Year of the Pig

Year of the Pig is one of my more fun paintings, and another one that gets a lot of questions. People often ask me what inspired the painting, and the usual question is "what's with the pig?"

My repsonse always is to ask "what's with the girl?", because that's the real question. The pig is just being a pig, and it's being a very happy little pig at that. The pig doesn't really care that it's on stage, that it has a ribbon, that it's won an award. The pig is just happy to be there, and that makes it a cute little pig indeed. Besides that he's looking up the girl's dress, so he's probably extra happy.

Now, the girl on the other hand, is obviously not at all happy to share the stage with a pig, and she's probably even less happy that the pig has a blue ribbon and she doesn't, but that's up to speculation. No matter what you think she's thinking, it's clear by the look on her face that she's not happy, and she's being snooty about it, and that sort of makes you wonder who's calling who a pig here. Attitude is everything.