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Veggies and Old Masters — World Headquarters of Me pg205

Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic

Mernie Buchanan
2 min readFeb 2, 2021

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Faux Louvre series: Statue of Ceres after Peter Paul Rubens 2006

Next budget item was food. How could I eat high quality food as cheaply as possible? My fabulous shack never did get a stove, so the makeshift kitchen I had built around the back sink boasted an electric wok and a microwave. Frugality meant I had to cook instead of skipping past my grotty kitchen to go out for Szechuan, Mexican, Italian, sushi or a portobello burger — all temptingly available within three blocks. I had been vegetarian since 1984, so being messy mercifully didn’t include layers of meat grease bacteria.

I wanted lots of fresh, organic vegetables, but didn’t want to pay those prices. Fortunately, my mother had taught me the rudiments of gardening. — From Chapter 11

The painting today is my watercolor interpretation of the earth goddess Ceres — her statue decorated with festoons of veggies. Great garlands of vegetables aren’t something you come across very often in art history. Coupled with the goddess in charge of fruitful abundance makes this a painting to love. More is More is luscious. The original by Peter Paul Rubens hangs in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

If buying organic veggies was a budget challenge, a trip to the Hermitage was a flight of fancy…

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Mernie Buchanan
Mernie Buchanan

Written by Mernie Buchanan

Seeking sunnier landscapes I left Woodstock NY for Tucson where I'll teach painting & finish a scifi novel. Images are my originals. Links at mernie.com

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