So my fish 'Cerise' thought it would be a great idea to pull a disappearing act on me today. I had just cleaned his bowl this morning and placed him in my office for the afternoon. I went downstairs to hang out with Linton for a few hours. After he left I walked up to my office and sat down to work, only to look over to an empty fish bowl. I thought... he must be hidden on the edge because the bowl is curved... but nope... there was no fish to be found in that bowl at all. Then I thought... did someone come into my house and steal my fish... did Linton steal my fish...not likely. What the hell had transpired here? Where is my fish?
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He hadn't jumped onto my office desk or in any of my office gear so that left only one option.... he jumped down 10 flights of stairs and would be found in a pair of my sneakers... and there he was found. Now I'm not sure how long he had been out of water, but I took him to the bathroom sink and put him under some running water and he sprung to life. I placed him back into his fish bowl and things resumed like they had before.... silly little fish. I actually thought I was going mad for a few minutes there... thinking... Do I really own a fish or has it all been my imagination.
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I write this only because this is the last fish of the 2 that were purchased for the Youngblood show back in December. I had used the gold one 'Cadmium' in the gallery show for the work ' Sonnenrad 65' (sonnenrad being the german word for 'sun wheel' and 65 being the number species classified in the genus
Betta.) Now Cadmium lasted thru the entire length of the month long show but died do to cold tempertures after I got him home. So this red one 'Cerise' is the last.
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I went thru several differnt types of gold fish before I settled on using Bettas for the show... mostly because they are a very hearty fish. Hense the reason this one was able to live outside of his bowl for what could have been up to 2 hours. Tough little fish the Betta.
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Ohh also if you were wondering... it's you who is spelling betta wrong... not me. The name Betta (or betta) is pronounced /ˈbɛtə/. That is, the first part is the same as the English word bet. By confusion with the name of the Greek letter beta, the name is often pronounced /ˈbeɪtə/ in American English, and may be misspelled with one t. The name of the genus is unrelated to that of the Greek letter, being derived from
ikan bettah, in a local language in Thailand. So get it right people.
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I also used betta fish in my works for a show a few years back in Texas... 4 of them. However those fish were not alive, none of the creatures in the work were... they were all euthanized for the aesthetic sake of the piece. So having done that... I feel i need to keep this little red guy alive as long as I can... but when he goes he'll get pickled like the rest and end up in a painting anyways. What is a fish to do when Schaefer gets a hold of them right... All those goldfish I had as a kid that would kill themselves by jumping out of there bowl must have known what was to come years down the road. Maybe this one was getting signals from another realm to jump... jump... jump... or maybe it was the Bowie song playing in the background... you know the one from the 'Black Tie White Noise' album... 'Jump They Say'. Yeah that was playing upstairs at or about the time... erie huh.
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