Last Work in Progress

Jessica made me think that I needed to try to add another piece to my submissions for this quarter. She did not like the Simple Glitz piece at all. I figured she wouldn't, but I didn't think she'd dislike it quite as much as she did.

I'd been tossing around the idea of doing an interpretation of my memoir poem (from Fall quarter) by taking the three separate dining out experiences and putting them onto canvas which would create a little series to go with my memoir. Jessica really liked that idea, so I started to work on the first one, but I didn't get far.

This was from the section of my po-emoir that reads:

"Wylie's Chinese American Cafe –

Even in daylight, it is dark

when the door closes behind.
Brushing crumbs off of cracked

vinyl seats,we slide into smoke filled

red booths and wrangle

quarters for the jukebox

out of mom’s sweater pockets.

In back, harsh words and brawls

spill from the bar between slats of

saloon-style doors that barely contain

stale alcohol and obnoxious men yelling

or comingto blows over loose women.

D-16:the jukebox blares,

and egg foo young sizzles

under brown gravy

while Steve Miller sings for our supper.

The record is rockin’and we sip Shirley Temples,

waiting for the chorus so we could chime in

with the only lyrics we know.

“Da da da dee-dah da-da-da-dona

blah blah blah to Tacoma!

Buh-buh-buh-ee-ya

buh-buh-buh buh-ay.”

A woman, high on cheap

tequila, staggers from

the bar. Her patterned polyester

shirt misbuttoned,

exposing her overflowing bra

and ample stomach.

Mom shields our eyes

with palms of her hands

and my brother returns to

constructing thick French
fry stacks. They line his plate:

a retaining wall around the burger

sweating beneath cheese.

Feeling cultured, I order “Chinese.”

My cup-sized bowl,

scrolled with blue dragons, holds a tasty

flat-sided ball formed by small
grains of sticky white rice; a side

dish to the thin slices of pink-edged pork

flowered around a hot mustard and

ketchup blossom. Small sesame

seeds sit and wait to be stuck

to the meat like pollen

transferred to my tongue."

The bbq pork was one of my favorite images so I thought that I'd use that on the canvas. I took Sculpey clay and shaped it into a pork tenderloin of sorts, then sliced it thin, laying it out on a small plate. I will combine gel medium and paint to create the ketchup and mustard, and then put sesame seeds on, coating everything with a coat of polyurethane spray.

That plate will be attached to the canvas which has a partial take-out carton adhered to it, as well as a mini-collage of paper/fortune/menu. The plate will go right above that, and then there will be some chopsticks and then a coating of "distressing" that will give it an aged look and add a darker feel to the whole piece.