sexual organ to attract insects to pollinate other flowers. I would say that within being alive, being not just human, but living organism, we are constantly in play about life. This is not just the act of sex, that is one way, but within us we imagine, dream, desire, hope, etc. that is about moving forward, growing or if I can bring in Carl Jung, transforming and individuating. The title is The Walker, and in life we are moving forward in time, we age but we also change, we are living and in that we search. Search for friendship, for love, for sexual pleasure, for meaning, for accomplishments. Men may in youth be hungry for lots of sex but then may change and desire something more than an erection, something less transitory. Money, love, children, education. Perhaps I am reading too much into this?