Inspired by Tom Robbins

Any Tom Robbins fans out there? If so, you may have read his novel “Still Life with Woodpecker”. I’d been wanting to do a painting about that and have been hunting for ages to find a stuffed woodpecker. Or a toy woodpecker. Impossible to find! Then it finally dawned on me to use the woodpecker suet feeder I’d bought a few years ago from a local guy down at the Sunday morning flea market at Brownwood (on Torch Lake).

I bought some field corn at Family, Farm & Home in Charlevoix. The sunflower seed heads were a generous gift from my wonderful neighbors, Sue & Shirley.

It went fairly fast. Yes, a bit challenging — the woodpecker’s head was at a slight off-angle. And the corn! It’s tricker than you’d think. But good challenges make the world go ’round.

This will be one of my paintings in an upcoming show at the Charlevoix Circle of Arts: Paintings inspired by book titles. There’s nothing quite so bizarre (and inspiring) as a Tom Robbins book title!