We're constantly shocked out of lala land. Did we forget the fear of 9-11? Or being brought down by Hurricane Sandy already?

Last night, I drew at a swanky party on Lexington Avenue. My wild pictures. A hard-working sweating belly-dancer. And then.

Almost all packed up to leave. A man comes up to me, aw gee, he just arrived too late to get a Caricature. And he tells me that he came down from CT. Newtown, CT to be precise. He said that he's in shock because his little 5-year-old neighbor was just buried. She had been in that terrible school incident. He showed me a photo on his phone. Of her with a few of her friends.

We can remember the people who died in this week's terrible incident. And now we can even remember the man who lived nearby. Need we only remember those who die? I like to remember all the people who show up on my path.

Need we save every scrap of paper?

Everything feels too heavy when I carry it for a long time. So I thought I'd take the unimportant stuff out of my pocketbook ~ Why carry it all around?

And typical of me, I find lots of notes, lots of quick sketches. But where to put them all? Where will I look at them again? They were in my pocketbook because they felt inspiring. Good stuff.

How can I throw that out? It reminds me to exaggerate. It reminds me to make real Caricatures.

I even remember the day that I drew those pictures. Each one less than 2" tall. On a scrap of paper. I was in Church. I even remember the lovely girl with the big glasses and the noticeable lips.

I do not choose to throw out this excellent Artwork. Even though I've been fine ever since I threw out a roomful of fantastic Giant Oil Paintings.

It's an Artist's Life. We can't help but have the real stuff around. Because that's what we do. It's a good chance that our scraps are not garbage.

Did you ever wonder about what you look like from behind? This might be just a passing wind, but im now offering Butticatures. They're actually kind of cute.

This is what happened. I went to a Clown Alley meeting last night. We were supposed to have a Special Guest Face-Painter. Butt she didn't show up ~ So there we were ~ a bunch of Entertainers out to entertain ourselves. Those of us who were Face-Painters had some Face-Painting supplies because we also planned on jamming.

I set a chair onto the stage, figuring that the person who was running the meeting would organize us into a show. The show happened, but the organization did not. Instead of sitting in our seats to watch the show, everyone gathered around the stage. It was simple stuff to me, so I gave up on jockeying for position to seeeee. And I sat myself back into the audience (where several other people also sat, unable to see the show).

The audience full of Entertainers started entertaining themselves. There was the Face-Painting on the Stage, some Balloon twisting next to that. A man balancing chairs on his nose. One walking around joking with us....

But I see that all week long. That's what I do at work. So I just sat there watching the Face-Painting show. Well, what I could see of it from my seat.

With some old markers. The backs of some used papers.

After a few drawings, I spoke up. "If anybody wants to see what I've been drawing...."

Whoa. Something New. Something that even these professional Entertainers had never seen. They were attracted to my activity like flies to a camp-porch-light. "Draw me." "Will you draw mine?" I drew a few more. With my old markers ~ they're drying up. But it was getting to be more Fun. It's more fun for the Artist to draw when the models stand still for the drawing. And it was much fun for the people I drew to be standing there keenly aware of their rear-ends.

Seeing how the people responded to modeling for this, I realized that it would be much fun for Parties. I didn't have a camera with me, so I asked some of my models to email me the pictures that I gave them.

Oh ~ Look at how lucky I was. I just checked my email, and I found these there already. Two of the Butticatures that I drew at the meeting last night: