The Hippopotamus In The Room

While on a personal photograph safari at the Kansas City Zoo, I wondered if the hippopotamus in its little concrete pond was trying to get out, maybe even trying to attack me, because while I moved this way and that finding the best angles from which to photograph it, the hippopotamus was bumping into the edge of its pond directly below me. I was completely safe, but I was quite disconcerted nonetheless. Only later, when I began to work with the photographs at home, did I notice the blue ball in the foreground, and I realized that the hippopotamus had wanted to play. It had been trying to get me to throw its blue ball to it. I would have done so if I had been quicker on the uptake.

I bought five picture frames and refinished them until they were leatheresque to complement the animal photographs from my safari that day. I enjoyed them for a while, then I gave them to a surgeon who had removed a lump from my breast with a lot of skill and minimal scaring. She hung my photographs in her examination room and told me that everyone complimented her on them.

I cannot help but wonder why, when everyone likes my artwork, sometimes even squabbling over who gets what as a gift, have I never been able to sell my artwork commercially? That is the hippopotamus in the room that no one is talking about, not since they put an end to feminism.

Caption: Digitized Photograph Safari

by Annmarie Throckmorton 2006