8 x 10, oil on canvas panel. SOLD Click here to see all my paintings.
I’ve always had a thing for Manhattan. I would live there if I could figure out how to keep chickens and have a real garden–not a few succulents on a rooftop–in the city.
And yes, I read that article in the New York Times about the woman who kept a couple pullets in her Manhattan apartment, and I thought it was complete bullshit. (Make that chickenshit.) For someone who has the wherewithal to write an article for the New York Times, she seemed to lack some basic chicken information (hens who go broody are not in need of a mate, they are simply caught up in a hormonal cycle that would have happened regardless of the number of roosters strutting around), and although she graciously agreed to "gloss over" the mess created when the hens were allowed to free range around the apartment, I found it inconceivable that anybody with the vaguest idea of sanitation would allow a chicken to leave its very messy and smelly droppings around a million-dollar Manhattan apartment. I swear these birds shit every ten minutes. Even farmers don’t let their chickens wander around the house.
OK, enough about chickens. Another reason why I don’t live in Manhattan is that I don’t want to get bored with it. As it is, I walk around the city in a complete state of wonder. Tulips in a windowbox are fascinating to me. Yellow cabs are fascinating. Pizza joints. Hotel lobbies. Construction crews. Delivery guys. Doorways. The whole thing just knocks me out. I’d hate to move there and find myself getting numb to it all.
So instead, I go for a week or so at a time. The next trip is in August. Maybe I’ll bring my paints this time, not just my camera.