The silly little details that one remembers from childhood: This still life that hung in my grandparents’ living room used to haunt me. I imagined reaching for a peach, and getting my arm snapped off by the alligator. (You do see the alligator in the picture, right?)
I never remember anything ever being clipped by these clothespins, but they were always there in the kitchen.
That subliminal alligator is fantastic! Thanks!
Funny, I see a sad-eyed Afghan hound who wants a snack.
Listen, for what it’s worth, I totally see a two-headed alligator in the green clip in photo 2. In photo 1, I see a curly-haired, big-breasted lady reclining next to an albino squid in a pond. Doesn’t everyone see that?
The alligator has such a docile expression it almost seems to be waiting to lovingly feed you grapes.
It’s possible to enter into an unhealthy relationship with a picture you see regularly. There was a print in the office of the therapist I went to in Chicago, and I remember my eye sort of obsessively tracing and counting pieces of it. I wish a doe-eyed alligator had lived in it, though. That might have been comforting.
My mom had a painting of a red-haired girl that she had gotten in the 70′s. It was meant to be impressionistic, I suppose. That picture always gave me the creeps because I saw the face a sad, ghostly old man lying against her shoulder. I kept trying to sell it by various means – auction houses, ebay, craigslist, swap meets – and people seemed fascinated with it for some reason. But they were mainly interested in whether it was a real painting or a print, and so would hold up the painting and examine it closely. I don’t think they ever saw the image, but I wonder if it subconsciously deterred them. I did end up selling it, finally, for about $25, but I was about ready to give it away. I always felt that I had an unhealthy relationship with that painting.