A Banana Split, Split Up into Two Paintings

sorry i forgot to post yesterday. it's ok, though, because now today is dessert themed!



i want to paint an "after" version of this where he's got a bite missing and looks horrified.




i went to college at Carnegie Mellon University. the student body was just the right size for there to be campus "celebrities" that you wouldn't know personally but stood out from the crowd. there was cape girl, cape guy, orange guy (dyed his hair orange and only wore orange clothes), unicycle girl, shoeless programmer, etc. when i was a sophomore, i had a mission to give myself a quirky attribute in order to become one of these recognizable people.

i tested several things before settling on the right one. for a while i tried to be "tool belt girl" and wore a tool belt instead of a purse. but i went to study abroad and having your wallet out in the open like that isn't so great in some foreign countries. then, i tried being "respirator girl". this didn't stand out enough because plenty of art majors had respirators for spray paints, solvents, etc. then, -- and this is why this painting made me think of this story -- i wanted to be "always carrying a banana girl". i thought this was pretty great because it's a mixture of goofy (because bananas peels are comedic) and violent (because it feels like you're holding a gun) and phallic (because, well... you know) and practical (because i always had a healthy snack at a moments notice). but it really didn't stand out enough. no one notices when you're always carrying a banana. so i finally landed on wearing two different shoes and i've been "mismatched shoe girl" ever since.