REFRAIN
This page continues to expand the correlation between frogs and my art.
The pair of powder blue Dendrobates tinctorius pictured at left are courting. The female has approached the coy male from behind and is stroking his back. Soon he will move away and she will follow and stroke harder. Then again he'll move away and she will follow and stroke further down. He's not trying to get away form her advances. He is leading her on a half day long journey towards some eventual epiphany. He covers every square inch of floor in their glass-encased world. Every inch except the few inside their hut, those are saved for the appropriate climax.
There are no firm rules to caring for these frogs, making Art, or for sex.
Making Art is not just a matter of slapping some paint on a canvas, as a profession it requires a daily commitment of time and focus. Art explores the periphery of our understanding and demands a continual investigation to feed its physical and spiritual needs. What you understand today is the foundation of tomorrow's Art.
Caring for these frogs requires a firm commitment. They need to be sprayed at least once a day to create rain. Most do better with two periods of rain a day, and in order to encourage breeding some need more prolonged periods of rain daily. Then there is the not so small matter of feeding all these hungry little mouths.
Currently I make fifty new cultures of fruit flies every week to fulfill these frogs' basic food needs. 
This process requires sterilizing jars, combining dry ingredients, cooking down 5 pounds of bananas skins and all, mixing all in appropriate proportions, cooling before adding yeast and seeding with young fruit flies. If the of combination of all the ingredients are just right in ten days thirty fruit flies will become one thousand.
Art has life that extends far beyond the artist who made it. People often respond to Art for reasons far removed from the artist's intentions. A good piece of Art evokes a different response from everyone who experiences it.
The life of these fragile frogs ripples far beyond their native habitat.
The Art process is continually evolving. Manipulating material, the craft of Art, creates an opportunity for change in physical appearance. An ingot of bronze becomes liquid at 1850 degrees to replace an apple consumed by fire within a silicon mold. When the metal cools and the shell is removed, the apple has metamorphosed into a mythological fruit capable of physically outlasting its maker.
Metamorphosis is basic to both frogs and art.
While the artist shapes work and imbues it with all of his or her spirit and experience, Art's long term spiritual life is determined by the public's interpretation. The artist may experience an epiphany with the work, and if the public does not respond the work will soon fade away … a life lost but to the artist. If, on the other hand, the public shares in the Artist's epiphany the work is deemed to have value and museums are built to preserve and protect its spirit.
What is precious? To you?
