Queen Pea

Winner of the Bronze medal in the OPA 2021 Eastern Regional Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils, and will be on exhibit at ArtCenter Manatee in Bradenton, Florida from September 28 - October 22, 2021

We live in a house with our 2 Chihuahua’s, Peanut Butter and Jelly and a Queensland Heeler named Lucy. Ours is a happy home made even happier by the addition of our four-legged kids. Each one has a unique character and a well-defined position in the hierarchy of the small pack. Deb and I share alpha-dog rolls. The others have long since stopped arguing and have submitted to the smallest Chihuahua, Peanut: 3 ½ pounds of fury sporting a herculean self-image. If I had had half of Peanut’s self-assurance, I would be Emperor of Earth by now.

Peanut’s biggest hardship, apart from her demands that go ignored at the dinner table when chicken is on the menu, is the temperature. We keep the house pretty cool. Consequently, she’s always cold. She has only a thin layer of white fur and a warm, Mexican desert heritage, so she’s constantly shivering and looking for a warm place to rest her weary, 91 year-old (in dog years) bones.

One of my primary jobs is to hoist her onto the couch where she has a special blanket she burrows into. Most of the time, we see only her little nose sticking out. We have south facing, glass panel doors that look out onto our back yard. The sun shinning through the window creates a delicious, sauna-like area of heat for Pea and, when the clouds are elsewhere, we know we’ll find her lying there like a snowbird, remembering the warm desert and dreaming of chicken.

She won’t be with us forever so I wanted to immortalize her in her favorite spot. We struggled with a title for this painting; ‘Hurricane Peanut – the calm before the storm,’ ‘3 and ½ pounds of resting fury,’ ‘Peanut Colada,’ etc. But we finally settled on: ‘Queen Pea’.

Isn’t it interesting how these little critters can grab ahold of your heart?