American Culture -

Cooked Cabbage and Emotional Baggage

WOODCOCK on September 15, 2026

05/2026 — 11″ x 12″

Acrylic on used fence pickets

$450

Everybody comes with baggage. Some of us just need a bigger suitcase.

We drag old heartbreaks, embarrassments, losses, grudges, fears, and assorted damage along with us, long after we’ve forgotten why we packed some of it in the first place.

Cooked Cabbage and Emotional Baggage pairs all that accumulated psychic freight with a nice warm bowl of cabbage, because sometimes a rhyme is reason enough to make a painting.

SOLD

Ennui Martini

WOODCOCK on September 15, 2026

05/2026 — 33″ x 30″

Acrylic on used fence pickets

$950

Boredom is uncomfortable. Fortunately, we’ve invented cocktails.

Drinking has a remarkable ability to make an ordinary evening seem temporarily less ordinary. A little ceremony, a little conversation, a little chemical assistance—and suddenly there’s something to do.

Ennui Martini considers the peculiar bargain of drinking to escape boredom, when the thing making the evening more tolerable may also be quietly making everything else a little worse.

Iced Uncertain Tea

WOODCOCK on September 4, 2026

05/2026 — 50″ x 48″

Acrylic on used fence pickets

$2400

Uncertainty is uncomfortable. That’s probably why we’ve invented so many ways to negotiate with it.

Tarot cards. Lucky coins. Tea leaves. Fortune tellers. Horoscopes. We don’t necessarily expect them to predict the future—we just hope they’ll make uncertainty a little easier to live with.

Iced Uncertain Tea imagines that search for certainty with an oversized Bill Miller iced tea—a San Antonio favorite—because the refreshment of sweet tea on a sweltering Texas day is one thing that’s never in doubt.

Raspas y Tristezas

WOODCOCK on September 4, 2026

05/2026 — 45″ x 48″

Acrylic on used fence pickets

$2400

Childhood has a remarkable way of turning ordinary moments into emotional extremes. A snow cone is pure joy. Until it’s dropped. Then the world is briefly over. And somewhere nearby, there are always bees waiting to complicate things.

Raspas y Tristezas (“Snow Cones and Sorrows”) grew out of conversations with Anthony the Poet about growing up in San Antonio. He introduced me to the neighborhood raspa man, along with the strangely vivid memories—both wonderful and tragic—that could be attached to something as simple as flavored ice.

Salty Snacks and Panic Attacks

WOODCOCK on September 4, 2026

05/2026 — 48″ x 52″

Acrylic on used fence pickets and dowel rods

$2400

The hardest choices aren’t between good and evil. They’re between things you enjoy and things you hope won’t kill you.

Somewhere along the way, ordinary decisions become strangely loaded. A bowl of pretzels. Another beer. Dessert. Just one handful.

The painting exaggerates that familiar calculation into a moment of paralysis, where every snack feels like a test and every indulgence carries the faint echo of future consequences.

Barbecue and the burden of being

WOODCOCK on September 4, 2026

05/2026 — 27.5″ x 30″

Acrylic on used fence pickets

$950

Barbecue is a celebration. Smoke in the air, friends in the backyard, cold drinks, and something delicious on the grill.

It occurred to me one day that every barbecue is also a small memorial service. The pig, the chicken, and the cow are all invited, just not in the way they’d hoped.

We didn’t design this system, but we participate in it every day. Life survives by consuming life. Somewhere between gratitude and appetite sits the strange emotional burden of being an omnivore.

Existential Malaise and Pizza Buffets

WOODCOCK on July 28, 2026

05/2026 — 30″ x 33″

Acrylic on used fence pickets

$950

Gold rays. A halo. Cherubs. Symmetry. Instead of saints, we get an exhausted mother and her awful children. Not even pizza can cure their doldrums. One has to wonder what the evolutionary benefit there is in how we keep inventing small rituals—pizza, birthday candles, buffets, paper hats—to convince ourselves that today is different from every other Tuesday.

The painting eventually became the title piece for a collaborative exhibition with Anthony the Poet, where we paired existential dread with celebratory foods. Naturally, the opening featured an actual pizza buffet.