Grandpa Cyclops

Grandpa Cyclops is an edition of intaglio-printed monocular septuagenarians, each encased in a hand-cast, antiqued resin frame. Each print has been signed and numbered by Mark and stained in ink and gouache by us. The frame is backed with a laser-cut piece of steel to facilitate hanging on a wall or displaying on a flat surface, and the print is housed beneath a hand-ground piece of curved glass.

“Hey, ya varmints! Git offa my lawn!” cursed Grandpa Cyclops as he jumped up off of his ratty porch and speed hobbled after the fleeing laughing children as they cut across his lawn on the way to and from school each day. Grandpa’s spittle lined lips would be screeching curses and vindictives at the top of his rattle-lunged voice as the kids would kick off on their skateboards, already out of the reach of his boney fingers and busted fly swatter. “I’ll git you rotten dinker-dillies if it’s the last thing I do!” screamed the old coot as his mole-covered neck turned a bright crimson color. Grandpa Cyclops would then go back to his sagging wooden porch with it’s rusted metal lawn chair, and sit flushed and shaking, as he waited for the next group of transgressors to violate his property border. Sometimes he would fall asleep in that chair and dream about the shiny black eels that he used to catch as a young boy and bring home for his mother to fry up. As images of writhing cooking eels trying to jump out of the pan filled his mind, his nostrils would twitch at the acrid burning smell in his dream memory and his thin rubbery lips would smack at the metallic taste of fresh cooked eel.

—Mark Mothersbaugh