These are notes for Small Frog, Fingers Entwined #1

Note 1

I’ve been meaning to get ABG (Atlanta Botanical Gardens) one of my frogs. They’ve been selling my frogs at the gift shop for many years, and referring me to customers. We, The Smiths – or, as we would say from time to time, humorously or not so humorously, The FrogSmiths – my brother, my father and I had a spring shows at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens of our frog sculptures for many years. This was in the early 90s.

Note 2

Something that was very funny to me and tickled me was the when I googled “build a better mousetrap”, I could see a whole bunch of different kind of mouse traps. Not just the simple mouse trap we’ve come to know and love. Or, if you’re a mouse, hate.

By the way, mouse traps are much smaller than rat traps. If you’ve got a rat, then a mouse trap is not going to work. You can’t get rat traps usually at the grocery store, but you can get little tiny cute mouse traps. If you want a rat trap, you’ve got to go to the hardware store to get one of those suckers. Rats are much different than mice. First of all, they’re huge. Mice are cute little tiny things. Second of all they’re nasty. Third of all their butts stick out. It’s really gross. That’s what makes a rat a rat. They’re gross. The little church mouse is something very cute to behold. A rat is quite a different matter. I don’t even know why they’re even thought of as similar creatures. They’re totally different from each other. Mickey mouse could never be Mickey rat. Mickey rat is more suited for adult material to say the least.

Google it!

Well what do you know. A friend of R. Crumb’s (underground comics), a guy named Robert Armstrong, came up with a character called Mickey Rat. You know, I come up with ideas, and I have to know that somebody’s already done something with the idea, and so I Google it, and of course, there it is.

My father one time wanted to make rats for New York City. He thought that would be a great idea. I don’t know that I could ever find it, but one time I filled a couple of pages in a sketchbook with pictures of rat sculptures. Maybe I’ll make a rat sculpture…someday.

I’ve been focusing on Mickey Mouse, for reasons mainly that it is the iconic cartoon character, but that’s a different creature entirely. I may continue to work on Mickey mouse and variations of Mickey mouse, and then try a rat, maybe even Robert Armstrong’s Mickey rat. But if it doesn’t have the stick out butt, it’s not really a rat and it’s not really as nasty as it could be.The stick out butt is really pronounced on a rat. Any art that does not depict this is not realistic at all. Do mice have stick out butts?

Google it!

Well Google failed me in this search. I guess I’ll have to look at actual animals…take a trip to the pet store one day. That’s always interesting. More as events transpire.