This by far took the longest of any painting I have created.
It was like a puzzle, every day I put it together piece by piece.
I was afraid to do the Chinese lettering because I know how easy it
Is to make a mistake and then who knows what you just wrote in Chinese?
My fear is grounded on reality.
Many years ago we had some Spanish speaking employees for our business I had
a little hand book on learning Spanish and was trying
to learn a phrase or two. They put up with me . I could say "¿Dónde está Phillippe ?
( Where is Phillip?) and they
would point me in the right direction. Then one morning I was on my way to work and
I hit a cat that ran in front of my car, and I wanted to tell them. I thought I remembered
what the word" dead" sounded like, and everybody knows cat is gato so I went into work
and said " El gato es una mierda." Then I made little hand motions
and charade signals to relay the story of the cat. They nodded solemnly. I figured they
were feeling pretty bad for that cat.
Later that week I was with a group of friends one of whom could speak fluent Spanish,
so I told him what I said to the
workers about the cat. He laughed until he cried. I was puzzled-"
"What?" I asked, "What?" He said between gasp of breath..
"Tammy, you were so close, but you said, "The cat is shit."
If you wanted to say the cat is dead you
should have said...El gato está muerto.
El gato está muerto - El gato es una mierda." ..
.. it sounded the same to me.
And so, it is true, close doesn't count
...........except in horseshoes and hand grenades.
