Little Boxes 5: James & Kevin

James, 2005
Oil & Acrylic on Board, 4" x 4"

James is my best friend's nephew.  When he was a little boy I gave him art lessons.  I was in college becoming a teacher at that time and he was one of  the first kids that I identified as "my student."  Bright and inquisitive, James had more imagination than most of the kids I've known.  He loved Harry Potter, and the harlequin pattern comes from the inside of on of the books.  James also loves movies, and I've been to see some of the great fantasy and sci-fi epics with he and his aunt, who is another dear friend of mine.  Next week we're going to see The Hobbit.  Pretty excited about that.

Kevin, 2008
Acrylic & Collage on Board, 4" x 4"

Kevin is a friend of mine.  He is a grown man from the wild north that we know as Canada.  However, at heart, Kevin is an eight year old boy.  He hates spiders and he loves dinosaurs.  Once while visiting me when I lived in Chicago, he got me one of those injection molded souvenir toys at the Field Museum (home of Sue, the world's most complete t-rex skeleton.) It was a very crude red tyrannosaurus rex.  Another time, in a "thinking of you" moment, Kev sent me a letter wrapped in a Simpson's comic.  Kevin is one of my zombie, Star Wars, indie-music, pop-culture loving friends, so a communique without something from TV, movies, or music, would not have seemed right.