Family

January 1, 2016

Jizō Bodhisattva – No. 948

Jizō Bodhisattva

Ksitigarbha is a bodhisattva, or “saint,” primarily revered in East Asian Buddhism and usually depicted as a Buddhist monk. In Japanese culture, where Ksitigarbha is known as Jizō or Ojizō-sama, he is the guardian of children in limbo. Jizō is also the patron deity of children, expectant mothers, travelers and aborted/miscarried fetuses. Jizō statues are a common sight in Japan, especially by roadsides and in graveyards. Ksitigarbha means “womb of the earth” and this deity is known for his vow to take responsibility for the instruction of all beings in the six realms between the death of Gautama Buddha and the rise of Maitreya, as well as his vow not to achieve Buddhahood until all hells are emptied. He is therefore often regarded as the bodhisattva of hell-beings, or savior of hell’s torments.

Jizō Bodhisattva is one of two garden sculptures in our backyard. Jizō, which I purchased as a gift for my wife, is a 15.5″ figure made of volcanic stone with an antique brown finish. My two-year-old daughter refers to the dense Jizō statue as “the heavy baby.” The other sculpture, Saint Francis of Assisi, is a 20″ white stone/resin sculpture that was in the yard when we bought our house. Alongside these two sculptures is our 10″ plastic garden gnome of many travels, Dingledodger VonFefferhedge. Together they preside over our backyard cat cemetery, which includes the recently deceased The King. Happy New Year!

Posted in Religious, Spiritual Leaders | Tagged Asia, Commentary, Family, Japan, Male

December 31, 2015

Saint Francis of Assisi – No. 947

Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi (born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone) was an Italian Roman Catholic friar and preacher who renounced a wealthy lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and aid the poor. He is one of the most beloved religious figures in history. Francis founded the men’s Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of Saint Clare, the Third Order of Saint Francis and the Custody of the Holy Land. Pope Gregory IX canonized Francis in 1228. Along with Saint Catherine of Siena, he was designated the patron saint of Italy. Francis is also known as the patron saint of animals and ecology (or natural environment). It is customary for Catholic and Anglican churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day of October 4. Francis was born in 1181/1182 and died on October 3, 1226.

Pope Francis, who has turned out to be a remarkably progressive and humane leader, was the first pope to take Saint Francis of Assisi as his namesake. From my perspective, it was a very appealing and revealing choice, and Pope Francis is representing the name well. In our backyard garden, we have two statues. One is of Saint Francis holding a small bowl/birdbath; it’s a 20″ white stone/resin sculpture that was in the yard when we bought our house. The other sculpture, Jizō Bodhisattva, is one I purchased as a gift for my wife, Heidi. Jizō is a 15.5″ figure made of volcanic stone with an antique brown finish. Alongside these two sculptures is our 10″ plastic garden gnome of many travels, Dingledodger VonFefferhedge. Together they preside over our backyard cat cemetery, which includes the recently deceased The King.

Posted in Religious, Spiritual Leaders | Tagged Commentary, Europe, Family, Italy, Male, US Postage Stamp

September 1, 2015

Lufkin the Gorilla – No. 912

Lufkin the Gorilla

Lufkin is a large stuffed ape I was given as a baby in 1979. A gift from my uncle, he’s one of my most beloved childhood toys. Lufkin’s body type strongly suggests that he is a gorilla, despite his chimpanzee-like ears. He was handmade by a South Dakota artist and sold at a craft fair in Aberdeen, SD. Lufkin came with an adult-size red cap, which he wore for my entire childhood. His name comes from this red Lufkin cap, which had an embroidered Lufkin measuring tools patch on the white polyester front, with red mesh and a snapback adjustable strap in back. We have always pronounced the gorilla’s name “Loofkin,” I suppose because my parents didn’t know much about the measuring tools company. The gorilla is now one of my two-year-old daughter Ramona’s favorite toys/pillows, though we’re not sure where his red trucker hat is these days.

Posted in Fictional | Tagged 1980s, America, Ape, Commentary, Family, Hat, Male

August 21, 2015

Awesome Baby – No. 908

Awesome Baby

Awesome Baby is the unholy combination of a baby’s head on the body of an octopus—plus the baby has a mohawk, a Fu Manchu mustache and sunglasses. It’s difficult to explain exactly how this character arose in my household, but I can say that it was created piecemeal over many days by my two-year-old daughter Ramona. My wife Heidi and I regularly draw pictures for Ramona at her request, often on her Fisher-Price magnetic doodler. We have drawn countless sea creatures, including octopuses and squids, as well as human babies and many other things. At some point, and in some order, my daughter became very interested in mustaches, sunglasses and different hairstyles. Eventually, her combined requests consistently guided us to create the monstrous creature she refers to as Awesome Baby, who is mostly orange (pronounced “ohn-mo” by Ramona, despite her linguistic advances). She loves him so much.

Update: Heidi posted pen-and-ink illustrations of Awesome Baby and Baby Margot on her Tumblr blog.

Posted in Fictional | Tagged America, Child, Commentary, Family, Magical, Male, Marine, Monster, Sunglasses

August 20, 2015

Baby Margot – No. 907

Baby Margot

Margot is my two-year-old daughter Ramona’s favorite baby doll. This 9.5-inch Babi Corolle doll was a gift from my dad. As a Corolle product, the doll’s given (slave) name is Miss Grenadine’s Heart. She has a soft body and wears a sewn-on raspberry-colored dress with an embroidered heart and a lavender collar. She also wears sewn-on lavender shoes and a raspberry-colored cap. Her face is vanilla-scented, which I have come to believe teaches children cannibalism, because it smells delicious. Also, Ramona conceives of “Margot” as a type of person, rather than a specific individual. Hooded cartoon characters, other dolls, and sometimes even humans fall into the category of “Margot” and are differentiated by their color (e.g., Blue Margot, Pink Margot). But this is the original Margot.

Posted in Fictional | Tagged America, Child, Commentary, Family, Female

April 19, 2013

Frederick W. Voedisch – No. 606

Frederick W. Voedisch

Frederick William Voedisch was a manufacturer, American Civil War soldier and artist. He was born in Saxony, Germany on January 1, 1832 and trained as a baker. Frederick emigrated to New York in 1854 and worked there as a baker and sawmill manager before moving to Wisconsin in 1856. In 1862, Frederick enlisted as a private in the 20th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment for the Union Army at age 29 and was quickly promoted to a noncommissioned officer, third sergeant (moving from Company A to Company E). However, curiously, after the conclusion of hostilities in 1865, he was honorably discharged as a private. The Military History of Wisconsin details the hard times Frederick and his company endured. Following the war, he married Catherine Weber (née Runkel) in 1865 in Watertown, WI, and worked as a lumber manufacturing manager. In 1883, Frederick received the title to 160 acres of land in Fergus Falls, MN. In 1885, he moved his family farther west to North Dakota. Frederick applied for his Civil War pension in 1886 and died in the Dakotas in 1891 at age 59. He was survived by his German-immigrant wife Catherine and their children Dela and Alfred.

Frederick W. Voedisch is my great-great-great-grandfather. Before Heidi and I went to Europe last year, I created an Ancestry.com account and input a binder of genealogical data to create an online family tree. I did this primarily to share information with my cousins in Italy about their American relatives. You can imagine my surprise when I was contacted by a Civil War reenactor who owns Frederick’s Civil War rifle. The Springfield musket he owns was identified because the initials FWV are artfully engraved into the stock and there was only one Wisconsin soldier with those initials on the Civil War roster. After the war, Frederick probably returned home with his musket and had the barrel reamed slightly larger to turn it into a 20-gauge shotgun, making it a handy item on a farm. But by the time he moved west, cartridge guns had become common, and so he left his rather obsolete musket in Wisconsin. Now, in 2013, Frederick’s musket remains in Wisconsin in its original condition (other than the slight reaming of the inside of the barrel). The lock works and it even includes its ramrod. I was amazed to learn so much about an object once carried by my 3rd-great-grandfather. Frederick’s daughter Dela is my great-great-grandmother.

Posted in Soldiers | Tagged America, American Civil War, Capricorn, Commentary, Europe, Family, Hat, Male

February 25, 2013

Gino Marchetti – No. 580

Gino Marchetti

Gino Marchetti is a retired National Football League (NFL) player who played for the Dallas Texans (1952) and the Baltimore Colts (1953-1966). He was voted “the greatest defensive end in pro football history” by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1972. Marchetti won his first of two NFL championships in the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Colts and the Giants, which is often referred to as “The Greatest Game Ever Played” in NFL history. In 1959, Marchetti founded Gino’s Hamburgers. Gino’s became a successful East Coast regional fast food chain and had 313 company-owned locations when it was sold to Marriott in 1982, which converted many of the restaurants to Roy Rogers. In 2010, Marchetti revived the Gino’s name with Gino’s Burgers & Chicken, which first opened in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

Born in the historic coal-mining town of Smithers, West Virginia on January 2, 1927, Gino Marchetti is my first cousin, twice removed. Now 86 years old, he is the most famous member of my extended Italian-American family.

Posted in Athletes, Entrepreneurs | Tagged America, Capricorn, Commentary, Family, Male, NFL, Pennsylvania, West Virginia

May 9, 2012

Oscar the Dog – No. 414

Oscar the Dog

Oscar is a stray orange and white dog who lives in the fortress of Sacsayhuamán, a walled complex on the northern outskirts of the city of Cusco, Peru. Sacsayhuamán is the former capital of the Inca Empire. The complex is made of large polished dry-stone walls, each boulder carefully cut to fit together tightly without mortar.

When we visited Sacsayhuamán in December 2011, this dog followed/led Heidi and me around for hours, ignoring all other tourists (and even following us dangerously close to a herd of alpacas, which chased him). I named Oscar after our charming room—which was named after an orphan boy—at the Niños Hotel in Cusco, which supports disadvantaged children. I like to think of Oscar as my canine spirit guide and the best dog in the world.

Posted in Animals | Tagged America, Commentary, Dog, Family, Latin America, Male, Peru, Tail

May 7, 2012

Dingledodger VonFefferhedge – No. 412

Dingledodger VonFefferhedge

In March 2012, our 10″ garden gnome disappeared from the front yard. On the morning of Friday, May 4, he mysteriously reappeared on the front porch with a Mexican flag in his hand, a letter and a photo album of his travels. We learned that our gnome’s name is Dingledodger VonFefferhedge and he is 900 years old. He had been adventuring in Redding, California and Ensenada, Mexico to escape Oregon’s cold, boring winter. His journey included visits with Brunhilde the forest witch and two mariachi statues. (The bottom of Dingledodger’s plastic shoes—which reads “© 1994 Art Line Inc. ® Model No. 4030″—marks the date of his enslavement in China, not his birth.)

P.S. Having a traveling gnome prank played on us was great fun. The pranksters went all out, even giving Dingledodger his own Facebook and Google+ pages. According to Facebook, his birthday is October 12. Everyone needs more weird, random acts of kindness like this.

Posted in Cultural | Tagged America, Asia, Commentary, Family, Gnome, Latin America, Little People, Magical, Male, Oregon, Pacific Northwest

April 26, 2012

Tiny Ivo the Pony Boy – No. 405

Tiny Ivo the Pony Boy

Tiny Ivo is a stuffed animal that resides on our bed. He is a brown woolen unicorn made in Oregon by Krystal and Mark Sharp, also known as The Roaming Peddlers. This magical unicorn, which my girlfriend Heidi bought in 2011, is embroidered with flowers and stuffed with about 1 1/2 pounds of organic herbs and flax seeds. He is a Magical Forest Friends creature. He was given the name “Derwin the Unicorn” by his makers. His tag explains that Derwin means “friend to the animals” in Teutonic. Tiny Ivo’s body is stuffed with chamomile flowers, calendula flowers, white willow bark, horsetail herb, juniper berries, dandelion root and flax seeds.

P.S. The name Heidi gave him was inspired by Golden the Pony Boy in The Science of Sleep, a favorite film in our house.

Posted in Animals | Tagged America, Commentary, Family, Horse, Magical, Male, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Tail, Ungulate

April 25, 2012

Heidi Boyer Cavalier – No. 404

Heidi Boyer

Today I am celebrating 404 days of pixel art (and, of course, the HTTP 404 error message that lets you know what you’re looking for was not found). Instead of yet another genocidal dictator, religious icon or superhero, today’s character is my girlfriend. Heidi is a native Oregonian who lives in Corvallis with Ian Cavalier, Eli, Tanuki and The King. She is likely to be found with her teacup, camera and bicycle. Attempting to locate other items she owns will usually result in a 404 error (and much digging through heaps of clothes, sketches and books).

P.S. Heidi calls my 8-bit characters “the tinies.” Now she is a “tiny” herself.

Update: Heidi and I were married on 11/11/12, so now her last name is Cavalier.

Posted in Painters, Writers | Tagged Alien, America, Commentary, Family, Female, Libra, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Seattle

March 3, 2012

Ian Cavalier – No. 365

Ian Cavalier

With apologies to Kurt Vonnegut: This is I. This is me. This is the author of this site. Today I am celebrating 365 days of pixel art with my most self-indulgent 8-bit character of all. I was born on this day in 1979. This year on 3/3 I celebrate 33 revolutions around the sun. For many years I called Pennsylvania home, but I’ve lived in Oregon since 2001. My three cats are Eli, Tanuki and The King.

Posted in Designers, Writers | Tagged America, Commentary, Eyeglasses, Family, Iowa, Male, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Pennsylvania, Pisces, West Virginia

August 22, 2011

Tanuki the Cat – No. 179

Tanuki the Cat

One of my three cats. The youngest, smallest and most skittish of the group. Tanuki was rescued from the feral cat colony beneath my old apartment complex. He is part-Siamese, insane and magical. I suspect that he shapeshifts. He was adopted in November 2008 as a kitten. My ex-girlfriend adopted his lunatic brother. They both turn three years old soon. His estimated birthday is September 2, 2008.

P.S. I almost named him Rorschach due to the dark inkblot-like markings on his face. Tanuki looks remarkably like Frankie from the 2010 Animal Rescue commemorative stamps.

Update: Tanuki passed away on November 9, 2019, almost exactly four years after The King. He’s now buried in our backyard. Rest in peace, little buddy. On to shapeshifting in another realm. Eli is our last surviving cat, the only family pet we have left – gone are his father and his loyal, secretive little brother from another mother. Eli will turn 13 years old in March. (Thinking about the diversity of fur colors and patterns in the feral cat colony my cats came from, I’m reminded of the detailed Colour and Pattern Charts page at Messybeast.com.)

Posted in Animals | Tagged Adopted, America, Cat, Commentary, Family, Male, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Tail, Virgo

August 21, 2011

The King the Cat – No. 178

The King the Cat

One of my three cats. Before being neutered, The King was the alpha male of the feral cat colony beneath my old apartment complex and the presumed father of Eli. He was rescued in October 2008 when I moved from the apartment to a house. This broad-shouldered, 17-pound cat is loyal, tough and possibly shamanic. He wins battles with raccoons. His estimated birthday is May 17, 2005, though he could be older.

Update: The King passed away on November 4, 2015 due to complications from feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), a lifelong condition from his feral past. He had grown thinner and more feeble throughout 2015. One morning he suddenly stopped eating, and it was all over by nightfall. I’ll miss how he followed me everywhere, requesting attention with his broken meow. The King is dead, long live The King. His body will join the previous homeowner’s deceased cat Bhanti (a tiny brown tabby female) in our backyard pet cemetery. Now we are down to two cats, Eli and Tanuki.

Posted in Animals | Tagged Adopted, America, Cat, Commentary, Family, Male, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Tail, Taurus

August 20, 2011

Eli the Cat – No. 177

Eli the Cat

One of my three cats. Eli was rescued from the feral cat colony beneath my old apartment complex. More accurately, he showed up at my door on Father’s Day in 2007 as a 12-week-old kitten and asked to come in. He is large (17 pounds), intelligent, affectionate and codependent. My coworker adopted Eli’s brother. His estimated birthday is March 11, 2007.

Update: Eli passed away of old age on August 6, 2021, two years after Tanuki and six years after The King. Dear Eli, good boy until the end, respectfully waited until the morning after our daughter Ramona’s eighth birthday to leave this mortal coil. Ramona was very fond of him. We all were.

Posted in Animals | Tagged Adopted, America, Cat, Commentary, Family, Male, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Pisces, Tail