Rikki's Wild Ride Published At Last

Rikki's Wild Ride is a rare combination of artistry and story-telling. The book, just released to Amazon, is illustrated by 18 pastel paintings by Holly Masri. She also had the concept and wrote the story, which is appropriate for children and entertaining for adults.

Rikki was a parrot, a green person who was six inches tall with a six-foot tall attitude. He was loud and obnoxious at times, but also endearing and entertaining, as shown in this book. He was also our friend. I'm grateful to my wife, Holly, for painting a portrait of me with Rikki and putting it into the book. The portrait makes me look like St. Francis of Assisi, which I am not, but whom I admire.

This book is truly a labor of love that has taken many years to come to fruition.

Green-Winged Macaw Eating Wild Almonds

Holly (my wife) has been working on some beautiful paintings lately. She just finished this oil painting of a wild macaw, from a photograph taken by her son Matt in Brazil. Here we see the macaw foraging for wild almonds amid translucent variegated leaves.

This painting emphasizes the macaw in its natural environment. We can see the reason for the bird's bright plumage, since he is under the forest canopy and immune from hawks and other predatory birds. The colors also help macaws find each other in the midst of a green panoply.

A bright tropical sun shines through the leaves of a wild almond tree.

The green-winged macaw is native to the rain forests of Central and South Americas. It is among the largest of the parrot family, with a wing span of over 4 feet.

Gawker at the Jefferson Memorial

(Full Disclosure: Holly is my wife)

Holly Masri's "Gawker at the Jefferson Memorial" is on display at the Art League gallery in the Torpedo Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia until November 4. Rather than focus on the memorial building itself, which is nearly always depicted in photographs from the exterior, the artist has captured the experience of the Memorial. The painting conveys the monumental scale of the building by showing its huge marble columns from the inside. These columns extend upward out of the frame of the painting, giving a strong impression of their great size.

The central figure--the Gawker--is a senior citizen as revealed by his bucket hat and the sweater draped around his shoulders. He is apparently engrossed by something high up on the wall. As visitors to the memorial know, he is looking at (and reading) one of the three large panels that contain the writings of Jefferson engraved in stone. The gawker is oblivious to the other tourists as he gazes upward in an almost religious fervor.

The other figures in the painting are more typical visitors to the monument. Some are looking at other features of the building, perhaps the giant statue of Jefferson that neither the gawker nor the artist seem to notice. Other figures are arranging themselves for a group photograph. But the Gawker seems transported into a world of ideas and history, oblivious to his surroundings.

The artist skillfully suggests the thoughts and emotions aroused by a visit to the monument by a careful selection of images and details. If you look closely at the painting, you can feel the coolness of the air and hear the voices and footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. You may even hear the Gawker reading aloud the words of Jefferson.

Key West Pirates (Hemingway's Bar)

Key West Pirates, an oil painting on wood panel by Holly Masri, appears at first glance a simple depiction of a bar. The place is Tony's Bar in Key West, Florida. The bar opens onto the street, very unusual for an American bar, where the prejudice against alcoholic consumption generally forces serious drinkers indoors. Two men are drinking at the bar, one seated, the other standing, while a bartender looks on. The most unusual aspect of the painting (and of the actual bar) is the low ceiling, encrusted with thousands of business cards left over the years by tourists.

Key West is the southernmost point of Florida, in many respects a tropical paradise. But the artist has chosen a pallet devoid of pastels. There are no flowers or broadleaf plants to be seen. Instead, the colors are somber. The frame cuts off the bright world of sun and sea. The two customers may be tourists, but their shirts are dark, as is the interior of the bar. Both are brawny and young. One of them has a skull and crossbones on the back of his shirt.

The two men in the bar are not pirates, for this is clearly a modern scene. They wear bermuda shorts, athletic shoes, and tee-shirts. One of them rests his foot on a backpack. They do have long, curly hair that reminds the viewer of 17th century wigs. They are engrossed by something to their right, which the viewer cannot see.

This is a famous bar, where celebrities met and toasted each others' health during the 1930s. At that time it was known as Sloppy Joe's. Its best known habitue was Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway arrived in Key West in 1936, when his health was already suffering from war injuries and too much drink. He brought with him friends like the writer John Dos Passos and the artist Waldo Peirce. Peirce also painted a scene in Tony's Bar, with his friend Hemingway sitting at the bar next to Peirce's wife, Alzira, and Peirce himself standing at the right.

The room next door, the room into which Masri's pirates are staring, can be seen in Peirce's painting. It is a dance hall, where sailors dance with pickups and bar girls. Perhaps the woman sitting at the end of the bar is one of those girls, being attended by two sailors in uniform and an elderly gentleman. Masri's pirates are looking at something else, though. The sailors are long gone, the dance hall a memory.

Masri's picture has ghosts, including the ghost of Hemingway and the ghost of the bar that used to be there. It has another theme as well: impostors. Sloppy Joe's Bar moved about a block away after Hemingway left town. It now occupies much larger, much grander premises than the bar depicted by Masri and Peirce. The current Sloppy Joe's, sold to tourists as Hemingway's hang out, does not much resemble the real hang out, now known as Tony's Bar.

Masri's painting captures the atmosphere of a place on the edge of history, where the people and times that made it famous are receding into the past. But Masri is not nostalgic. She depicts the scene honestly, portraying what it has become, a humble respite from the tropical sun that bakes Key West.

Note: Key West Pirates is on sale here.