Wallpaper Taste
Inspiration is forever mysterious
One never really knows where inspiration comes from. You can only set up the conditions for inspiration to be able to happen, but the rest is not always figure-outable.
The above drawing came from the word wallpaper. I saw it in an article and thought, “hmmmm, I’ve never done a drawing about wallpaper.” In the back of my mind, I thought James Thurber had done one, but it was a vague memory. I drew the above channeling Mr. Thurber’s work, as I often do anyway.
At first, I imagined just wacky wallpaper. Then I thought, maybe I could make it beyond wacky and started drawing frightening people. People who are from nightmares. Smiling people who look unhappy. Angry people. It makes you wonder about the previous tenant, doesn’t it? Maybe this drawing even has a Charles Addams element to it.
I just now tried to find the drawing that I thought inspired me—said Thurber wallpaper drawing—and it’s nowhere. Michael thinks I made it up in my mind and maybe I did. No matter, I drew the above. I hope you find it funny!
By the way, whatever wallpaper that was in our house when we bought it a long time ago, we painted over.
Happy Saturday!
Is it weird that I want you to come over and draw that “wallpaper” on my walls in a room?! Wouldn’t that be a fun Zoom room?! Random people would schedule meetings just to be able to see the huge Donnelly behind me instead of the boring bookcases or potted plants!!! 😁😁😁😁
We stripped the wallpaper in our old house and found a cartoon on the dry wall underneath, the "Kilroy Was Here" guy peaking over a fence with his huge nose and hands grasping a wall. A message from the 1940s! I hated to paint over it and now regret it, seeing your cartoon. We should have left it and painted something clever around it.