BODY PAINT WITH HEART: FLYING MONKEYS

I just got back from Face and Body Art International Convention, (FABAIC.com) in Ft. Lauderdale where I painted my heart out for three competitions, hung out with some of the top talent in the industry and passed out each night, in a wet bathing suit. Here is the piece I did for the last body art competition. The theme was "Fantasy of Flight" and I chose to do Flying Monkeys. Not the kind of monkeys that you think of, the evil minions of the Wicked Witch of the West, but the kind of monkeys that NASA shot into space to test the safety for humans.

photo by Chuck Smith 

photo by Chuck Maentz 

photo by Andrea Friedman 

Soap box side note: Monkeys, mice, cats and dogs have been launched into space for more than 60 years to "further science." These sentient beings were radiated, starved and thirsted to death in outer space, burnt up on re-entry, exploded at launch, or died upon impact, at the choice of their human captors. here is one NASA account of these animals in space: http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/animals.html and one more: http://www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/Dogs.html

I believe animals are a gift, and not ours to exploit for torture testing or entertainment. We need to respect the Earth. Let's make sure that we buy responsibly, to ensure we don't participate in the endangerment of animals and that we do "rage against the machine."

photo by Ricardo Reyes 

photo by Thomas Ledford

photo by Thomas Ledford