I Am Not a Vegan, Though I Paint Like One

Hey Home Cook, Go Farm Your Mother!

Back in 2018, I did some paintings to hang in my kitchen during a bout with veganism. I called it “The Animal Retaliation Series” and they helped keep me meat free for over a year. I do not wish to advocate with activism. I am not a fanatic. I don’t even try to persuade. At the time I was highly sensitive to imbalance, which I was determined to stabilize, in myself and around the world. There is much talk about over population, that 8 billion humans cannot share earth’s natural abundance. This may be true under the present paradigms and practices of industrialization, globalization and cultural tradition. However, 1,000,000,000,000,000 (1 million billion) ants humbly eat and excrete on the planet without cars, planes and CAFOs, and every single species (besides domestic pets and livestock) thrives without posing a threat to their own species or any other earthlings.
So, although earth could support a boom to human populations, human beings cannot. We are a social species, but not a collective one. We could abandon thoughts of a plant-based diet and start eating fried ants and let Montana fill up with human beings, rather than Ted Turner’s bloated private property ego. Then our insatiable appetite for stuff need not abate. There seems to be enough insects around my feet to insure that Sam or Suzie’s order for the cranberry red Tesla® is on time and ready for delivery.
Anyway, I became a temporary vegan to clean up my own act, while these angry and bewildered animals reminded me day after day that I am fat, even when I’m thin. It was good practice and I thank them for it. I picked up some 1950s linen dinner napkins at a garage sale, stretched them on little 12 x 12" frames, and ate too much seitan for my own good. Gluten should not have the last word on vegan protein. Listen to the legumes.
Like Thoreau, I am a sojourner in civilized life again, eating cheese and meat like it was made for me, and only me. Though rice cakes are always within reach, I no longer deny my lust for an electric car:)