Daily Napkins

Nina Levy makes sculpture & photos & draws on napkins for 2 pop culture obsessed kids' lunches. 10 yrs daily, now regularly. Other work:

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Repainting an old piece “Every Little Thing”’ for a show next week. It was originally intended for a Chelsea rooftop sculpture garden in 2001, but the male parts proved to be too much. 20 years later, are we more friendly to sculpture with male parts?

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Fashion Animals 1990-2021:

A recent birthday card I made referring to a project from ‘90.
I made 7 life size “fashion animals” - ladies in designer dresses with animal heads made of paper maché & plaster for display in a shoe store.

My younger self was unafraid of criticism

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Happy July 4th!

Joey Chestnut, again the winner of the annual Nathan’s Famous July 4th hot dog eating contest, prepares to ingest Hotdog Rick.

This napkin was a very brief effort, mostly executed between viewing the NYC fireworks & the latest episode of Rick and Morty.

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Happy Father’s Day to all those providing fathering, particularly to our in-house provider.

I made an inedible fish to go with a fishing pole sculpted out of paper and tape by one of our fathering-recipients.

I was too much of a wimp to coat the watercolor fish in blood.

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Captain Planet for Earth Day 2021:
(Clumsy Cheadle Portrait Meets Combustible Crucifer)

I had a history of annoying drawings of broccoli on our kids’ napkins, so a flaming floret seemed appropriate for today. Plus The Captain did turn a guy into broccoli for failing to recycle

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Still Age Inappropriate After All These Years:
Invincible Napkins from 2011-2013
Our younger son, who, 10 years later is still too young for it, tells me the @Skybound tv version is good. @ImageComics @RobertKirkman #corywalker @RyanOttley

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How does one adequately acknowledge the significance of 22 years together and the raising of two human beings?

A clumsy and unflattering drawing?

Of course.

Might have been better on a napkin.

It is never to late to try to learn how to draw.

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Happy Valentines Day 2020

I once drew napkins to gratify my sons’ wishes, now my goal might be to make them cringe. Is this my job as a parent of teens?

We might all be tired of Baby Yoda, but it seemed like the obvious choice.

#babyyoda #happyvalentinesday #valentines2021

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Doge never went out of style at our house. But our support of #dodgecoin is more conceptual than financial (it is all Doge, always has been)

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Happy New Year 2021

One last incendiary image for the year, badly drawn on a napkin.

Our most inflammatory previous napkin was a pre- end times Jar Jar & Trump image from January 2016

Here’s hoping that 2021 will not be so frequently described as a container of burning trash.

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Rudolph and Grogu Wish You a Merry Christmas:

Our kids are totally unmoved by stop motion Rudolph. They are maybe a little sympathetic that this was the best offering in child entertainment back in my youth. There certainly were no Baby Yodas available at the time.

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Election Day 2020

This napkin from Inauguration Day 2017 still seems appropriate. We were thinking about global warming, & the dire predictions that NYC could be underwater sometime in the future.
Drawing the Trump Tower Lobby underwater was beyond me in 2017...& still is today

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Inktober 2020

(Minus one drawing, inexplicably missing at the time)

Definitely not a success overall.
Might be maybe 2 drawings that don’t totally embarrass me. Maybe.

But, I tell the students I work with not to be afraid to make some crappy work.
So, I am taking my own advice

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I Don’t Keep My Visions To Myself:
Inktober 2020, Day 31

I don’t think the original Ocean Spray/Skateboard/Fleetwood Mac tiktok by Nathan Apodaca was particularly popular at our house, but our kids and my spouse showed me spin-offs by @KJP and @keywoodworks.

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Avian Rodent Abuse
October 2020, Day 30

Is animal abuse more funny when perpetrated by another animal?

I thought the whole event was a bit hard to see in the video, so I tried to draw it from another perspective. Ha, ha, perspective, not my strong suit, as you can see here.

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The First Thing You Lose On A Diet Is Your Sense of Humor
(even if you are a tiny, fluffy dog)
Inktober 2020 Day 29

A Pomeranian watches a human hand deliver a pitiful two bits of kibble... scowls...& lunges.

Perhaps he or she was irritated at being obviously set up for a meme.

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Continuing to Fill The Cat Quota:
Inktober 2020, Day 28

This “Unhappy Kitten” comes from @AAAAAGGHHHH (perfectly cut screams) which is is both a social media account & a genre. This might not be a perfect instance of the category as there is a scream in the middle- but a kitten!

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Any Crash You Can Walk Away From:
Inktober 2020 Day 27

We like to watch videos of amazing physical feats. And of accidents. Here is the happy combination of an accident, and a physical feat.
If only all motorcycle spills were so elegant and Injury free.

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The Internet Adds 15 Pounds
Inktober 2020, Day 26:

I failed to mention another favorite category of animal videos: the huge, the rotund, or the generally fat. Why are obese animals so compelling? I can’t begin to explain.

But I haven’t done this particularly epic feline justice

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Wait, It’s All Doge?
Inktober 2020, Day 25
The “Wait, It’s All Ohio?/ Always Has Been” template seems more than appropriate for the surging return of the Doge memes.
Maybe it’s not all entirely Doge, but it seems like it could be at any moment.
Will Dogecoin go up in value?