Category: Avant-Garde

Artist: Freddy Age Six. Title: Drafthorse/Clidestale Size: 8 X 10 in (12 X 17 with frame) Medium: Magnetophoretic display screen (patented materials, commercially available) Provenance: Southern California Date: May 2007 Current Location: non-existent This image was produced and destroyed in the same Spring afternoon. The visual plane is divided into two long horizontal zones, each…

It’s awfully untidy of butterflies to mix and mingle all their colors, don’t you think? Phoebe Age Four does. So she sorted this one out for you. Purple dots go here, yellow up there, black over here, and green down in the– hey, what’s with the mixing of color dots down here in the lower…

From the archives, circa 1974, we have a tribute to Mom by Freddie-Age-Six. Yes, these are drawings by Freddie-Age-Six-In-1974, father of Freddy-Age-Six-In-2007. The subject is Mom. The verdict is: “My Mom is nice. I like her.” This may seem like faint praise, but bear in mind that I wrote a whole book about my Mom…

Sphere upon sphere, the caterpillar rises up into the air, gesticulating with its countless leg/arms. One eye is quite round and quite large, pushing the other eye aside and squashing it to an ellipse. The artist, Phoebe Age Four, selects a bright shade of green for the image, and punctuates it with one carefully-deployed red…

I’m not saying you have to get me a Lionel toy train with a gold engine and red cars and a remote control device with dual speed levers. All I’m saying is, if I had a train like that I would hug it with both arms and have the biggest smile on my face you…

Phoebe Age Four produced this drawing and testified that it is a picture of Snow White. Trying to throw her arms around the world, Snow White has an expression on her face which is open to interpretation. Is she as happy as she wants us to believe? Why is her smile unsettled? Her head and…

Dear Applicant, We regret to inform you that your request for a patent on the Bike Scooter has been rejected. The review commission’s main objection to the application is the incoherence of the device itself. You did not include a description of how the device works, and the the schematic drawing included is not rendered…

You may think of the desert as an empty or lonely place, but this desert is a HOT SPOT in more ways than one. It not only sustains life, but a thriving community of many species living in harmony. The dominant figure is our host, a saguaro cactus (cereus giganteus) spreading out his four arms…

Phoebe Age Four goes for uncharacteristically expansive forms in this assemblage of shapes. Perfect bilateral symmetry dominates the arrangement of the two ears, two eyes, two whatever you call those things on a cat’s muzzle. (Lips? Do cats have lips?) And exactly four whiskers on each side. But for all the symmetrical geometry, this drawing…

Let us agree to call the rabbits in this drawing: Witnesses of the resurrection. One perches atop the cross with his back to us, the other leaps forward into our space with a smile and with unavoidable eye contact. The black outlining can scarcely contain the ragged red-brown coloring that unites the bunnies and the…

A bolt of lightning splits the stormy sky and flashes toward a monumental cross. To one side stands a Roman soldier with a sword in one hand and a long spear in the other. He smiles smugly to have completed his dirty work. It’s not a good thing to do, but he’s good at doing…

Three thoughts on “Driveway Flat Cat.” 1. The title may sound like a tragedy, but it’s actually a pretty happy thing: A sidewalk chalk sketch of a cheerful bipedal feline, possibly wearing clothes, possibly jumping up off of the curved blue line beneath him. 2. Art on paper is tame and easily warehoused, but this…