Jon Carling Art

Even as an adult, there are times when one yearns to be whisked away to a magical world of make-believe, but do you really expect California Pizza Kitchen to institute a taxi service?? Instead, filling your walls with a magical world of art, Jon Carling

Oakland-based, CCA-educated illustrator Carling e-slings vintage card stock n' book covers printed with Sendak-esque, real and mythical beasts -- imagery lifted from JC's intricately original ink drawings, which he characterizes as "equally interpreting the way I saw life as a child and the way I see life today", i.e., as a child with no currffeeewww! Animal renderings're among his coolest, e.g., "A Horse and His Boy" depicts a somewhat menacing equine on two legs, leading a small and despondent young kid shackled to his waist, while "Parrot Fish" features (you guessed it) a parrot-fish hybrid with a curved beak and feathery fins n' scales, also the name of the bar spin-off of PetSmart. Non-bestial action ranges from a guy being dragged skyward by a dozen balloons in "Balloon Chair", to a girl sitting straight up in bed, emitting varying shades/textures from her eyes in "The Vision", to a freezer door swinging open as ice cream cones shoot out in "Ghost Cones", also what they planned on calling Ghost until Madonna was replaced by Patrick Swayze.

If JC's stuff really speaks to you, check out his mini-comics, weird little narratives like "Louis vs. The Skeletons" (a sword-wielding harlequin taking on the dead) that fold out into posters -- giving you a magical place to escape to, while you await your Meat Cravers.