Monkey Business

I spent most of the morning laying out and pasting a series of 'Daily Monkeys' so I could just post them easily while away for a week. Nothing like hours of choosing images and listening to music to get me to thinking...While doing this project now for about 6 months I've been wondering if I will be able to do a year of this. And if it even means anything at all...to me or anyone else. Today I realized that some of the meaning for me has been that I do this for pure joy! It helps me to not take myself and my art too seriously, which is a good thing I think. It brought to mind the artist Ray Johnson (google him folks!)and his various collage pieces, and most importantly his 'bunny' drawings. He did them over and over again. Until they became an extension of him, a symbol of sorts. They were not realistic or 'pretty' drawings by any stretch. But they had enough of a resemblance to identify. And Ray identified them as bunny so the eye and mind made it so.
I'm drawn to the monkeys, as I was the first time I saw the wooden monkey carving on the mantel at my friend's house. That was about 6 years ago. The images I do today don't even resemble that monkey, or even any real monkeys. But they do say 'monkey' to me. I wonder how all of this will evolve eventually?