It Is A Glorious Day: Painting Pig Sells Work for Thousands. A Real Story.

I have known many people who were dedicated to their painting. They took classes, invested in materials as well as time, effort and more. Should one of them sell a single painting for a few hundred dollars, they are quite happy. One person I know does beautiful flowers scenes and another person is very skilled at doing city scenes. There is someone who has been teaching painting for decades and has a gift for painting portraits. It is interesting how these people have invested so much into learning and developing their skills when it comes to the craft of painting. I bet it may be discouraging to know their work has serious competition from a pig in South Africa. It is called Pigcasso and this pig's paintings sell for thousands of dollars.

(Pun Alert)

I wonder if Pigcasso is such a successful painter because it is a real publicity hog.

Below are excerpts from the story with my valuable insights in italics.

Pigcasso enthusiastically tosses her head to create bright, bold strokes across a canvas propped up in her style.

The sow was rescued from an abattoir as a piglet and brought to an animal sanctuary in Franschhoek, in South Africa’s Western Cape region in 2016, where her new owners noticed her love of color and paint brushes

I suppose the pigs I've seen on farms are a bit different from the ones found at this animal sanctuary. Do the people who run this sanctuary have a variety of crafts available to see if pigs are interested? Maybe they have pigs who like to take photographs as well as compose poetry and design pig outfits. There could even be a pig who likes to make movies

“This little piggy likes to make movies.”

“This little piggy likes to write poems.”

“This little piggy likes to design clothes.”

“And this little piggy tried to discover a craft to like but it could find none.”

“I wonder why?”

“It discovered knitting and crocheting can't be done by a pig and went wee, wee all the way home.”

“Oh.”

I like the name Pigcasso. It could have also been called Salvador Piggy or Claude Monoink or even Francisco Porkgya.

Soon the pig was dipping the brushes into pots of paint and making her mark. Her paintings can sell for almost $4,000, with the proceeds going to animal welfare. She has even had one of her artworks turned into a watch face for Swiss watchmaker Swatch.

Swatch announced a collaboration with the pig last month.

I can hear the collective groans of agony from artists around the world. Many of them struggle regularly at shows and more to make a living from their paintings. I can't imagine what it would feel like to know a creature that could end up on the dinner table being paid thousands of dollars for its paintings. Now, I think to have some of the artwork from a pig turned into a watch face is the coup de grace in believing most people can not appreciate the work and skill of an experienced artist. Instead of taking art classes, maybe aspiring artists should simply get a farm animal that likes to paint so they can make money off of selling these paintings. They could include their artwork as part of the deal.

“Oh, I love this painting. The colors, the images are so powerful.”

“It was painted by my pet goat. His name is Vincent van Baaaaaa.”

“It has true artistic talent. Your goat knows how to make a painting people want to purchase. What is this painting?”

“I teach painting at a university. This is a painting I did that won first prize in a national painting contest.”

“It is good you have such a goat.”

“Why?”

You should submit some of the paintings by your goat to watchmakers. I think they would be interested in purchasing some of the painting by Vincent van Baaaaaa. You can learn a lot about painting from your goat.”

“Can you tell the difference between a painting done by an animal and one done by a human?”

“Human paintings seem to be too real, too much color and seem too well done. A painting by an animal has that special animalistic quality.”

“Uuuuuuugh.”

The limited edition “Flying Pig by Ms. Pigcasso” features green, blue and pink brush strokes and sells for $120.

“Pigcasso is definitely an abstract expressionist, you can’t exactly define what she’s painting but I can tell you that her style slightly changes depending on her mood like any great artist,” said Lefson.

“I love this artwork, but the artist is such a pig.”

“That is not nice.”

“I'm not being mean. The artist is a real pig named Pigcasso.”

“Oh.”

I can only imagine what it would be like to deal with a moody artistic pig. It may refuse to eat the leftovers from people's dinner table. It oinks at all hours of the day and night bothering all those around it. We need to hope the pig doesn't turn to alcohol for inspiration.

I wonder if Pigcasso drew any inspiration to paint from watching the movie Babe.